I've tried not disclosing it, disclosing it early, disclosing it in the middle of the interview process, and disclosing it at the end when they make me an offer. They all turn me down.
Half of them are judgmental turn-downs - they won't return my call and never get back to me, because they think poorly of me.
Half are policy - Goldman Sachs made me an offer last month, but withdrew it this morning due to their policy against hiring felons.
I only have enough money to last us through April, and that's literally because our local parish gave us a $1,000 check out of nowhere, which adds to what's left over from our tax return.
I'm a hard worker with a wife and 5 kids to support. I just need a job, but nobody will hire me due to my background. Any pointers or advice would be greatly appreciated. Especially any pointers on where to actually find a job.
Because I'm still on probation, I can't move out of state and can either work remote or local (greater Chicago area). Most of the jobs out here require 3+ years in C# which I don't have and don't feel comfortable lying about either.
For more background, the felony is from flashing someone (while drunk) who was just under 17 years old. This was the second offense (the other was years ago). They are inexcusable and disgusting offenses, but they are permanently on my background.
EDIT #1: my crime was in 4 local major newspapers, and all 4 online news articles show up when you google my name, so hiding my background is not really a possibility here. About 4 months ago, a small local software firm, which would have been an amazing job, said "I know you said you're looking for 70k, but we'd like to offer you 75k", and I asked them to give me a few days to think it over, which he was happy to do. Then they never responded to my calls after that, presumably because they found out about this.
EDIT #2: I am no longer able to reply to anyone here, since HN now says "slow down, you're posting too fast" when I try, so, um, sorry if I don't reply to you before that resets (probably tomorrow).
First of all take ANY job you can get - this means starbucks is on the table - Get back to work, even part time.
Second if you have skills then start putting them to use - open source, build your own thing what ever. At least 2-3 hours a day of WORK. Google up non profits that help fellons find jobs and ask them if they can use your services as a volunteer. You never know where opportunity will come from.
Third, start a blog. Tell your story, put your real name on it. It is compelling and your looking to make a change. Show your work, name the companies that reject you - you have probably given out enough info for me to find out who you are any way just own it.
My last hint - lots of "temp agencys" and "placement agencies" will happily take you on as someone they can place. Most of them don't care if you were a rapist or a murder - it wasn't a financial crime so your fairly safe to employ. I once worked at one and they ran background checks for finance ONLY - everything else was kosher.
For years there was "no value" in discussing salary... but companies were allowed to ask you "how much did you make at your last job".
So we have/had a system that is "pro company" and "anti-worker" that took a LONG time to change and let a lot of things that we probably always would have been upset about go on.
There is value in publicly naming the company that didn't hire him. It stops someone else in his position from wasting their time. The only entity that benefits from him NOT disclosing the policy is the hiring company.
It "might" make a company look bad if it got out that they DO or DONT hire people who were once criminals - and then we get into a larger set of questions.
Is their policy a stealth racial bias? Is the purpose of the justice system to lock people up and then create social shunning or reform?
This is another case where tradition and the status quo does not make sense.
Also agree w/the parent comment wholeheartedly.
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* Check out the porn industry. They are always pushing boundaries of what is possible with tech and felons frequently work in the industry.
* Military service is a "customary shortcut to public affirmation". It may be possible to enlist in some branch somewhere and request a waiver for your felony.
* Improve your portfolio. If you are a good enough developer, people will overlook certain things.
* Find a desperate entrepreneur who will pay you the bare minimum cash to support your family, along with some equity.
* Start learning C#, it's actually a great language, loved by man.
Join the military under any form of "signal" branch MOS. All enlisted signal jobs require a secret security clearance and you might be able to get that directly depending upon what you were convicted of. Once you have been in for a bit and become an NCO you have some internal credibility to possibly transition to military intelligence or become a signal warrant officer of which both require a top secret clearance.
The trick to passing a security check in the military is disclosure. Be up front about your prior legal troubles with the investigating authority and don't hide anything. This is typically a recipe for immediate failure in the civilian world, but the military has greater resources to further investigate these issues and make more thorough determinations.
