Ask HN: Overcomming a federal conviction (computer fraud) for decent job?
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Thanks.
I've had a felony for over 8 years now, and have been working as a developer almost the entire time. I've only been asked to disclose that information once, and I did. While the company had questions, they didn't seem to care very much (note: I don't recommend telling anyone. If you're a great employee and a mistake from your youth discounts you from a job, it's a lose-lose. But I did tell, so... ).
College? They cared. I would have had to sit through review boards and go through a lot of extra hoops. So I never went. That's right, I'm a felon with no college degree.
Life is harder. Your paper trail isn't worth anything, so you have to create your public image (link to the SO podcast about blogging?). Let your accomplishments speak for themselves. Be a part of the community. Give back to the community. Get to know people through helping others. Get jobs through recommendations. You may not be able to work at BigCo, I don't think I can. But so many companies are small, I've found it doesn't matter.
You won't ever have to lie on a resume if you build yourself up in the right way.
* And please email me, seriously, if _anyone_ has questions. So many mundane things are a felony, and people need to understand that it isn't a life ending label before they jump to permanent solutions. My probation officer told me, paraphrased "You'll be surprised who else has a felony. They will probably be inclined to give you a chance. So make sure you have a job next visit.".
You should provide your email address.
felonyquestions@hush.ai
Sign up anonymously, I'm certianly hiding behind this account as well.
Since then I survived two corporate acquisitions, multiple new bosses, new CEOs, etc. Every time I sweated it out waiting to see if my background would come up. I actually heard about conversations with two incoming CEOs about me and both basically responded "he's paid his debts" or something similar. They didn't really care as long as I was trouble-free since then and had been working hard.
I finally got laid off with quite a few others after almost 10 years there. I have a few different friends that know my background that would love to hire me for their growing startups, but instead I finally started my own mobile app company and have grown it to almost paying all of our bills. In the app store, nobody even needs to knows your name.
You can look at some of my post history here for advice, but in general, you need to expand your circle of friends as much as possible and let them know you are looking for work. Volunteer at things and go to meetups and developer user groups. There will always be people and companies that will refuse to hire you, but there are a decent percentage that will hire you. You just need to increase the number of people you know and the number of potential job openings.
I should also add that I've had almost no issues volunteering for many different organizations that require background checks. I just disclose my background and write an explanation. It sucks every time, but I've never been turned down. I've coached sports at the YMCA, led scouts, taught Sunday school for kids, etc. Every one of those has built my personal character references as well.
I also made a point of being very active online with my real name. Now when someone Googles me, they have to dig through many pages of material to find any press coverage of my conviction.
Just hang it there and keep chipping away at it. I used to think about my conviction every single day. Now I can go a week or more without even remembering it.
There's a paucity of information about these circumstances (compu fraud + compu pro) available online and most of the information available is presented from accounts of felons who are not in the same boat as I am.
Really my favorite posts here. Thanks again.
I once worked with a friend I made online. He's a great designer. I refered him to another good friend for some work, and this other friend found out the designer had been on the news for a felony a few years back ( long story short, he pretty much used his design/photoshop skills and got into trouble with the laws). His case got cleared afterward, but searching for his name on Google still returns the articles from the past.
My other friend didn't work with the guy because of this, but in the end, my designer friend is still happy because he got his life in order. He's a great guy and he didn't let his past impact him too much. He even helped me when I needed some money to survive, he was there to send me some work for the badly needed few hundred bucks.
Good luck. Life is too short to worry too much about the past. Learn new skills, make new friends, become an awesome developer to create more values for society. Look at rappers like JayZ or 50Cents for inspirations. They were put in jails, shots multiple times, and yet they are hugely successful entrepreneurs now.
If you're good, people can't ignore you for long. Email me your resume, I always look for good developers to connect.
I've mentioned on other threads that every single time I bring up my background, people have stories about other people they know or coworkers with criminal records. I have two friends with vehicular manslaughter convictions (one a DUI) and both hold decent jobs in the IT field. It hasn't been easy for them either, but they've fought their way back into the field with help from friends.
For myself as an entrepreneur looking for great developers, I don't give a whit about some dalliances from your youth. In fact, if the exploit was great enough, it might even be a selling point for your creativity and technical skill.
Be up front about who you are, and look for startups that will appreciate your talent and skill, and might even enjoy hearing some of the stories you've undoubtedly amassed.
Don't go for a job where you have to hide (or worse, lie about) your past. You'll be looking over your shoulder and stressed out, when you should be enjoying your work and finding fulfillment.
While some larger corporations might not let you through the HR filter
The director of the agency where I work has been tremendously instrumental in arguing and supporting me in these instances.
Ignoring the merits of this statement, they certainly think it is their business. Even running credit checks on job seekers is common practice now. If you worked in white-collar positions at multiple Fortune 50 companies and never had a background check done, that's definitely not typical.
A criminal background check has become routine and commonplace. An industry survey I saw was something like 93% of all respondents said they executed criminal checks [0].
