When you are hiring for a role, you are looking for the best candidate for the job. If you meet an excellent candidate who is charismatic, has the right experience and is everything that you are looking for in a person you’d love to hire but their background check flags some issues, then that could put them on the back foot and you may end up going with a lesser candidate because of it.
That’s often the problem with a criminal record. Even if the crime was a misdemeanor as a teenager or doing something stupid when they were drunk, many hiring managers have to make a tough choice. They dread having to find a fantastic candidate who has an issue on their background check. This is because executives said hiring people with criminal records was not a positive for their bottom line. The thing is, there is a big difference between a criminal record that puts somebody in prison for 10 years versus somebody who gets a criminal record for misdemeanor drunk driving when they were 18 years old. Sometimes people just need a second chance to get themselves on the right foot once again. You need to make sure that you are making the right choice for the candidate, and sometimes that does mean looking at hiring somebody who has an unsavory past. Here’s how you compare Second Chance forward.
Look closely at that background check.
Just because somebody has a criminal record does not mean that the crime that they committed 20 years ago should stop them from getting a job. Don’t just look at the fact that they have a criminal record, but look at why it happened and what the result was. Speak to the candidate and get their side of the story as well, because hiring an ex-con could be the best thing that you ever do.
The business can end up with a tax break if we’re thinking about numbers and the bottom line not being as positive for executives.
Hiring somebody with a criminal record can actually ease the tax burden on your business. There is a work Opportunity Tax credit that can be gained through the Department of Labour and this works in case they hire individuals who are part of a targeted group which ex cons are a part of. While executives may not like the idea of hiring somebody with the past, it always depends on what the past is, but you can still get tax breaks for your business.
There are some federal protections out there.
Encouraging an employer to hire a high risk applicant isn’t always easy, but you can help to mitigate their risk with this with the federal bonding program. This fidelity bond is a kind of insurance policy that can protect the employer.If you have somebody who has committed a serious crime, but they are 10 years since that crime and they have changed their lives over, then this is still something you can invest in.
You are going to hire somebody loyal.
Yes, they may have a past, it happens and not everybody does have a pass that they are proud of. But somebody who has a criminal record that has been hired for a new job is going to have that extra drive and loyalty to show that they are a changed person. They will know that the cards are already stacked against them and that you are taking a risk on them and they are more likely to want to show you that you have made the right choice.
Share this Post