Just wanted to be another HN-er voicing my support for what you're doing :)
Good luck and i hope you're successful!
Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
41–50 of 541 posts
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#42Isn't yet another case that startup is trying to fix systematic screwup of law in the USA?
In USA once you got criminal record, by default it stays for rest of life with you. Implications of that may be even more severe than actual punishment.
On the other hand in most of the European countries criminal records are limited and after X years they disappear and you can't legally discriminate based on that.
Some ppl will do something stupid at some point in their life and get a criminal record. Not giving them another chance is a major problem and actually can cause a lot of damage for everyone.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#43I would imagine the difficult aspect of this two-sided market would be employers. Not to be obtuse, but what incentive would an employer have to hire someone with criminal records?
I commented this somewhere else, but I figured I would drop this link here for you too, https://www.doleta.gov/business/incentives/opptax/. You can get a pretty decent tax break if you hire a felon.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#44[deleted]
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#45Just curious, how do you know that the job postings you're listing accept those with criminal backgrounds? Is this a list of curated companies? Or is there something that you're parsing out that denotes this acceptability?
I'm curious about this as well because the two listings I clicked on had requirements like "must be able to pass a criminal background check" and "must have stable work history" as their first hiring criteria.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#46> So we created a "save haven" where all parties knew the score Does that mean that employers know what offenses were committed, and how long ago? Or does it just mean that they know that the candidate has been convicted of something , but figuring out whether that's a liability to the business or not needs to be discussed?
Aside from any legal/HR consideration, we feel that everyone deserves a second chance, so we don't discriminate based upon the nature of the crime (but believe me, this is not an easy issue to reconcile). Ultimately, it'll be between the applicant and employer to resolve this. As it relates to liability to the business, there's a federal bonding program that has existed for decades, indemnifying employers from making at-risk hires. Interestingly, over this period of time, only just a few claims have every been made. The facts are that folks with jobs almost never recidivate. In fact, studies are now showing that these folks, for certain jobs, actually may be better employees. Hiring them is very good business.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#47Just curious, how do you know that the job postings you're listing accept those with criminal backgrounds? Is this a list of curated companies? Or is there something that you're parsing out that denotes this acceptability?
There may be several factors going into this; for example, in the Bay Area, positions in the city of SF are prohibited from considering conviction history that is not "directly related" to the job. It also suggests specific language for including this information on job postings and corporate websites.
I would love to hear from company founders about what factors they use to discover this information in their external job listings that are not on jurisdictions like this.
Source: http://www.millerlawgroup.com/publications/alerts/San-Franci...
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have an incentive to hire someone, and often can't find qualified candidates through traditional channels. In purely economic terms, I'm willing to bet some people with criminal records are willing to work for less than someone with the same qualifications and a clean record.
Hmm, so moneyball/arbitrage based on criminal history? That's interesting; would be curious to hear if there's another side of the story as well.
Also, given employee churn and training costs are a thing - if ex-con workers are more likely to stay because it's harder for them to get a job elsewhere, you're more likely to keep the better ones.
Whether/how the math works there I dunno, it just occurred to me as another possible factor.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#49Possibly interesting trivia: There was an '80s British TV series called Inside Out, about people doing what you're doing.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#50Will it be possible to limit job postings to groups of offenders? Eg only non-violent offenders, only people who have been out for at least x years with no new crimes, etc?