Alot of HR people are even pulling credit reports. This requires your permission per the Fair Credit Reporting Act, of course. A criminal background check does not although it is "courteous" to provide a consent form. The legality requiring consent probably varies by state but by providing a name, address, and SSN you have probably already given implicit consent. Criminal justice records are a matter of public record. Opening sealed records, (such as divorce proceedings, convictions as a minor, etc) is something else entirely.
In some states workers have the right to request a copy of the information and the company that provided it if it is used as the basis for denial for hire or promotion. If the company uses inhouse staff to do the background check there is no such obligation; kind of a loophole if you ask me.
In the past year some clients have even asked for a drug test.
I don't mind criminal record checks. Credit reports I draw the line because it has a negative impact on my life and unless I have some fiduciary duty it is simply irrelevant. However, if I'm bankrupt, in dire financial straits, etc I could see having some hesitation in letting me run the books. Still, I quite simply will not tolerate health checks and I suggest no one reading this does either.
[0] http://www.shrm.org/research/surveyfindings/articles/pages/b...
I wish I had some good practical advice on this subject, but my only advice would be things already said here: freelance, or stick to companies small enough that there isn't much HR bureaucracy in place yet.
FWIW, in my teenage years (I'll be 40 this year) I did quite a lot of "freelance, unofficial security work" and I know a lot of other people who did, some of whom are relatively famous (within certain communities anyway) who did the same and pretty much the only difference between them/me and you is not getting caught, or being located in a jurisdiction that didn't care enough to press charges at the time. So good luck, man.
* Applying to smaller companies without HR departments could also work in your favor. They probably won't have any kind of background checks or standardized lists of questions they ask everybody. Don't lie, but you don't have to volunteer info either.
It's in society's best interests for someone in OP's position to become a productive member of society again. But if they're eternally refused employment, education, and passport due to the background check, how is someone supposed to recover their life after that?
The problem is cultural, we need to be more forgiving of peoples' past. As more and more of the population becomes more and more searchable, this sort of relaxation is inevitable. But social change takes time.
Networking gets past almost any trouble, where trouble is defined as the sort of thing that shouldn't stop you from getting hired but does.
Also, think about taking jobs in countries that aren't the U.S.. It might be nice to have a fresh start somewhere else, but I don't know what sort of visa troubles you'd have with your record.
Are in default on a repatriation or medical assistance loan
Are behind on child support payments
Are subject of certain court orders or a foreign extradition request
Were committed to a mental institution, or legally declared incompetent by a court
Were subject to a previous denial or revocation
Were issued a temporary passport for specific reasons
[1] http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/22CFR/HTML/22CFR/0-0-0-1/... [2] http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/22CFR/HTML/22CFR/0-0-0-1/...
Is it actually illegal to reenter the US as a citizen without a US passport? I would hope that as a US citizen you have a right to entry and visiting a US Consulate in another country would start the process regardless of whether you are a felon.
| Is it actually illegal to reenter the US as
| a citizen without a US passport?
That, of course, makes it easy to be in Tiajuana without a passport. From what I heard when I lived in San Diego, if you bring a US drivers' license, and especially if you also bring a US birth certificate, the border agents may chew you out, but they will let you into the US.
That might be a bit surprising, but here's how it works at every company I've interviewed at: you find a job posting, you send in your resume, they call you for a phone screen and if you pass, they'll call you in for a full day of interviews. If they then make an offer that you accept, you'll finally fill out the formal paperwork.
However, if you apply to a big company job through their own HR portal, you're probably going to have to fill out the job application form when you submit your resume.
That might not be the answer you want to hear but after thinking about it a bit that's my honest advice. Here's the reasons:
- Of all the employers I've had not one of them would have hired you.
- If somehow you "snuck in" and your past came to light, you would have been fired anywhere I've worked.
- Unless I knew you really well personally (as in friends for multiple years), I wouldn't hire you, based purely on your past. It's nothing personal, you might be a great, smart person. But it's a matter of the odds; your past makes you a risk that's not worth taking unless I know you well enough to be certain that you would never do anything like that again, and there's just no way you're going to convince me of that through an interview process.
The last one is the real sticking point, because I know what it's like to be a young kid on BBSes and the internet and wanting to try to break things, etc. But even with that understanding, I still wouldn't trust you unless I knew you really well.
And that's why I'd recommend pursuing another career. And you should think about this carefully because being a convicted felon (and I'm assuming it was a felony charge) will stop you from being able to do a lot of other careers. Honestly I'd do some research on careers for people with felony convictions.
This is essentially what someone like me encounters every time they try. It's a really unfortunate part of my reality and other posters should understand that it's not simply "just a felony" -- not when equally qualified applicants do not have any "issues" like this.
FWIW, I feel bad for you and wish you the best.
I've also found it incredibly difficult to ask google this type of complex question. So I posted it here instead.
