Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Can a Felon Work In IT?
First time accepted submitter Lesrahpem writes I'm a felon with several prior misdemeanor convictions from an immature time in my life. I've since cleaned up my act, and I want to go back into the IT sector. I keep running into potential employers who tell me they'd like to hire me but can't because of my past record (expunging won't work, I'm in Ohio). Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Should I just give up and change careers?"
Seek federal jobs which offer a clearance. If you admit to everything thoroughly and give the investigators the truth, and if they're not worried about you after all of that (they think the risk of recidivism is low), you'll get the job and you can say on your resume you were cleared for federal work.
Whenever you decide to leave, the fact that you had a clearance might actually help counteract your priors.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
While it sucks, there's a good reason why companies have asked people about their past criminal history or have done searches.
My experience is that most companies do NOT check. I have worked for half a dozen tech companies, over several decades, and have been involved in hiring over a hundred people. Except for a couple cases that involved security clearances, we never did a criminal background check. Why should we? Studies have shown that people with criminal backgrounds tend to do no worse on the job. You are better off screening out people that use MSIE to fill out their application, since that is actually correlated with poor job performance.
I'm really starting to wonder if maybe the only felony that should deserve a revocation of the right to vote is vote fraud.
If the number of convicts or felons is so high that they constitute a voting bloc that could influence law, then perhaps the laws that have convicted them need to be considered.
That doesn't mean that the voting district, or state, or whatever has to make it particularly easy to vote for those in jail (ie, no polling place in the prison), but if the convict is capable of writing-in to request an absentee or mail-in ballot, then I see no reason why the state should prohibit or preclude that population from voting. I would even argue that those incarcerated in prison (generally long-term) instead of simple jail (short term) should register their address and right to vote where they live, ie, at the prison.
That might suck for prison-industrial-complex towns like many down in Texas, but there again, if we're incarcerating so many people that they can significantly influence an election, then perhaps our laws incarcerating so many people need to be reconsidered.
Besides, I expect a lot of those convicted probably didn't vote prior to conviction, and being convicted in of itself isn't likely to get them to start voting either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
...pretty much anyplace with a fulltime HR department will discover your transgressions and gleefully report to the hiring manager that they "gotcha" and are doing a really great job keeping reprobates like us away from their "sanitary" workplace....
My experiences working with a full-time HR department ("HR Team") both as a candidate and as a hiring manager correlates yours, but more generally --- the HR department looks for reasons why a candidate is not suitable for the position. The more reasons the HR department finds for not hiring a candidate, the better the job they consider themselves to be doing.
.
I've overridden a HR department on more than one occasion because they focused on minutiae instead of qualifications. In those instances, the candidate was hired and became a very good performer. At times I wonder if I would be able to hire anyone if I listened to HR's opinion of the candidates.
That's because Norway (and many European countries) is run by competent people, who care about their country. America is run by greedy and amoral corporations who view their country as a feedlot and a labor camp. Fatten them up by selling them shitty food and sedentary entertainment so you can keep them barely working and dependent upon expensive drugs, and keep them working all the time so they only have time to buy and eat the shitty food and expensive drugs, never time to get a real fucking education that would mean true freedom. America is a shame, I would leave without a second thought if I had the means. This man probably has a felony because he rebelled against this system out of some misunderstood desperation, many Americans do. Whether it's drug abuse, petty theft, or shoplifting, many people desperate to wake up from this consumer shithole paradigm lash-out. After which, of course, the system now knows that they can't be trusted to be mindless fucktard shoppers and slaves any longer. So they get the permanent 'F stamp' which means for the REST OF THEIR LIFE, they will have to beg people to trust them enough to give them shitty jobs, substandard housing rentals, will never be able to possess firearms, will always be treated with suspicion right out of the gate with police and 'law enforcement' gang members. We have an invisible caste system in America, and having a felony for anything (even as minor as getting caught with less than a few grains (as in dust particles) of cocaine can relegate you to the bottom of the caste system for the rest of your life.
In its decision in Sauvé v. Canada (Chief Electoral Officer) in 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that prisoners serving terms of more than two years could not be disqualified from voting, stating that legislation infringing on prisoners' right to vote was not a reasonable limit of that right
So ballot boxes in all prisons on election day is now seen as normal. Anything that makes inmates feel like they have a positive connection to greater society is a good thing.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Not to mention the forced prison labor market. Felons get to learn "valuable skills" (for third world countries) and make products to sell at full value while getting paid a pittance. Refuse to work? No problem, 3 months in solitary will cure that, or you'll just go nuts. Really, the prison system is just slavery by another name.
In Ohio, criminal records can be expunged except for first and second degree felonies or crimes considered violent- after they are settled and punishment and fines have been paid. There is a process that is sort of like asking for parole but ends up in court with a judge making the final decision.
He said he couldn't get the felonies expunged because he is in Ohio. This means it was either violent, or a serious enough felony that it was a first or second degree felony as defined by the state. I concur, it was not a crime he woke up one day not realizing he was committing or thought was a minor misdemeanor and got roped into a felony.
why are americans such judgemental pricks?
when you've done your time, you've done your time. that should be the end of it and, aside from some very limited cases like not letting pedos work with kids, discrimination against former criminals should be illegal....even a fuckwit yank should be able to figure out that if ex-crims can't get jobs and have no choice but crime to support themselves then that's what they'll do.