Business wise: what make a company want to hire someone with a criminal record?
please see response above
Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
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Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#62> 1 in 3 adults—with criminal records I must admit I haven't ever thought about these numbers but it strikes me as insanely high. How can this be explained? Is it a feature of just America or is it reproducible in other countries as well?
Pretty sure it's uniquely a USA issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#63A friend of mine finally had his record cleared of incidents from when he was 19-20. He took courses to learn to program but even now it's still hard for him to get a job because people want to know about the huge gap in his employment history from when nobody would hire him.
Your friend just needs to say he was doing consultant work for himself during these periods.
And he can, honestly, say that he sucks at getting clients for his consulting, but that he is good at coding.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#64I think this is awesome, and I was relieved to see the focus on non-white collar crime. Some questions that I think are systemic to the entire area - The companies hiring are at somewhat of an advantage (they can hire anyone, the employees have more limited options). How do you ensure they get a fair offer, and not, like migrant labor, receive a below market offer? Would the marketplace effect here help prevent that?…
Negative bias towards those with records--along with a healthy dose of racism--is certainly at play, but I see the zeitgeist moving swiftly in the right direction. But it's a challenge, for sure.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#65Isn'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 wil…
I don't know about being "yet another case..." This is something that has affected me, my family and many friends square on, and I'm compelled to try to improve things. There are more and more people like you who clearly "get it," so I have hope.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#66I think this is awesome, and I was relieved to see the focus on non-white collar crime. Some questions that I think are systemic to the entire area - The companies hiring are at somewhat of an advantage (they can hire anyone, the employees have more limited options). How do you ensure they get a fair offer, and not, like migrant labor, receive a below market offer? Would the marketplace effect here help prevent that?…
>How do you ensure they get a fair offer, and not, like migrant labor, receive a below market offer? This will be legal employment, so hopefully the abuses resulting from migrant employment won't happen, but the salary they are getting will be below the "normal" market price, at least for a long time - and this is a good thing, since they would otherwise not be hired at all.
We can't ensure they get a fair offer, other than by providing information and access to resources to address such injustices. I judge our success one job at a time, and one repaired family at a time.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#67I wish we heard more stories like these. It might dissuade people from getting involved in drugs in the first place.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#68> 1 in 3 adults—with criminal records I must admit I haven't ever thought about these numbers but it strikes me as insanely high. How can this be explained? Is it a feature of just America or is it reproducible in other countries as well?
Pretty sure it's uniquely a USA issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...
Right you are. The US has 5% of the world's population, and 25% of the world's incarcerated population. Per capita, more than China, Iran, N Korea.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#69In the UK, Timpson[0] are a well known example of a national employer not only willing to hire ex-offenders but one that does so proudly, and indeed offer training to prisoners before they are even released. They have tried to convince other companies to follow their lead but with limited success. That said, we also have Clean Sheet[1] through which employers can expressly publicise their willingness to employ ex-offenders.
I find it extremely admirable. Best of luck with your approach.
[0] See for example this archived blog post: https://web.archive.org/web/20150222003545/http://www.timpso... or a search for "Timpson ex-offenders" https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=timpson+ex-offenders
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#70Isn'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 wil…
>Isn't yet another case that startup is trying to fix systematic screwup of law in the USA?
Two thoughts:
1) "systematic screwup of law in the USA" is a pretty good description; another might be "massive market opportunity"
2) "startup trying to [take advantage of market inefficiencies created by] systematic screwup of law in the USA" is also a pretty good description of drug traffickers of all kinds. (I'm not passing judgment; just making an observation. The meta observation is that you can't cheat reality, so when law gets out of whack the gap between Ideal and Actual creates an inefficiency, which savvy entrepreneurs can profit by bridging).