Banks encourage disabled applicants

A day-long event called 'Capital Chances - Disabled Students in Investment Banking,' takes place in the City of London on March 25th 2003. The sponsors include Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS.

Capital Chances is organized by the graduate publisher GTI, which also runs days aimed at encouraging women and ethnic minority candidates into banking careers. This is the first year it has targeted disabled students.

Students will play business games and trading simulations, as well as participating in a discussion with senior bankers and visiting a trading floor at one of the sponsoring firms.

Stephanie Allwood, diversity recruiter for UBS, said the day was designed to be a two-way process: 'We want to raise disabled students' awareness of the opportunities that exist within banking, and we want to learn from them how they perceive the industry as a possible employer.'

UBS has already set up a disability taskforce, said Allwood. It aimed to remove any physical barriers that could impede the mobility of disabled staff at the firm's London offices.

She said modern technology was making it easier for disabled employees to work in a wide range of banking functions. New computer programmes may, for example, make it possible for blind employees to work as traders.

Mathew Johnston, a senior associate in the IT application group at Morgan Stanley who is deaf, said email and instant messaging had made it easier to overcome the disability.

He said: 'To succeed you should be honest with yourself and that means being open with your disability to your colleagues. You must also have a 'can do' attitude.'