As a savvy job seeker, have you
1. Compiled a long list of snazzy and promising job search engines where you will post your résumé and create a profile to help you track your queries?
2. Spent hours retooling your résumé to upload on these job search sites?
3. Plugged in all your relevant personal and professional info into your new favorite social networking site so that you can boost your web presence and put a dynamic face to your qualifications?
4. Composed an interesting and thoughtful comment on a recent blog post by an agency you aspire to be connected to?
Of course you have done these things!
But very possibly, when you got ready to click CONFIRM, you ran into a big obstacle. Your résumé upload, your new profile, even your blog comment would not be accepted until you got past CAPTCHA.
CAPTCHA is a string of distorted characters one must read and then type into a field on many web sites before a new account can be accepted. It is a security measure to cut down on spam and fake accounts. The blurry, twisty letters and numbers are difficult to discern even for computer users who are fully sighted. Low vision and blind uses can choose to hear an audio version of CAPTCHA but, more often than not, the sound is incredibly garbled and distant.
So, you may have found that you put a great deal of time and energy into your online job search and the social networking that goes with it, only to be met with a huge roadblock in internet-land.
Luckily, different versions of the CAPTCHA application exist. Check out www.recaptcha.net and experience a much more accessible audio caption option!
As a plus, for each audio reCAPTCHA you type in to confirm your new web venture, a tiny piece of a book or periodical is digitized. To understand the how and why of this, visit the reCAPTCHA site. In short, using the accessible CAPTCHA option may also lead to more selection for visually impaired readers.
Try reCAPTCHA for yourself. Sites like the personal blog community www.livejournal.com uses reCAPTCHA. And big kudos to Twitter for recently putting in into place on their interface. See for yourself, www.twitter.com.
Speak out against inaccessible CAPTCHA. Write to the administrator of web sites who have yet to be clued in and urge them to use reCAPTCHA.!
