Ask HN: When to disclose shameful felony during interview process? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: When to disclose shameful felony during interview process?

11 pointssexoffender16 comments

As someone with a very strong software background and a recent felony, I'm wondering what your advice is in securing a local tech job. When should I tell interviewers? Is it even possible to get a tech job ever again? The last person I interviewed with canceled my second interview because she found out about this through google, and suggested maybe I look into contracting, but that sounds just as unlikely because of how easy it is to google me. Should I tell interviewers during the first introductory 30 minute phone call? Would this kind of red flag completely stop you from hiring someone who otherwise seems very qualified? What would make you more likely to keep moving forward with them?

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Have you tried blogging and pushing those results off the first page. Sign up for every social media account you can with your real name and location and then create little snippets to post to them to push everything down.

> As someone with a very strong software background and a recent felony, I'm wondering what your advice is in securing a local tech job.

Local...where? (That may help people with appropriate local knowledge give more specific advice.)

While the pay may be worse, you may have better luck with public sector tech jobs (they will certainly consider the offense in hiring decisions, but they may be less likely to use it as an arbitrary complete disqualification.)

Can you ask Google to remove your links? It is possible depending on countries. The legal ground is once a person has paid back to society they are just like any other person and they have the right to be forgotten [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

When you have a record, there's almost always a middleman in the way of you getting a job. Most of the time, that's H.R.

HR is NOT your friend. That is another conversation entirely.

If you cannot find someone to give you a break for a job, then I'm betting your best bet will be to remove the middleman, and go the self-employed route.

It is NOT easy, but it can be more lucrative and rewarding.

Good luck.

Depends on the specifics. What did you do?

If his username is any indication...

It could still go both ways though, there's many registered sex offenders that shouldn't be. For example, indecent exposure charges absent any underlying sexual motivation.

That said, OP did use the word shameful.

Indecent exposure, even though it was without underlying sexual motivation, is very shameful and embarrassing to talk about, especially in an interview. And already a few Fortune 500 companies who wanted to move forward with me have decided not to for this reason, so it's more than shame, it seems like an automatic disqualification. It's very likely my career is over now. I guess if nothing else, my life can at least be a warning to others.

If that's how you ended up with a felony, I'd probably hire you without hesitation assuming you were a good fit and I was in a capacity to make that decision.

There's very few situations where indecent exposure should even warrant a felony, and barring any sexual/predatory motivation I can't really even begin to understand why it would.

You might have better luck with startups. They're usually run by people who aren't cowards, and they tend to be allergic to bullshit. Also consider remote work if geography is a poblem.

In that case I would see it like rl3 too, and would probably respond best to a frank disclosure upfront. Maybe your career isn't as over as it feels right now, but will just take more time to find the right place?

Suffice it to say it isn't something that makes me a risk to the employer, but it's also more awkward to discuss than other felonies.

Of course how much you disclose is totally your business, and I can't speak for the person you're replying to. But for me this isn't enough to go on, because your questions seem to be about others' perceptions of this as a risk.

Move to Europe or some other place. Likely nobody will care at all about your past. Change your name.

Getting a visa with a felony is basically impossible.

Wow, that's a pretty dirty move. That means that about 1/3rd of all Americans can not travel abroad.

This might be a useful resource:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14911467

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