Once you hold a TS/SCI for a couple of years you can put that on a resume when you are ready to reenter the civilian corporate world. When people see active "Top Secret / Secure Compartmentalized Information" clearance on a resume they immediately think trustworthy despite that a background check will ultimately identify your prior felony. You are vetted, at great expense, by an external federal agency.
In fact, as a felon he probably can't go to Canada at all.
My ex was career army and did a stint as a military recruiter. At that time, you could not join if you already had more than 2 children. OP states he has a wife and 5 kids. There are also age limits and other automatic bars.
All such details vary from one service to another. IIRC, you cannot join the army infantry with flat feet, but the navy has no problem with this.
If the OP (or anyone) is interested in the military option, they should do a quick Google or make a few phone calls to the nearest recruiting office to check on such details. I would hate to see them waste a whole lot of time on something only to learn it is a dead end for them.
How do you do this? Isn't implying that you'll work for a low salary a big red flag?
I see here on HN that some companies won't consider older workers because of the idea that they demand a lot of money, but I have no idea how to show that I am an exception to this stereotype. I sometimes tell recruiters etc. that I'm more interested in good working conditions or a convenient location than salary, which is true, but that's as far as I dare go.
>Because I'm still on probation, I can't move out of state
This may not be true. I'm on Federal probation, not state, so it may be different, but you can have your probation transferred to another state. The receiving state must agree to accept you, which may be an issue as a sex offender. Best of luck.
During my currently fruitless job search I've kept my PO in the loop about jobs/locations that could prove fruitful. He and his supervisor have both communicated to me that getting courtesy supervision and then a transfer should not be an issue in my case. They both said that already having a job in the receiving district goes a long way to getting a transfer, since you'll be stable there.
OP is on state probation though, so his situation is different. I would advise him to speak with his probation officer about what his options are in terms of "courtesy supervision". I looked up what the Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision says about sex offender transfers [0] and it seems that sex offenders have it worse than other offenders. While non-sex offender transfers are on a "shall issue" basis provided some easily fulfilled prerequisites [1] the sex-offenders are subject to a review period of a maximum of 5 days after which time the receiving state may accept/reject their transfer.
OP, talk to your probation officer about what your options are. A move out-of-state may not be out of the question.
[0] https://www.interstatecompact.org/step-by-step/chapter/3/rul...
[1] https://www.interstatecompact.org/step-by-step/chapter/3/rul...
If you have a history of getting drunk enough to show terrible judgement but haven't stopped drinking, then you're still showing terrible judgement.
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Well, stay away from financial and medical - both are going to have background check requirements that may also explicitly bar felons. Anything handling cash or card payments is likely also out based on PCI.
I think the two things I'm going to suggest are setting up a company or at least a DBA (so searches are on the company name not yours) and focusing on things you can do that are outside company networks. Assuming you have technical skills appropriate to HN and some level of design skills, website development may be a place to start. Since you're in Chicago, I'd consider going to WordCamp Chicago in April - it's cheap and informative, even if you start out with static site generators and not WordPress (which has concerns of its own like needing updates and maintenance).
Perhaps make an LLC, and use your middle name in place of your last name when communicating with people? Or legally change your last name? That way they pay you as a contractor, with checks to your business, and no one is the wiser. You are in survival mode now, I wouldn't let pride keep you from changing your name.
I think there are laws (in most states?) against changing your name if you're a registered sex offender. But trying to get a job using a middle name instead of a first/last name is a decent idea.
If I'm trying to keep it secret, I have all this stress of wondering who knows, lying about it, etc. And that's bad for me because I'm already in a stressful situation.
Putting it out there saved me a lot of time with companies/HR departments by filtering out the haters in the first step. I didn't have to bite my nails wondering what their reaction to the background check would be.
I put my record on the bottom of my resume. My father told me I would never get a job with that, but he was wrong. I landed one two weeks after my release.
I asked the guy who interviewed (and hired) me if he had read about my criminal history on my resume, and he said, "Yeah, that's not a problem. My cousin's been in and out of jail all his life."
Of course, you’re technically correct (the best kind!), but it was a thought I felt like riffing on for a moment.