Minor things like small drug offences etc. fine but major crimes? No.
Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
71–80 of 541 posts
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
Oof - unsolicited advice, but that combined with your acknowledgement of racism in the system will have some people calling you the plantation market. Even though you're not saying it explicitly, what I just read is that implicitly your revenue model is based on giving companies access to a below market cost labor force that's predominantly POC. While I lean towards the idea that its better they have access to a job than not, I think it's also vital to pursue full wages, rather than partial wages despite their debt to society being paid.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#73> along with a healthy dose of racism
Er, when is racism ever healthy?
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#74Hi Richard, great idea. I'm a UX designer and want to throw out some suggestions on how to improve the experience of the site.
First, use more cheerful/positive messages/visuals. It was a joykill when I checked out your website and there's a sad guy placing his hand on the forehead. Show what's possible. How successful people can be once they get a job.. rather than their current state (unemployment). Don't focus on the current stat, focus on the future desirable state.
Also, you need to put more focus on the jobs. List featured jobs to draw people in. Just list some jobs below the search. This will engage the user to explore the site.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#75> 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…
My father owns a retail business that has four stores and employs a bunch of hourly workers. After growing up around the business and working there in my teens and twenties, I feel pretty confident that the risk of a second-chance felon is probably no more than the risk of any average off-the-street hourly worker. Bad apples show up all of the time. They steal a little money or some inventory, get fired, and life goes on. The risk is far greater for an ex-con: why would they risk going back to prison and losing a good job that gave them a second chance over a little money in the register or some inventory?
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#76Hi Richard, great idea. I'm a UX designer and want to throw out some suggestions on how to improve the experience of the site. First, use more cheerful/positive messages/visuals. It was a joykill when I checked out your website and there's a sad guy placing his hand on the forehead. Show what's possible. How successful people can be once they get a job.. rather than their current state (unemployment). Don't focus on…
You are so right on all your comments. Soon we'll be re-doing the entire site. Perhaps we can talk in several weeks?
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In fact they're not right.
The parent is confusing criminal record with incarceration duration. The UK has nearly just as high of a criminal record ratio among adult men for example. The difference is the US assigns far longer incarceration times for the same crime vs the UK. Further, Europe as a whole has a higher crime rate than the US does. [1]
70 million jobs has plenty of room for international expansion accordingly.
"[2011] Contrary to common perceptions, today both property and violent crimes (with the exception of homicides) are more widespread in Europe than in the United States, while the opposite was true thirty years ago. We label this fact as the ‘reversal of misfortunes’."
[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1889952
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#78I wish we heard more stories like these. It might dissuade people from getting involved in drugs in the first place.
No, it probably will not dissuade people all that effectively. That logic is part of the problem.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#79Isn'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…
Even though this shouldn't be a problem (in that I agree that this is a policy issue in a lot of ways) I think that this could create more momentum for a fix by bringing this issue to light. They could potentially put themselves out of business (eventually, not any time soon) by de-stigmatizing a criminal record.
Re: Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records
#80Isn'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 passin…
>systematic screwup of law in the USA" is a pretty good description; another might be "massive market opportunity"
The way Americans have the capacity to acknowledge something intrinsically fucked up about their society, and see it as a business opportunity regardless is something I both admire, and despair over.