Early Career Talent Accelerator

Professionals require customized and relevant development programming at every career stage, and professionals with disabilities are no different. The Disability:IN Early Career Talent Accelerator, open to all early career employees with a disability, aims to provide professional development opportunities that offer meaningful, culturally contextualized skills-based career development.

If your company is interested in supporting the program, please contact Emily McDonald at [email protected].

2025 Program Timeline

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October 1, 2024: Program Application Opens
January 31, 2025: Program Application Closes
February 28, 2025: Nominees Notified of Program Participation Decision
May 1, 2025: Early Career Talent Accelerator Begins – Week 1
July 17, 2025: Early Career Talent Accelerator Concludes – Week 12

The Curriculum

The 12-week hybrid Early Career Talent Accelerator combines self-paced content with virtual instruction over the first 11 weeks before culminating with an in-person capstone learning session and graduation at the 2025 Disability:IN Global Conference & Expo. The program curriculum provides carefully crafted and curated content that is culturally contextualized to consider the experiences of professionals with disabilities as well as being appropriate and adequate to the development needs of early career professionals (individual contributors or first-time supervisors).

The curriculum is divided into three four-week modules that are designed to address every aspect of holistic career development: Self, Skills and Others.

Self

  • Week 1: Orientation & Program Kickoff
  • Week 2: Owning Your Story : Part 1
  • Week 3: Owning Your Story : Part 2
  • Week 4: Growth & Development

Skills

  • Week 5: Accessibility Skills Lab
  • Week 6: Powerful Presentations
  • Week 7: By The Numbers
  • Week 8: Disability Etiquette

Others

  • Week 9: Feedback is a Gift
  • Week 10: Identifying & Cultivating Mentorship
  • Week 11: Becoming an Inclusive Leader
  • Week 12: Conference Capstone & Networking
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Testimonials

Victoria O'Rear headshot

“After meeting virtually for 11 weeks, it was great to meet everyone in the ECTA in person. It made me realize that I am not alone as a early career professional with a disability. I tell my coworkers often that the best part of ECTA was making 24 new friends in the cohort that I will continue to keep in touch with well after the end of conference.”

– Victoria O’Rear, University Relations & Recruiting Talent Acquisition Business Partner at Northrop Grumman (2024 Cohort)

Tolliver Davis headshot

“Disability:IN’s Early Career Talent Accelerator program has been a transformative experience in my professional journey. Its 12-week curriculum and thoughtful weekly resources have supported my advocacy for disability inclusion, most prominently in areas of accessibility and storytelling. The program’s focus on everyday experiences has allowed me to directly implement my learnings in my workplace. Moreover, the connections and opportunity to learn from industry leading experts has been instrumental in improving my leadership skills and cultivating an empathic people-centric mindset.

– Tolliver Davis, People Senior Manager at Sam’s Club (2024 Cohort)

Program Eligibility

The Early Career Talent Accelerator is a competitive, discretionary based program. Participants will be selected by a Committee which will choose participants based upon careful consideration of a program candidate’s career accomplishments to date and projectable potential to benefit from the program.

Eligibility requirements include:

  • Must identify as a person with a disability based upon the United Nations’ definition of disability
  • Must be a North American-based salaried employee of a Disability:IN Corporate Partner
  • Possess 2-5 years of professional career experience
  • Minimum of 2 years with current employer
  • Must commit to attend/participate in all components of the program, including in-person attendance at the 2025 Disability:IN Global Conference & Expo (July 14-17 in Orlando)
  • Must have current employer’s full support to complete all program requirements and commitment to cover all costs associated with participation, if accepted, including, but not limited to, attending the Disability:IN Conference

Participation Cost

The participant fee which covers program administration costs is being waived for participants of the 2025 Early Career Talent Accelerator cohort due to a generous grant from a corporate partner. The only costs a participant’s company will incur will be expenses (registration, air, hotel and incidentals) associated with attending the Disability:IN Global Conference & Expo, taking place July 14-17, 2025 in Orlando.