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Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

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Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#151

Post by autoexec »

justsomeoldguy wrote: post #143
runjake wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was charged and convicted on multiple felonies. Thanks for asking, that's an important distinction. There's a good chance he's on HN and may pop into this thread.

I was charged and convicted with assault with a deadly weapon. I shot someone. he accepted my apology, I was high af and didn't even know what was going on. and I have no history of violence, nor after. but. welp. it was considered domestic violence cuz that someone was my husband. and california wouldn't let him drop the charges. they don't give you that, they just run with it. its a messed up story. he was devastat…

> his hands were tied. there were three, assault with a firearm, great bodily injury, and domestic violence. because a gun had been involved. minimum mandatory sentencing. no concurrent, must be consecutive.

Situations like yours are what people who get off on "tough on crime" policies and push for harsher punishments for "bad guys" never stop to think about. We need judges to be able to consider an individual's unique circumstances in order to get justice, and the same is true for HR departments. Blanket polices that simply send every resume to the bin when the applicant has been arrested and/or convicted with no regard to the situation are just stupid.

You never should have been behind bars, but having served your time, you should have left with a clean record and the opportunity to rebuild your life.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#152

Post by [deleted] »

lostlogin wrote: post #135
runjake wrote: post #23

I don't have much helpful to add, but I had a colleague who had a bad night, acquired some felony charges for a firearm-related assault and they got fired/blacklisted for a few years. Subsequently, they did IT contract work behind the scenes with small contractors, kept in touch with his professional network, was super helpful to the rest of us, and after serious concerns and much debate, got back into his prior care…

> I had a colleague who had a bad night, acquired some felony charges for a firearm-related assault That’s one hell of a bad night.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#153

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Ckirby wrote: post #97
system2 wrote: post #96

In the United States if you start your own IT company and sell your services to your clients there won't be any questioning who you are or where you even studied. As long as you solve the business problems they will pay you greatly. If it is a matter of survival, I'd pick this route. You can easily make 6 figures or even 7 figures within a few years. You do not need to find a full-time job at a fancy company. Long st…

Yeah, this is a fairly sensible answer start a private LLC and subcontract the work to yourself

It works. I knew someone with a record who took this approach.

Just being self-employed is usually enough. I've been SE for decades (no record) and my only background checks were by private agencies for developmentally disabled adults. These were existing clients who later put me on the payroll - and that's when they checked me out. But not when I was 1099.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#154

Post by networkchad »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #137
bigbillheck wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to the clear lack of malicious intent I didn't serve any time, but did get shackled with: 12 months suspended for 12 months; 10 years on the sex offenders register; 7 years sexual harm prevention order; and 5 years of something else I can't remember. What did you actually do, and what did they get you for? > 5 years of something else I can't remember. Just speaking for myself, I feel like I'd remember something…

I'm okay not knowing the details. I'm not reacting to you or the parent here. I'm just weary of society being compulsively hostile toward redemption. Let the past be there.

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#155

Post by sjfjsjdjwvwvc »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #93
sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being upfront won’t do you any favours.

That depends. Different companies have different policies. I've seen folks marched out the door, a couple of weeks after being hired, because they pretended otherwise. As I've said, I've personally seen a lot of felons do fine. "Being upfront" doesn't mean immediately stating it up front, but it also means not lying or pretending it won't come up. Also, there are time limits on this kind of thing. I know a chap that…

Being upfront means stating it without being asked during the interview.

Of course lying is a very bad strategy. But so is coming out without being asked IMO.

I have no personal experience just from acquaintances.

I don’t know about time limits I guess that depends on the country. For example in Germany this kind of information is usually not public so you will have a much easier time - also with the penal systems goal to rehabilitate not to punish. Of course it’s still very difficult.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#156

Post by yterdy »

kypro wrote: post #147

I know this is a controversial view, but I think employers should not be allowed to run background checks unless important for the role (government work, access to children, etc) and where it is important for the role it should only return the criminal convictions that might be relevant to the role. If you were arrested for robbery when you were younger perhaps because you had a drug addiction then that person should…