Some jobs are simply closed off. No way around it. Why hire a felon when you can hire any other equally (based off paper and salary requirements) qualified candidate? Government restrictions may preclude him as well.
If you are basing your options only on your history, then you have to find a career where your history doesn't hurt you. This means applying for jobs that felons apply for. You've done a year in jail, you know the embarassing(to society) level of education of most inmates. I don't think this is really a route you would want to consider.
Don't give up. You will have to work hard, sure. Harder than most. Which is a good quality to have when you find the right position.
But to pursue another career? That's ridiculous, given your apparent skill-set -- it's ludicrous.
Clearly, the parent here is wrong because there are plenty of people that have felony convictions and work in tech. So, this advice, on the face, is really horrible.
A felony is a serious matter. You may have excluded yourself from many jobs, possibly all the companies the parent has worked for; keep in mind the companies the parent has worked for must be a small subset of all the companies you could work for.
Even being completely honest and open, I think you can find a job. You may or may not have to go outside of comfort zone (moving or what have you) or, perhaps, do some work in non-security related areas of programming (or maybe not, I just mean to say if you broaden your search you increase your chances).
A felony is not good but if you tell your story, I think there are smaller companies that would take a chance on you; perhaps you'd even find potential employers, because of the nature of our industry, that will not think as negatively of your conviction as if you had been convicted of some other kind of crime.
There's a lot of fish in the sea, you don't need every one to hire you, you don't even need one of the companies the parent has worked for to hire you, you just need one of the many more that are out there to give you a chance.
Be honest, tell your story as eloquently as you can. Someone will give you a chance. I believe there are some on HN that would.
It might seem that it is easy to avoid going this fast, but there are several reasons that you might. It is harder to feel a 10 m.p.h gap when you are traveling at high speeds, especially when the roadway is filled with insane drivers that are tailgating you and cutting you off because you are driving too slowly for their taste. Virginia also has some steep hills, which makes it easy to go to over 80 m.p.h without pressing on the accelerator. Many people also speed unconsciously when they feel stressed or angry, are listening to fast music or an exciting radio broadcast.
[1] http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-870
He's a great dev, good friend, recently finished a PhD while working full time for us. We'd have been stupid not to hire him for the mistake he made a decade ago.
Don't hide your record.
Network and you get work.
I have also tried shotgun approach via private vulnerability disclosure. At best it typically results in nothing more than 'thanks' -- but most frequent is outright ignoring, angry response, bruised egos, threats with law enforcement, and general unpleasantry. -- so I've learned to avoid doing that.
I am really here pinging this community for people that have been in or have dealt with the circumstances of my disposition who would like to take a moment and give some pointers. So far the response has been better than I had anticipated.
I'm slowly -very slowly and cautiously- approaching the local infosec community. For me to do that it has to be piecemeal.
If your personality, character, ambition, shared vision, portfolio or code samples, work history, or profile in the developer / startup community is well-known, I think your conviction not only wouldn't be insurmountable, I don't even think it would be a blip on the radar. If it ever was, it might even make you cool with the right founders/team.
That said, when the company you're working for gets big, you will have already likely signed something giving them blanket permission to look into you, and during an investor or acquirer's due diligence, I guess it's possible it could come up... which would suck if it's right before an equity cliff or something.
Another idea: I've also done 1099 contract work for big health insurance companies as a contract developer. Salaried employees had multiple background and credit checks because they were working with HIPAA Protected Health Information... so was I, but I not only made more money than the salaried employees, I didn't do an application, interview, background check, etc.
I think 95% of it is your attitude going in. In your head, you're probably thinking that felony convictions are the only thing on the potential employer's mind, so you're self-conscious about it. Find the right type of employer, concentrate on the relationship and the opportunity together, and it shouldn't be a concern at all. (IANAL, TINLA)
Change that. Write some new and useful things, publish the code on GitHub, and run them on one of the free/cheap hosting services.
That's part of your problem: No recent achievements. Create some!
So I just say that you go on and be happy and successful.
is the key word here
> So I just say that you go on and be happy and successful.
that is worthless advice
The part with "worthless advice" was about the whole "oh, also be successful and happy" thing.
But it's not, IT/programming has no downsides, just dive into it and it's awesome.
Background checks are really cheap. I've worked at really small companies that outsource most of HR and payroll to a larger company. Those places always do the background checks, don't think that smaller places won't do a background check. If you lie and they ever find out that's an instant firing.
I don't know anyone who would be worried about giving you the root password to hundreds of machines because you broke more exciting rules when you were younger than we did.
Stop telling yourself that you can't have what you want, and get it!
I have actually been encouraged by people to move to that area (and some areas in Texas) but at this point in my life it seems like a really big change to make. When I finish school I would like to explore that option. It is something I have been seriously considering.
Based on the data (http://www.justice.gov/pardon/statistics.htm) in addition to the cumulative experience of those who have turned their lives around for decades and still been denied, I made a decision to try that later when I have a better history to present in my petition.
