Dear dads: Your daughters told me about their assaults. This is why they never told you.

[Loren Pechtel]

I would think most employers woudn't be too worried about hiring someone who went to jail for beating their daughter's rapist. It's not the sort of thing likely to lead to additional crime.

Sure they would. The record says 'Assault occasioning Grievous Bodily Harm' not 'Beat his daughter's rapist'.

How would an employer come to know the circumstances of the assault? In the very unlikely event that they bothered to proceed to interview, why would they believe a convict's excuses for why he shouldn't have his crime taken into account?

If instead of answering "yes" to have you ever been convicted they list "convicted of beating my daughter's rapist".

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I would think most employers woudn't be too worried about hiring someone who went to jail for beating their daughter's rapist. It's not the sort of thing likely to lead to additional crime.

Not so. I was on Hiring Committee for Google when I worked there, and have hired literally thousands of people over the years. Most companies use external background check agencies nowadays, and the criteria is binary:- if felony, don't even interview.

So they do a background check before the first interview??

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So they do a background check before the first interview??

No, they have a little checkbox on the application which says "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

If you say yes, nobody ever needs to do a background check on you because the interview process never gets beyond them seeing an answer of yes there.

 

[phands]

So they do a background check before the first interview??

Depends on the company and the position. Some have it as a pre-check for positions where someone with a history of theft convictions is deemed to be a liability because of risk of further theft in that particular job. Technically, there are severe restrictions in the USA on how information about criminal records is obtained and used, but they are relatively simple to circumvent and still remain legal.. The rules are different in other geographies too.
In the US, there's a "Ban the Box" campaign to have the questions about criminal records removed from job applications for state and federal jobs.

I also worked at a large hedge fund (hated it!), and they did a background check pre-interview because they put huge resources into interviewing people - up to 10 people for interviews and coding tests which have to be assessed - it costs a lot to interview people, so make sure they're "clean" before committing the resources.
In contrast, many companies do a background check after interview, and an offer is contingent on a clean result.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So they do a background check before the first interview??

No, they have a little checkbox on the application which says "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

If you say yes, nobody ever needs to do a background check on you because the interview process never gets beyond them seeing an answer of yes there.

Which is why I was saying to put an explanation rather than checking the box.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So they do a background check before the first interview??

No, they have a little checkbox on the application which says "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

If you say yes, nobody ever needs to do a background check on you because the interview process never gets beyond them seeing an answer of yes there.

Maybe change it to “Should you have been convicted of a felony?”