As people with Down syndrome become adults, employment is an important part of reaching full or partial independence. Being employed means not only earning an income; but research we uncovered showed it has other lasting impacts like learning new skills, an opportunity to build lasting connections with others, improved self-confidence, and a sense of self-worth (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-value-that-employees-with-down-syndrome-can-add-to-organizations).

Despite how valuable employment can be, many individuals with Down syndrome are still largely excluded from the workforce. Despite the community having a long-standing history of being valuable contributors in a variety of different sectors, their abilities are still underestimated. As a result, employers don’t consider them as potential candidates, leading to high unemployment.

Our objective was to help solve the employment gap by creating a space for prospective employers to recruit the community and for people with Down syndrome to seek employment based on their skills.

Given the need for information, resources, and a space to connect and recruit, we set out to create a first-of-its-kind employment hub for candidates with Down syndrome. inployable: the first-ever employment network for people with Down syndrome on LinkedIn.

We worked closely with Linkedin to bring inployable to life in a format that was both discoverable to potential employers and an inclusive user experience for ready-to-work individuals with Down syndrome.

Prior to the official campaign launch, the Canadian Down Syndrome Society released hyper-targeted Meta and Linkedin posts for the Down syndrome community, calling on them to join. Those looking for work were able to fill out a brief form on inployable.com, including their LinkedIn profile. If they didn't have a profile, a LinkedIn coach helped them build one. Next, job seekers are added to inployable's network—basically a company page on LinkedIn—where potential employers could find them.

People with Down syndrome have been the victim of outdated stereotypes and misconceptions about their capabilities, which has led to them being ignored by potential employers. In addition, employers that are open to hiring people with intellectual disabilities remain uninformed about how to connect with these candidates.

Knowing employers were unaware of this untapped resource, let alone where to find them - our breakthrough insight was simple: to foster true inclusivity for individuals with Down syndrome seeking work, we needed to make space for them on the same platform as all other job seekers and prospective employers: Linkedin.

Our work was cut out for us, we needed to create a hub on Linkedin that ensured employers were able to discover individuals with Down syndrome—particularly if they didn’t have any work experience—and provided an inclusive UX for individuals with Down syndrome wanting to get involved.

The campaign launched during Down Syndrome Week (October 23-29, 2022), with a video showcasing individuals with Down syndrome provocatively destroying their resumes to make way for a new and better way of hiring: inployable.

Due to a limited media budget, we pushed the work out through social media, primarily on LinkedIn, as well as through PR and community advocacy groups associated with CDSS.

We worked closely with LinkedIn to add over 30 skills to the platform (e.g., repetition oriented, routine oriented, repetitive data entry, inventory skills, etc.) to accurately represent the strengths of the community. We offered employers resources on things like training processes, inclusive hiring, and interview adaptations to ensure they were set up for success when hiring an individual from the Down syndrome community.

Since its launch in October 2022, inployable has seen incredible success. As a small local charity, budgets and resources were slim, but inployable achieved the following:

Raised awareness about the community’s ability to contribute to the workforce:

We achieved 149,000,000+ impressions for the campaign and based on our $7,500 in PR and media support, this equates to 19,867 impressions per $ spent. Not too bad.

Created a space for connection:

-700+ companies, in 24 countries, across 164 different industries, follow our page

-91% of our followers work in HR so they are directly responsible for recruiting

-Over 100 jobs have been posted on inployable

-According to Sean McConnell, LinkedIn Business Development Lead,

“inployable is one of the fastest growing company pages on LinkedIn”

Helped candidates with Down syndrome land a job:

-17% of inployable candidates have already been hired.