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ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

reformedfelonforhire.com

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Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#41
Op, while I hope you manage to land a gig, I'll be a bit critical here and say that your webpage/resume could use a fair bit of work.

1. You have zero links to projects or things you've worked on (even if it is a simple calculator app). If you're so fluent in all the languages you listed, surely, you must have some projects to showcase? Hardly anyone is going to make the effort of sending an email to your listed email address to inquire about your portfolio, but they are far more likely to send you a note if they browsed through your work and liked what they saw.

2. You refer to a fair amount of front-end skills, yet your site has a very 90s look and feel. While that may have been intentional, it just feels like a lack of skills due to the jarring aesthetics. You can make a minimal blog/website while still having decent aesthetics.

3. Your content has a bit of a cheesy infomercial vibe to it. I feel like you could make the same points without trying so hard. Focus more on the content, your skills and making a good professional impression while being upfront about your criminal history.

4. While I understand that you made a conscious decision to maintain your anonymity when making your webpage, it seems a bit counter to what your site is trying to do. It's hard for a would be employer to make the effort to get in touch with you when there is no name or face to ascribe to you, and your contact email is a made up one. Your site seems to be your effort to own your situation and turn things around, but withholding any information about yourself feels a bit counter to that. That being said, I can understand why you may want to choose to remain anonymous.

Good luck!

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't 65/hour like 130,000$/year? That seems in-line with the salaried positions

It's $124,800 assuming zero downtime and fully booked weeks all year, with no PTO. Don't compare 1099 hourly to a W2 with benefits unless you've made a very careful comparison of total comp.

How does that math work out? $65/hr = $130K/yr is using a pretty standard 2000 hrs/yr estimate.

52 wks/yr * 5 days/wk * 8hrs/day = 2080 hrs.

So the 2000hr ($130K) estimate assumes 2 full weeks PTO.

$124,800 works out to only 1920 hrs/yr, which is 48 weeks of 40hr/wk work.

ETA: but yes, once you take into account benefits, taxes, and other expenses, one would want a significantly higher 1099 rate anyway.

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#43

Does anyone know if it would make a difference if he started a company (ABC Consultants) and then contracted out himself through his company? Seems like that might get around the background check issue.

Unfortunately that's not really doable. A shocking number of contracts specify that the corporation not hire known criminals. I have seen lax ones specifying only that a background check is conducted.

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#44
Put you resume on a google doc, and share the link here. You do not have to provide personal details, but at least provide more detail on your skills and a contact #. We hire for remote working contract positions from time to time. I would admit that I have second thoughts about this outreach, but there should be hope for everybody!

We do not have something available right now, but requirements do open up. I wish you luck!

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's $124,800 assuming zero downtime and fully booked weeks all year, with no PTO. Don't compare 1099 hourly to a W2 with benefits unless you've made a very careful comparison of total comp.

How does that math work out? $65/hr = $130K/yr is using a pretty standard 2000 hrs/yr estimate. 52 wks/yr * 5 days/wk * 8hrs/day = 2080 hrs. So the 2000hr ($130K) estimate assumes 2 full weeks PTO. $124,800 works out to only 1920 hrs/yr, which is 48 weeks of 40hr/wk work. ETA: but yes, once you take into account benefits, taxes, and other expenses, one would want a significantly higher 1099 rate anyway.

I wasn’t aware of the 2000 hours a year estimate. TIL!

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#47

It is completely unfair for felons to be shut out of jobs because of non-violent past mistakes that are ancient history and would not re-occur. On the other hand, we have no idea who made this page. If they want to be taken seriously and given a chance, they need to be transparent enough to at least tell us who they are, and let us make our own decision on working with them.

I agree that we treat felons extremely poorly. But as a point of order, I don't think sexual assaults are (or should be) considered as non-violent.

Yes, you are correct - I hadn't read the story as being one of assault, but perhaps I wasn't thinking it through, and it could/should be seen as such. But discussions and decisions like that are exactly why the details matter.

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#48

> Every company is enthusiastic to hire me. But at the background check phase they all retract their offer. This kinda suggests you weren't honest, or at least up-front, about your conviction. If it gets to the background check phase and they don't already know, you're doing it wrong. If an employer finds out about that from anyone but you, the answer is _definitely_ going to be no. If they find out from you directly…

There's no good way and/or time to ask the question "Do you guys do background checks that would include my sex offenses?"

I'll go a step further and say the number of companies that will willingly hire someone with a felony sex offense involving minors is essentially 0. Especially when it happened 2 years ago in someone's late 20s/early 30s (guessing based on work experience).

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the first 4 of the past 6 months, I've tried disclosing early (first or second phone call), half-way through, or near the job offer phase. Every single time, without fail, they email back (not even a phone call) with either a generic or very brief message retracting their offer or declining to proceed with the interview process. Smaller companies will simply stop returning my calls and emails, and completely cut…

If a company will decline to hire you based on finding out, then there isn't really anything you can do - they will find out one way or another. If you're being pragmatic about it, you might as well save your time and get rejected from these kinds of companies earlier on in the process, rather than get all the way to the end before having to move on. The end result is the same.

If a company is rejecting you based on policy, yes. If it's a personal decision based on prejudice against felons (he can't possibly be competent and non-violent), the result is not the same, you have the chance to disprove those prejudices and sell yourself. Since such prejudice is rampant, it may be your best overall chance.

I believe that, aside from specialized fields like bank tellers or people working with children, access to conviction history should be severely restricted - the only point of such info is to facilitate discrimination.

In theory, the debt to society is repaid when the individual exits the penitentiary. In practice, the punishment continues on an ad-hoc, deregulated fashion from private individuals against the most vulnerable segment of the ex-felonry: those with meager material means and education, limited family support and in most desperate need to secure lawful employment. This extended and unequal punishment is a clear violation of the equality before law all citizens should enjoy, that should punish similar acts to the same degree.

Re: ReformedFelonForHire.com – High quality software skills, at a competitive price

#50

> Every company is enthusiastic to hire me. But at the background check phase they all retract their offer. This kinda suggests you weren't honest, or at least up-front, about your conviction. If it gets to the background check phase and they don't already know, you're doing it wrong. If an employer finds out about that from anyone but you, the answer is _definitely_ going to be no. If they find out from you directly…

For the first 4 of the past 6 months, I've tried disclosing early (first or second phone call), half-way through, or near the job offer phase. Every single time, without fail, they email back (not even a phone call) with either a generic or very brief message retracting their offer or declining to proceed with the interview process. Smaller companies will simply stop returning my calls and emails, and completely cut…

Anyone want to bet that future offers will be retracted for the same reason (felony conviction), despite the word in the URL/email address where the recruiter/headhunter/whoever found the contact info, and presumably knowing about it up front?
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