As you can see, the odds are scary. My chances of getting one without a friend in government (or part of a lobbying body) are really slim.
The worst would be low-skill jobs involving trust (e.g. bank teller); the easiest would be high skill jobs involving no trust (game developer or working on open source software). Sysadmin is in the middle. Security positions require more trust, but would also tend to be more forgiving of computer crimes background.
In the long run, for a federal crime, your best bet is a Presidential pardon (not as hard after you've served time, I think, with a long period of productive work experience since then); that's one thing that sucks about fed vs. state crime. If the law itself is challenged later, that could be a route too.
(IANAL.)
When you fill out applications and are asked "the question", lie. As someone who has very strong ethics and morals, it's hard for me to say that. It is, however, absolutely necessary if you wish to work again.
Eventually, however, somebody will probably find out and you need to be prepared to deal with that.
The first time it happened to me, I was fortunate in that I had a great working/professional relationship with my superiors a few levels "up the ladder" (very large company). When they found out, they called me in and confronted me about it. I told them the absolute truth and also explained why I lied about it. They sent me home, mulled it over for about a week, then called me and told me to come back to work. It was never mentioned again.
The next time it happened, I was offered a job at a company after one short interview. When I filled out the paperwork, I lied, of course. It wasn't very long before they found out about it (and this was a MUCH smaller company). The two owners, however, knew that I was friends with the Mayor, who they were also friends with. They asked the Mayor about whether they should keep me and his response was something to the effect of "I would, he's a helluva lot smarter than any of your other guys". (It probably also helped that my boss is pretty shady anyways).
*
With regard to Google search results, take control of that shit. Start a blog, write awesome shit, post videos on YouTube, participate in mailing lists/forums, etc. Spread your name everywhere you can so that when you are Googled, it's your own stuff that comes up. If you Google me, you'll get tired of clicking "Next Page" long before you find anything negative.
Basically, lie on the paperwork. If you're honest, they're not even going to give you a chance. If you at least get "in the door", work harder than anyone else. Volunteer to work on things nobody else wants to and do the absolute best that you can at everything. Eventually, they WILL find out. Be prepared for that day.
Good luck, it's not easy.
-- 15-year convicted felon
Is self-employment an option for you? The web is one of the most democratic professions. Produce something people want to use and they (mostly) won't care about your background. In fact you can see it here on Hacker News. People post personal or professional projects, few people care about the academic qualifications or otherwise of the posters.
You seem conscientious and determined, so don't lose those qualities. Whatever you decide, good luck :-)
- Your ravenous intellectual curiosity. Sure it got you into trouble, but there aren't enough people with a hunger to learn and tackle challenges.
I would not hire you if I didn't believe
- You were truly remorseful - You wouldn't get bored in a straight gig and become a liability to the company
I believe that you can use history as a good predictor of future behavior, but a mistake someone made 10 years ago as a youth should be past the statute of limitations. Let me know if I can help...
There is something in your favor ... none of the good jobs (i.e. the ones you want) are going to be filled by people that only fill out the job application. My last three jobs included me filling the job application out (for the HR drones to say it was complete) after the interviews were done and a hiring agreement was reached. So my advice is to network, push your way into the minds and hearts of the employers you'd like to work for, then let them hire you. Make sure the person making the hiring decision hears this story and assure them it's ancient history.
When you finally get around to filling out the job application, be honest and when you get to the conviction question, don't check either box. If it's a paper form, write "see attachment" and affix a copy of the letter you just posted. For an on-line application, ask to meet with HR instead of filling out the on-line form. In both cases, let HR know that the hiring manager knows the details of the story and is unconcerned.
So the bigger question is where do you live (or where would you like to live?)... you can start building your network on HN today!
"the pursuit of this degree is a waste of time"
At this stage of the game, what you need is someone to lend you personal credibility, and a degree won't do that for you.
If you do see this, shoot me an email (included in my user page)
It's how I managed to stay afloat (although, I am in Germany).
I have done it when I've needed money though. Just aggravates me.
You will need some money for that though, but I personally consider that investment worth the potential experience that you can get at graduate school. More valuable than buying a fancy car.
Perhaps doing penn-testing if you're still into it, or building an income generating product. It's probably also possible to get hired by a startup or through a personal connection.. but my general recommendation would be to create value directly.. since customers aren't going to even know who you are in most cases if you are selling them SaaS
Penn-testing today is growing into something it wasn't when I was having fun. The community consists of mixed talent and a trend is growing as more ease-of-use [e.g: nessus, metasploit] tools become available to infosec "pros". That emergent trend (SaaS?) disgusts and repels me because it eliminates one of the more captivating and rewarding elements of vulnerability hunting (the delicious, delicious, research experience). Reverse engineers, devs who are able create on-the-fly solutions, and vx community notwithstanding.
Also, as said in a previous post: my experiences with independent private disclosure is most often a futile waste of time - 'thanks' || ignored || threatened with LE.
