Dylan Alcott says he was ‘unemployable’ before he found sport

Dylan Alcott arrived to his first job interview to find it was up a flight of stairs. Luckily, his sporting ability helped him overcome discrimination. Now the wheelchair tennis champion is fighting to remove the barriers to employment he faced.

Alcott’s sporting ability opened doors for him. Picture: Michael Klein

Dylan Alcott has opened up about being unemployable before his rise to fame as a champion athlete and media star.

“The first ever job I went for, I got there, and the job interview was upstairs,” Alcott told Confidential.

“They refused to walk down the stairs, but they did tell me: ‘You’re not going to get the job.’

“I never had a job because I couldn’t get a job,” he added.

“I applied for heaps of part time jobs. But I was lucky I was good at sport, and I built my profile from there.”

Alcott is a wheelchair tennis champion who has won titles at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, French Open, and US Open.

Alcott with his Wimbledon trophy earlier this month. Picture: Getty

He is also a broadcaster on Fox FM, and has worked on ABC-TV, Channel 7, and Channel 9.

Alcott won a Logie for best new talent earlier this month.

In Melbourne today, Alcott attended Remove The Barrier, an initiative to reduce unemployment among people with disabilities.

“People with disabilities face barriers everyday. some of them are physical barriers you can see, but the hardest barriers to overcome are unconscious bias and discrimination.”

Alcott said he faced unconscious bias when he started in television.

Dylan Alcott with his Logie. Picture: AAP

“I was asked, ‘How are you going to interview somebody who is standing up?’ I said, ‘Hold a microphone to their face, just like you do. It’s not hard. There were biases I couldn’t do it.” Alcott laughed: “But I forced myself on people.”

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Alcott dedicated the Remove The Barrier launch event to Ashleigh Jamieson, a woman who worked on the initiative with the Dylan Alcott Foundation, and who faced discrimination while job hunting.

“Ash once applied for a receptionist role and was told: ‘We’re not hiring.’ She sent an able-bodied friend in an hour later, and guess what? The able-bodied friend got a job.”

Ms Jamieson passed away earlier this year. Alcott said: “We’re doing this for Ash, and every single person with a disability that doesn’t get a chance.”

www.removethebarrier.com

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