51–60 of 402 posts
Have you contacted https://www.nextchapterproject.org/ ? They do training and placements aimed at getting formerly incarcerated people into tech roles. I don't know if they work with folks like you with experience already but I'd say it's worth a try. I used to work at Slack, which founded this program.
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've made companies a lot of money in my lifetime. I worked at places like exodus communications, netapp, netcom, @home. Some old names people prolly recognize. I specialize in storage, you want ceph? Ceph and I get along great. My last cluster was over 2 PB and it started out just 150TB.
It's simple in the end, I work for companies, solve their problems, make us all money. Should be simple right?
https://jailstojobs.org/second-chance-employers-network/
https://www.centerforworkforceinclusion.org/our-work/formerl...
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Not sure if you have linkedin or anything but I'd like to stay connected
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could also consider working as a consultant or external pen tester. When we hired our pen testers, we did not run background checks on them, not least because they have no access to customer data so it's much less of a concern.
If the people you're paying to find weaknesses in the security system are assuredly never going to find a way to access internal data then how did you conclude you needed a pen tester in the first place? I mean, it's probably the right conclusion but only precisely because they'd find a way to access things they shouldn't be able to.
This is a "throwaway" account for obvious reasons. I did some terrible things when I was 19 that I won't go into details, but after working as a developer for a few years, served a six-year sentence from 2003-2009. Upon release, I leveraged some old contacts to get a bit of contracting work. In time I found more contracting work, mostly working for smaller companies on a 1099 basis. (direct, not through a firm) In ti…
You got new coworkers? A lot of people start digging. I don't survive that digging.
Part of the problem is I went to prison for eight years. And I am just a computer nerd with no criminal background, I've never even had a parking ticket. I act like every other nerd in a dev environment. I love hardware, I'm very passionate about operating systems, making them run juust right.
Where it's a problem is when people look me up and are like, holy cow this is a hardened criminal! but I act... so... normal. and you wouldn't guess. it actually flips people out. it feels like I'm lying about a whole lot of things suddenly. I must be. I have to be. and it goes downhill from there. Whatever trust I earned gets taken away because people are judgmental and often not reasonable about that judgement.
I do a lot of non profit work with the formerly incarcerated. Here are some resources I hope helps you out: https://jailstojobs.org/second-chance-employers-network/ https://www.centerforworkforceinclusion.org/our-work/formerl... --- Not sure if you have linkedin or anything but I'd like to stay connected
If you have got the time and energy, why not start creating an application related to the area you want to work in? It will be a positive at any interviews. Maybe it will bring you some new contacts or consultancy work. And if it gains traction you could start your own business. (I've run my own 1-man software business since 2005. But I realize it isn't for everyone.)
> If you have got the time and energy, why not start creating an application related to the area you want to work in? I agree, start "working in public" and networking a bit on places like Twitter. Those things aren't really my cup-of-tea, but what I love is that the idea of pseudonymity is becoming more accepted. In the IT world, a lot of people don't care much about you except your ability to produce work.
That is one approach. I kept all my code proprietary. Depends on your goals and personality.
Assault charges but not physical violence? What in the world? I'm so sorry you got that on your record. I would look at smaller startups that might make it easy to just escalate to the CEO if you have a good explanation, rather than having an HR department stop you right away. EDIT: I thought assault meant physical violence, but not harm while battery meant harm. I was wrong I guess?
> Assault charges but not physical violence? Physical violence is battery. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault_and_battery "Assault refers to the wrong act of causing someone to reasonably fear imminent harm. This means that the fear must be something a reasonable person would foresee as threatening to them. Battery refers to the actual wrong act of physically harming someone."
Not the same but I was sacked during a probation period because I refused to give my proof of ID details a 5th time to the HR, the same 3 pieces requested multiple times or lost. I told them to reuse those I uploaded a day or two earlier.
HR dismissed me after a single warning to give them by my line manager, and in dismissal point blank refused to say why (in probation in the UK they have no legal requirement to tell you). Obviously I cannot say HR at xyz company were incompetent and I was the scape goat.
What I did say in my next interview was what I learnt during my probation there, they needed somebody with more SQL/database skills. I had them as a senior developer, but I deliberately pushed back as it wasn't what I was hired for. In the interview I simply said I was "let go because I believe they wanted somebody more database oriented and that was not what I wanted to do" with the emphasis I was being hired at the new place as a developer not as a database specialist. That was therefore not my error and it's justifiable to want to do work you were hired for, they didn't give me an actual dismissal reason, and based on what I was told day to day could have been true.
It also helped that I completed a 2 month project (for the sacked from place) without any flaws in 3 weeks (yes they were average developers there at best).
The point being, distract and do not linger, use the disadvantage and stuff that is positive to your advantage, make no excuses because that validates their (any) misconception.
I would:
- Prep and learn as many responses for awkward questions that you can think of.
- Find relatable ways to justify the offence, but make sure you show it's been apologised for (it broke the law but anybody could fall into that trap). This may not be 100% coverable because perhaps it's unrelatable, but people wouldn't invite you to interview unless they thought you had or can redeem yourself. So for example, you mentioned drugs, I've not done them but I have done stupid things when drunk, so I can at least understand your position/state of mind.
- Find ways to (importantly, indirectly, don't dodge because being evasive will work against you) bring the topic back to accomplishments at the previous role (the one you were let go from). E.g 'I apologised to the official and the staff I worked with before I left, although shocked they thanked me for my hard work on xyz (a project that I believe went live with great success a month later)".
In the last point you leave that open because it's a distraction point, it's not you saying "despite what happened, I did loads of good work like xyz" (which is misconception validation, direct topic changing -evasive- and now requires further detail on your part which blocks them talking -they may feel they're not getting answers).
I did this approach on my follow up interview and got the position.
At the end of the day it's about owning the mistake, learning and no longer apologising (because perhaps you have already done that).
It ultimately also gives you real life street cred as a secops guy, i.e. you've can relate to a criminal element, although I'm uncertain if you could turn that into a positive - if you found out new stuff behind bars well that's a win - that could at least be an anecdote based on how relaxed/personable the interviewers are (e.g. if one tries to put you at ease by saying they did time).
Final point, don't rely on recruiters, use LinkedIn directly. Recruiters have a pool of people you join who they often field one at a time, you will be in a queue possibly at the back because the recruiter wants the best chance at getting a win with the least hassle when fighting against candidates from other recruiters. Unless you have a stand out skill they may secretly bias against you and there's no way of knowing.
P.s. also refer to yourself as ex-felon, it's reinforcing that you're over it.
P.p.s somebody down voted me, don't know why since if anybody has ever been sacked for refusing to give ID you should know you're basically shooting yourself in the head if the word gets between HR departments that you won't identify yourself during reference checking, potentially career killing.