WRT building an income generating product: I don't have many unique ideas or any marketing experience. I'm currently working with a friend exploring android os internals and platform development. We're going to throw our project into that market and see how it pans out.
I generally only create things I need to try out an idea or get something done. This project strays away from that principle so it will be interesting to see whether or not the venture is fruitful.
Been freelancing for close to 13 years and no one has done a background check on me ever. I'm not an ex-con, but if I was one I doubt any of my clients would ever know or care.
You can pull it off.
Check the conditions in different countries. Here often companies don't do background checks and to rent an apartment you only need to shake hands with the owner.
When I was a teenager, someone I knew did something nonviolent but pretty bad (severe academic dishonesty) and had a non-empty answer to the "Discipline Question".
You might judge me negatively for keeping such a person as a friend-- and I shouldn't have, but that's another story-- but at the time, I was naive and not a great judge of character. Anyway, he asked for advice on the Discipline Question and I told him to take an "odds and evens" strategy: rank his choices. For the odd-numbered (1st, 3rd, ...) choices, omit it. For the even-numbered ones, full disclosure. The idea was that whether the information would be disclosed (by the Guidance Office) was an unknown but constant variable: they'd either tell all colleges or none.
If his HS Guidance Office disclosed to all, he'd have a slight chance of getting the ones where he did disclose (his evens) and no chance of getting the ones where he omitted (the odds).
If Guidance disclosed to none, he'd have a slight chance of getting the evens and a pretty good chance (they wouldn't know) of getting the odd-numbered choices.
His HS took his mistakes off the record, so they didn't disclose. He did well on his odd-numbered college choices and zeroed the even-numbered ones. If I recall correctly, he got 3 out of 5 odds and 0 out of 5 evens. Not a lot of data, but the conclusion was: don't answer the Discipline Question.
There isn't a constant, hidden variable (guidance office) for your case but it's still unpredictable how easily employers will find out and how your conviction will be perceived. There are hidden variables you can't easily measure.
So I think "odds and evens" is the right strategy. Full, honest disclosure with half. Full omission with half. Collect data. Iterate.
You didn't hear this from me. I don't know the details and I'm not a felon, but I think it is pretty fucked up how any felony leads to long-term economic disenfranchisement, so I sincerely hope this advice helps.
With governments, full disclosure always. It's unambiguously illegal to lie about a felony conviction to get a government job. So tell the truth.
Get a lawyer, too. Find someone who's dealt with this and knows the risks. I don't think my "odds and evens" approach is, to quote Inception, "strictly speaking, legal".
As a counterpoint, since we're all just dealing in anecdotes here, I had a non-empty answer to the "Discipline Question"; I was suspended for "hacking", albeit after voluntarily telling my principal about it.
I disclosed it on my applications, while my high school did not. I was still accepted to MIT and Stanford. I later learned that MIT actually called my high school to get clarification on it, so I know it was seen at least by them.
I was also a finalist for an NSA scholarship program (flown out to the Maryland "friendship annex" for interviewing) despite having disclosed it.
So, I dunno what my point is. Maybe these things depend on who reads your application or what, but it's not an automatic dealbreaker, and I do encourage people to be honest.
All of my associates in the field do not have to deal with this issue and maintain the perspective that actual experience is more important than education. I've an incredible obstacle to surmount and it matters to me that I have documented training. It's just one-less-thing standing in the way.
Thank you for your response. I will give non-disclosure a shot and see how that works. It feels inappropriate deceptive for me to omit those details when asked (via interview question in person, phone, or form) about them.
For most people, that'd be a loss. You'd lose your whole reputation. It sounds to me like your reputation is of negative value, given the Google problem.
Keep in mind also that Googling happens before interview, and background checks happen after a successful interview. So even if the name-change won't get you around a formal check (by some stable identifier like SSN) you can at least control the time of disclosure.
The ugly thing about being Googled is that you don't know when or if it happens. Name change gets you the interview and then, if you're pretty sure they'll find it in a more thorough check, you can disclose it on your terms.
Almost every member of my immediate family has casually done this at least once with no problem (it's kind of a family tradition it seems..). The name on my credit cards, the name I am known by professionally, and the name my parents know me by are all different. They share similar derivation yes, if you know one of them you probably would not bat an eye when another came up, but they are absolutely sufficiently different to isolate online reputations.
http://www.co.stearns.mn.us/Portals/0/docs/Document%20Librar... for instance for one of the hassels here
If I were hiring for a security-related job, I'd consider the poster if he not only disclosed the conviction, but also contextualized it on his cover letter the way that he did in the pastebin, and if he provided some character witnesses (teachers, employers).
This, this, a million times this. It's not even losing the job that would be the worst for me, it would be the paranoia of turning up to work every day thinking "Did they find out about that thing now? Are they considering firing me or did they decide it didn't matter? Argh!!".