Unfortunately, in America, a history of race and class discrimination in employment has created a culture that requires there be some way to summarily dismiss undesirables. Background checks are part of the toolset for routing around anti-discrimination laws. Without them, the system of nepotism and intra-group favor-trading that recruitment is characterized by breaks down; you'd have to actually hire people based on their qualifications. Qué horror.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#157

Post by justsomeoldguy »

autoexec wrote: post #151
justsomeoldguy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was charged and convicted with assault with a deadly weapon. I shot someone. he accepted my apology, I was high af and didn't even know what was going on. and I have no history of violence, nor after. but. welp. it was considered domestic violence cuz that someone was my husband. and california wouldn't let him drop the charges. they don't give you that, they just run with it. its a messed up story. he was devastat…

> his hands were tied. there were three, assault with a firearm, great bodily injury, and domestic violence. because a gun had been involved. minimum mandatory sentencing. no concurrent, must be consecutive. Situations like yours are what people who get off on "tough on crime" policies and push for harsher punishments for "bad guys" never stop to think about. We need judges to be able to consider an individual's uniq…

You're not wrong.

What a lot of people don't consider is just how much time it is. We've become kind of used to seeing such long sentences, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. It's a lot of time, but there's something in herently bad about giving so much time-- people who are in the middle of committing violent crimes, if they think they're going to prison forever, they tend to escalate and go out in a hail of bullets.

that is not a good situation for anyone involved. not bystanders, not cops, not the criminal. it comes from pushing them to the point of no return. super harsh penalties will do that.

to be clear though, I accept full responsibility of what I did. I know what decisions lead up to the drugs. I know a dozen times that I could have chosen waaaaaay better, and I knew. I absolutely knew, even if I didn't, that I was fucking up. I knew, and it's why it won't happen again. I won't be that stupid next time.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#158

Post by jph »

I worked at 70 Million Jobs (YC) to help people with records get jobs. Here's my advice FWIW.

Your experience in security operations is in demand, so that's a big plus for you. Seek work that you can do via external environments, meaning you don't need to be on-site, and don't need to have internal access. Ideally you can create an LLC so you can work for yourself.

A few examples... 1. Doing compliance-oriented security reviews via cloned systems (e.g. your customer provides you with a non-live copy). 2. Advising on process commitments (e.g. security SLAs, or UML/Visio/EA diagrams, or declarative configurations). 3. Effecting security-related project management task plans (e.g. pilots, proof of concepts, research adjuncts, resource estimations).

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#159

Post by yieldcrv »

ericpauley wrote: post #150
kypro wrote: post #147

I know this is a controversial view, but I think employers should not be allowed to run background checks unless important for the role (government work, access to children, etc) and where it is important for the role it should only return the criminal convictions that might be relevant to the role. If you were arrested for robbery when you were younger perhaps because you had a drug addiction then that person should…

The issue with this is that, if you ban employers from getting signal about employees, they will attempt to infer the same information by other means. This inference can often be unfairly biased. See related issues with racial discrimination caused by Ban the Box initiatives: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/upshot/ban-the-box-an-eff...

> Before the regulations took effect, candidates with criminal histories were far less likely to be called back, irrespective of race.

> After the regulations, lacking the ability to discern criminal history, employers became much less likely to call back any apparently black applicant. They seemed to treat all black applicants now as if they might have a criminal past.

“show us your linkedin”

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#160

Post by busyant »

gwbas1c wrote: post #136
nope00 wrote: post #49

Nov’22 is very recent, and won’t be your experience forever. It’s been a little over 20 years for me. Now, I get background checked every year. It doesn’t show. Initially I worked in food service and on phpfreelancer. I spun that into consistent consulting work until a client offered a full time position (less than 15 people, no background checks). As the years rolled by, I kept moving around. Eventually I tried at a…

> [edit: after reading felonintexas let me update this. If someone point blank asks, tell them. Don’t volunteer this information. There is nothing to be gained] My Fraternity's cook, when I was in college, was a former fellon. He worked for us for a few years before he told me about his background. I don't remember the details, but we had a conversation where he mentioned he had experience in IT. Eventually he very b…

> the super-illegal (but "grey morality") thing he did

I'm curious to know what he did given your description.

I can think of examples of the reverse: quasi-illegal, but quite immoral.

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