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Ask HN: Would you hire a felon for technical work?

15 points by anonyfelon ↗ HN
Committed a white collar money crime, over two decades ago. Did time for it. Left that behind. Completed parole, even got pardoned for the crimes. NOTE: pardon != expungement.

I have an extensive IT background, including sysadmin, support, automation coding, HPC admin.

Jobs and gigs since then have had me working on critical systems and having Administrator/root access to sensitive data.

It just seems harder lately to get past this, and it's extremely discouraging.

Would you hire someone with those creds, or does the presence of a past felony just automatically preclude them from consideration?

15 comments

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gamechangr
If someone I knew would recommend you, I wouldn't care at all about the record. You need to build a network and you'll be golden.

If on the other hand, if you just applied on a website - I would not hire you. Some people will not say that on here, but you're looking for honest feedback. That's mine.

jackgolding
completely agree with this as far as the recommendation overthrows the record
joshuaellinger
A friend of mine had a similar issue. Drug-related. No big company would hire him. Hell, my contract with a large company said I couldn't hire him even if I wanted to.

Oddly enough, the way he got around it was to start his own consulting company and hide behind it. Nobody would hire him as an "employee" but they would hire his company without asking about his personal history. Seems like a big loophole but it worked.

raincom
Even that loophole does not work, if the client insists on background checks of the people who work for consulting companies. Big companies ask staffing companies to submit background reports.
anoncoward111
At which point, unfortunatelym doing business with big companies is no longer a time-efficient pursuit.

Despite how much I hate to say it, this world is still extremely political and illogical and laws/policies/reality are shaped by those with the deepest pockets and biggest sticks.

jakobegger
I never asked candidates about their past if it wasn't relevant to the job. It's hard enough to find any people at all that can do the job, so I can't afford to turn away people for things they did or did not do a long time ago. If you are qualified for the position, I'll hire you.

The big problem is of course, finding people that are qualified, and most people that replied to my job ads were just utterly unqualified for the job. (I received applications from programmers with "15 years of experience" who have never heard of source control.)

awaywopassd
Personally, I would not care so much but I work for a big company and background check is done by HR. I only ask technical and work related questions.

HR tend to be risk averse but I cannot really say what their policies are. In my company, I have never heard of anyone who was made an offer by hiring manager, had that offer rescinded after background check.

Also if you volunteer your felony during interview and I have another strong candidate, I will probably go with them. That is because I would be afraid that HR will not allow us to go with you and we will waste everyone's time. I rather go with safer option.

anonyfelon
This part is so discouraging. I've experienced this many times.
awaywopassd
To be honest, don't voluntarily give any negative information. Don't lie if someone asks directly about criminal background.

Normally, job application is filled out after hiring manager makes an offer. This where you might need to fill out any felonies. If during this phase something goes wrong, I would not hold it against you. And if someone does, you tell them you have been working for 20 years at different jobs and didn't think your felony was an issue anymore.

One of these days, I will ask someone from HR about this.

justin66
> Don't lie if someone asks directly about criminal background.

If you have a record legally expunged by a court, if it has been expunged automatically after a certain period of time, or even if you've been pardoned or something, you're generally expected to lie if asked the question. Great system.

AznHisoka
Yes I would but I would rather not know and wouldnt ask if it was up to me. I already got enough things to worry about!
Spooky23
After two decades I would bite. Two years, probably not. With a pardon, absolutely. Exception would be if I had any concern about the safety of my colleagues or compliance requirements.

Credentialism for this stuff is out of control. Between school volunteering, work, little league, etc I have like 5 entities monitoring me.

walrus01
No. My company has state and federal government contracts which require background checks on all employees. Whether I find you personally trustworthy is irrelevant, the contracts in place for government network infrastructure worth many millions of dollars of annual revenue could be voided by hiring you and concealing your felony from the contracting agencies. Hiring you could result in a dozen people losing their jobs, some of whom are the sole providers for their families.

I do not have the political influence or lobbying ability to change these agencies' service/contracting procurement policies. The work will simply go elsewhere if I have a felon with 'enable' on the routers.