There's a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin breaks his dad's binoculars and is certain at the dinner table that night that his father knows. The anxiety gets to Calvin so much that after about 30 seconds (this is Calvin, remember) he breaks down and confesses. That would so be me in an employment situation where there was something I hadn't disclosed which could lead to dismissal.
Everything you have said on the Internet, ever, "could lead to dismissal". It's a risky world. You just gotta make the best decision you can at each point in time.
He exaggerates for effect both in the extent of the crimes and the extent of the punishment but, as a complement to the idea that an employer (if you will, a potentially "unfair judge") can extend their checks from criminal activity to all online activity and in so doing legitimately dismiss an employee, it seems an appropriate "polite" reply to my comment's parent.
Long-term job security no longer exists. When you take a job, you are always at risk that it ends. For sure, this risk is real. He might get fired for hiding that detail. On the other hand, that likely means he wouldn't have gotten the job in the first place. Which is worse: getting a job for a couple years, building up savings, and then getting fired... or not getting any jobs and being long-term unemployed?
There are no easy answers here. We're comparing bads here. There are risks either way.
and then they aren't referenceable.
At 1 month, you just omit it.
At a year or 5 years, there are two cases. One is where the boss likes you but has (or feels he has) no choice. He probably didn't find you out or make the decision and he may want to help you out. You can discuss the reference issue and he'll probably be your ally.
If he's genuinely mad and won't give a good reference, then make him retreat to name and dates. Have lawyers on it if needed.
In the very-rare case that you need an affirmative good reference (default name-and-dates won't be enough) and he won't give it, then you have to go to extortion. That's an uncommon and ugly topic that I don't want to get into, but at 1-5 years, you have enough important knowledge to make that happen, unless he really hates you.
Lying on your application and extorting people risks torching an already damaged reputation, not to mention potentially huge civil and even criminal liabilities.
To the OP, I recommend ditching the Machiavellian stuff. The best bet in my opinion is to network and contribute to projects where possible (such as through OSS, freelance, etc.). If people actually know you and your story and you have a track record with them, the chances of them putting enough trust in you are much greater. I don't think you should leave the CS world. You're going to find the same issues in any line of work, so you might as well stay in the field where your skills lie.
"Extortion" was too strong a word. I meant it in the sense of "aggressive negotiation". Demanding a positive reference not to blow something humiliating is not extortion. If you demand money not to blow something, you're breaking the law, because there's no connection between the payoff and the threat (exposure). However, with a reference, it's "we're going to part ways, but it's best for both of us that we tell the same story, so let's get straight about what just happened". That's how you present it. Not really extortion.
Your advice to OP has a lot of value and on the whole I agree with what you are telling him to do. OSS contributions are a really good idea for him.
However, I still contend that an "odds and evens" mixed strategy will perform better than full disclosure.
This isn't the first HN comment you've left where you suggested playing hardball to get positive references from employers. You have an idiosyncratic view of the dynamics of employee references. I find it disquieting, but that obviously doesn't make it intrinsically wrong. I do feel safe saying that it is out of step with the way most employers view the same dynamics.
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5007550 - "For me, it's really about references. I don't need a severance, but if you don't agree on a good reference I will do everything in my power to fuck up your reputation.")
A bad reference is an existential battle. You do everything you can to fight that. However, pushing neutral to good is generally a waste of time. Dust yourself off, get clean, and move on.
What I have to say about your perspective on references is that I will never, under any circumstances, work with, for, or over someone who believes what I think you're saying you believe about references. "Bad reference => war", to me, is essentially an endorsement of professional dishonesty.
Negotiating over the quality of your reference is to me a bit squicky, but it's on the right side of the line, just a couple steps past coaching your references (which is also white-lie dishonest]). Using aggressive negotiation tactics to ensure good references from people who don't believe your work merits a good reference is on the wrong side of the line. You think it's a concession you're extracting from your former employer, but it is really a concession you are surreptitiously taking from your future employer.
This whole subthread is about 3-sigma outlier cases that (may) require dishonesty.
I am not ashamed to say that, in a 3-sigma bad situation, I would rather lie (especially, being an immensely capable person who would be a good hire, which means the lied-to party would benefit) than starve.
Honestly is a luxury of the 99% of us (including you and me) who aren't "cosmetically challenged" in some severe, career-damaging way.
michaelochurch brings up a great point that having even the most minor slip in your records will too often result in a disproportionately, unreasonably unfair reception in the job market:
I don't know the details and I'm not a felon, but I think
it is pretty fucked up how any felony leads to long-term
economic disenfranchisement, so I sincerely hope this
advice helps.
I recall that you are in the security field. Naturally some of the best workers in the field very well might be individuals who got into trouble in their teenage years for hacking offenses -- I think you're operating on certain assumptions that are valid indeed only for that niche security field. I can tell you from my experiences in the corporate IT world that the situation here is the opposite to the one you speak of, employers come down hard on folks with the slightest slip in their records, and will absolutely use that bit of information to discriminate against them in hiring decisions.
I agree with michaelochurch when he points out that getting a job for a couple years, building up savings, and then getting fired... is probably better than not getting any jobs and being long-term unemployed in most scenarios.
There are exceptions-- sometimes you have to hire legal professionals and very occasionally one might have to hire illegal professionals to make someone do the right thing-- but those are way outside of the norm.
If he does good work and still gets fired, it's probably by a boss who had little choice in the decision and doesn't want to fuck him over, not someone who's going to be vengeful and make a bigger mess than what already exists.
I've never done most of this extremely chaotic shit that I endorse, but I think it's important to have the ethical conversations to shine some light on to things that actually go on.
Societies like to see themselves as existential struggles between lawful good and chaotic evil, but neither of those are major players. (Lawful good is too restrained; chaotic evil is too maladjusted to have a chance unless the world's already fucked.) The real battle is between chaotic good and lawful evil. So excuse my chaos. :)
Don't deliberately lie to employers who ask about your criminal record. The only ones who won't go absolutely apeshit on you when they find out are the ones who would hire you anyways if you just told them in the first place.
Like you, I have a lot of sympathy for people stuck with criminal convictions. We agree there. We'd both like to find advice to help people get excellent jobs despite stupid criminal convictions. My problem with your advice isn't with its intentions, but rather that I'm pretty sure it's dumb.
What does "go absolutely apeshit" mean? I contend that there's risk of termination, likely without severance. Anything more would expose the individual in a way that most people would avoid.
Also, "employer" isn't a monolithic concept. The players all have different motivations. Maybe HR dings everyone with a conviction. He hides it, gets through the HR wall. His boss likes him. He gets in, does great work for 9 months. Then HR finds out. His boss has to fire him. His boss isn't mad at him (maybe at the situation, but not at him). In that very plausible scenario, yes he's fired, but he gets a decent reference.
If it's between the risk of getting fired later and not being able to get a job at all, then you take the former.
I proposed "odds and evens" because I don't think either of us know which is the better strategy (lie vs. disclose) and I think mixing is the way to go.
In some industries, your advice isn't practical. Tptacek's home base being Chicago probably brings commodities trading firms to the fore of his mind.
Otherwise, your ideas benefit the individual with an almost adversarial approach to companies. Tptacek looks at things from the position of that adversary. Your advice stands to surprise the established order... Instead of relying on the mercy of an all-powerful business benefactor, someone who followed you would continue operating under their own power, through their own exploit.
So it's possible you guys might agree in certain cases but it seems unlikely you'll come to public agreement on the hypotheticals here.
Also, I like your blog.
It's generational, I think. My parents grew up in a time when it was unthinkable to do some of the things I've advocated (e.g. concealing a felony record, using harsh tactics to improve a reference) but, in their time, it was much more the norm for employers to be decent. You wouldn't get fired because your new boss (hired 2 days ago) wanted his high school friend in your position. That happens all the time now. My parents' generation grew up before the corporate social contract fell to pieces. It vanished for them before most of them could get to the top of anything, but they still want to believe in it and have a hatred for the rule-breakers at the top who killed it.
Millennial rule-breakers are different. We never believed anyone took the rules seriously, and we break them from the bottom.
I was born in 1983 (after the apocalypse had begun) and the differences in assumptions are huge. I never grew up thinking anything positive about corporations in general. Specific companies, sure. Microsoft seemed OK, Google was neat for some time. But it was clear even in the mid-90s that most of them had turned brazenly evil and weren't coming back.
As a generation, we are ethical, but we have more fluency with rules than older generations. None of us would think twice about bumping a performance-based bonus to the top bucket (e.g. in finance where that's important for future jobs). That's just something you do. It's none of their business and the lie is what they get for asking. On the flip side, there are a lot of things that most of us find disgusting and truly unethical (war, pollution, oppression of overseas workers) that Baby Boomer CEOs don't seem to oppose.
Frankly, in a world with the Koch Brothers and Xe/Blackwater and private health insurance, I don't give the square root of a fuck if someone decides to lie on his resume. I don't lie, but that's because I have a good resume and don't want to gamble credibility, but other people who do it are a rounding error, compared to the real shit going down.
1. Criminal complaint that results in arrest. Youthful folly can be forgiven, but being caught in a calculated adult deception is pretty much nonrecoverable.
2. Audits of everything he touched, with a view towards uncovering a repeat of his earlier deceptions. Even if he is innocent, there is a good chance that the security consultants and forensic accountants will find something interesting. Something that the detective investigating the case will not understand.
Lying in a job search, while usually unethical, is not always illegal. Most of the lies people tell to make themselves look more impressive or to conceal blemishes are not in violation of law.
Job fraud is pretty tightly defined. If you cannot perform the job (or have no intent to do so) and know it beforehand, you're committing job fraud. It's illegal (it's fraud) and you can go to jail for it. The same is true if you feign qualifications to get a job you cannot legally perform (e.g. quack doctors). Also highly illegal.
However, if your deception makes you a more attractive candidate for a job you can perform, then it's not job fraud. It might be unethical, but it's not jailable.
In fact, job search lies are only cause for termination if the employer can establish (sometimes requiring cavity searches of personnel decisions) that the person would not have been hired were the truth known. If the company only hires 3.5+ GPAs as a matter of HR policy and he turned a 2.8 into 3.7, that's "for cause" (even if he was a great employee) because there is an internally published and consistent policy and he didn't fit. However, if the person concealed a 5-month gap in employment history, that might have been a factor but the onus is on employer to establish that it constitutes "cause".
However, with this particular case (concealed felony conviction) the employer will have almost no controversy on that one when it comes to firing for cause. I don't think anyone doubts that. If he gets found out and fired, he can't expect severance.
Audits of everything he touched, with a view towards uncovering a repeat of his earlier deceptions.
Yeah, he's got to be whiter than white, ethically speaking, from here on out, except when there is strategic necessity. Avoiding long-term unemployment constitutes "strategic necessity". Once you're in check, the way he is, you really have to limit your lies and make them count. Picking your battles becomes key.
The real consequence I'm referring to here though is a firing for cause. Real for-cause firings are rare in our business, so I think we tend to forget that they are a big deal.
I grant you that if he gets fired over this, he shouldn't expect a package. His life is already in a state of fucked-up-ness that is beyond worrying about that he might get fired without severance. He needs to get a job, first and foremost. Severance is almost a Maserati problem, where he is.
Right now, severance is nice to have but not a huge deal. Fifteen years from now when he's getting large (~1 year) contractual severances due to being in highly strategic roles-- he can be cut for reasons that aren't his fault, and job searches take years at his level-- he will want to start coming clean about the felony. By that time, he'll have a track record and can come clean because no one will care about a 15-20+ year old felony conviction.
What you're saying is that you think the job market is so inhospitable to people with criminal convictions that they should endanger their career to weasel their way into jobs. We could debate how unwise that advice was if you were right about the employment market. But you're wrong about the employment market, which makes the risk/reward on what you're suggesting so far out of whack that your suggestion isn't worth entertaining.
I don't have strong opinions about what you do with a prospective employer who at no point asks you about your criminal record. But if you're asked about it, you're crazy if you lie.
Again, let me (tediously) repeat that I don't know you personally; you happen to spend a decent number of words on HN articulating ideas that I find worth disputing, but on the street I wouldn't know you from Adam and I have no issue with you personally.
This may be. That's why I suggested the "odds and evens" (full disclosure with half, full omission with half) strategy. Not only is it hedged but it will also give him data-- which we don't have.
It's obviously better if he can disclose and still get a job. Then he has nothing to worry about.
To be honest, I feel like we're both suburban kids arguing about inner-city gang life. :) We both think we're tough, and we both are tougher than most people in our neighborhood, but we haven't actually been in the slums. We don't have the data. I guess that's a good thing, given the nature of what we're arguing about.
I'm glad that you're arguing the other side of this, though, because we're talking about Serious Shit and OP needs to hear all sides.
Perhaps not in the Valley, but I don't believe the OP provided his location.
I'm not in the Valley and I speak from experience when I say that it is extremely difficult to find employment in any industry w/ a felony conviction.
Due to the nature of the information we sometimes have access to, it is (in many cases) more difficult to find a job in the tech industry.
He claimed to have a Master's degree from a prestigious university, that he was awarded the Navy Cross(1 step below the Medal of Honor) and that he played for the 1968 U.S. Olympic hockey team. No one fact checked a single qualification that he listed on his resume, they just hired him.
The sad part is, after they discovered that he was a fraud, they still wanted him to stick around. From what I hear, he did a pretty good job.
http://archive.bangordailynews.com/2003/09/30/jackson-lab-of...
In extreme cases, making fraudulent bogus disclosures to employers can be actionable, if for instance your criminal status comes up on a background check for your employer's clients or business partners and damages the relationship.
Deliberately lying about this issue seems like an extremely dumb strategy.
What you say is essentially correct, but there's enough gray area that companies would not want to fire someone carelessly. Even winning a termination suit is losing, for PR reasons. So most professional jobs give enough severance to move on to your next job, unless it's "for cause", which usually means you did something horrible (but occasionally not).
Lying about a felony conviction is "for cause" and he'd get no severance if that was discovered and the reason (or discovered and made the reason after the fact). There is no dispute about that.
If a company will hire him in spite of the conviction, it's better to disclose. Most likely, he'll start disclosing it in 10+ years once he has a track record and no one cares. If no one will hire him, however, he might need an alternate strategy.
If this is your passion then I would encourage you to apply. Definitely use a cover letter along the lines of the pastebin.
There are examples of far worse felons than the OP who are employed in CS. Find a way to tell the story honestly and in a way that shows that you learned from it. (1) Become a top performer in college by working hard (2) Make public works (3) Build a network
Do that and you won't need to run an application test.