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The ban is not on asking about criminal history. It's a ban on asking about criminal history before a conditional offer is made. Quote from article: Under this

The ban is not on asking about criminal history. It's a ban on asking about criminal history before a conditional offer is made. Quote from article: Under this law, employers will no longer be allowed to ask applicants about their criminal conviction histories until after a conditional offer of employment has been made.

ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
So they're just making it more clear to potential employees that if you don't lie now, you'll lose the offer? Seems either pretty useless and will just waste more of a company's time, or will just encourage more people to lie about prior convictions (as it will be literally spelled out that they'll rescind the offer if they have a criminal history).
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  Yeah, I think both laws are right steps in the right directions. But I don't know if they are big steps. The hope is by the time a company has invested enough to make a conditional offer that they are more willing to forgive a conviction history.
- numbsafari 9y ago
  I think the point is to encourage companies to go through the initial assessment of a potential employee in the hopes that they will find the candidate to be the best option, and then have to actively choose not to employ the person because of a prior conviction. In addition, they will have to evaluate (and it sounds like document) whether they feel the conviction would impact the candidate's ability to perform that specific job for that specific company. Today, many employers have a blanket "no convicts" check-box on their application forms. This makes it very hard for convicts to find work. Yes, many companies will continue to have this practice, and some for very good reason, but this creates the potential for a little more sanity to be applied.
- syshum 9y ago
  >>will just encourage more people to lie about prior convictions What is the point in lying about conviction? All convictions from every location are recorded into central databases run by companies like Lexis Nexus, so unless the employer is not using any kind of quality back ground check service lying is pointless as your criminal history is about 2 clicks away on a keyboard.
  - lovich 9y ago
    I've had three background checks and theyve come back missing information I gave directly to the company doing the background check. A lot of companies seem to be no better than 10 minutes with Google and are just for show. The only companies I know of that do actual, accurate background checks go through state services. Doing that as a regular part of your business makes you fall under extra regulations though, so many companies skip it to save money
    - __jal 9y ago
      Same experience. Commercial background checks as used by companies today are useless except as checklist liability-limitation. If you actually care about finding out what a person might not be disclosing with any reliability, that costs a fair bit more.
  - phil21 9y ago
    Most companies are not spending the thousand of dollars each on a real background check that is very likely to find "all" the things. > All convictions from every location are recorded into central databases This simply isn't true. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of cases are? But definitely not all. Plenty of court systems do not provide free electronic access, and you must show up in person to do a search. Companies of course have existed forever to do this work for you, but it's not a simple SQL query. The standard $35/ea background check is effectively a credit check. Even the next "tier" up that costs $500+ simply does a credit check to pull known addresses, and then sends someone in to those counties to check them individually. If you committed your crime in a county you never lived in, you have a pretty decent chance of it not coming up on a background check. I would say if you have a conviction in your past that is keeping you from employment by disclosing it, there really is nothing to lose by lying about it. It can really only help you. The vast majority of background checks are simply checking a compliance box using the lowest cost provider, and have a fairly high likelihood of a false negative. I assume they do fairly well at federal felonies and major crimes committed in major metropolitan areas. Beyond that it gets spotty quick.
- SatvikBeri 9y ago
  By the time a company makes a conditional offer they've generally invested the equivalent of several thousand dollars into the search, if not more. So they're much less likely to reject someone for a conviction then, as opposed to when filtering resumes.
- mabbo 9y ago
  Consider sunk costs. As an employer, you've found a brilliant person to fill a position. You've gone through days of interviews, and this is clearly the best candidate. You put out the offer, and then ask for a criminal background check. At that point, the candidate says "When I was 19 I got into a fight in a parking lot and was convicted of assault, had three years probation". Now you've gone to all this trouble and you like the guy, but have to decide whether that history matters or not. Before, you'd have simply filtered his resume from the pile at the start and never even interviewed him.
  - SerLava 9y ago
    Man, that is incredibly refreshing.
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    however there are jobs subject to state regulations that forbid those with criminal history from obtaining said job or even the certification. this is just feel good do nothing regulation. it benefits no one because the end result will be the same.
    - lsaferite 9y ago
      For a subset of jobs.
  - ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
    As I said, seems like it's going to waste a lot of company money. Maybe small businesses will take the risk, but big company lawyers are going to be telling their people to eat the cost. Now you're even setting the basis of the argument that would be used in court, that the company only hired the felon because it was cheaper than finding a new candidate. Imagine if a cashier, who had previously been convicted of assault for the fight you mentioned, gets into a fight with a customer for whatever reason. If you want past criminals to be able to be hired, you need to have the civil legal system fixed so that a company couldn't be sued for hiring one. That's most of the reason why a company doesn't hire past criminals.
  - 9y ago
CodeWriter23 9y ago
So I guess employers will now consider anyone who does not come in saying "I have a clean rap sheet" to be former criminals, and not make the conditional offer.
- stale2002 9y ago
  99% of people aren't going to go to the company they are applying to and say "oh, by the way, I know you didn't ask, but I have no criminal history". If a company doesn't ask a question, they almost certainly aren't going to recieve the answer unprompted.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    You underestimate the value of ascertaining such answers to an employer. The Wiz, a big box electronics store on the Eastern Seaboard was wiped out of existence by employees selling truckloads of inventory out the back door. The criminal history screening matters.
notyourday 9y ago
> Under this law, employers will no longer be allowed to ask applicants about their criminal conviction histories until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. So they are making employer waste the time interviewing someone that they will not hire because he or she has a conviction.
- cavanasm 9y ago
  If they decide to reject a person after knowing their history, they have several legal issues to jump through unless they're in an exempted industry. They have to tell the person explicitly what about their criminal background keeps them from getting the job, and the applicant has some recourse if they disagree with that reasoning.
- intopieces 9y ago
  The theory being: employers will think twice about rejecting a candidate based on a criminal conviction if everything else pointed to a qualified candidate. Offers are always conditional on the passing of a background check.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    It is a theory that came from those who do not hire people.

ApolloFortyNine 9y ago

So they're just making it more clear to potential employees that if you don't lie now, you'll lose the offer? Seems either pretty useless and will just waste more of a company's time, or will just encourage more people to lie about prior convictions (as it will be literally spelled out that they'll rescind the offer if they have a criminal history).

kelukelugames 9y ago
Yeah, I think both laws are right steps in the right directions. But I don't know if they are big steps. The hope is by the time a company has invested enough to make a conditional offer that they are more willing to forgive a conviction history.
numbsafari 9y ago
I think the point is to encourage companies to go through the initial assessment of a potential employee in the hopes that they will find the candidate to be the best option, and then have to actively choose not to employ the person because of a prior conviction. In addition, they will have to evaluate (and it sounds like document) whether they feel the conviction would impact the candidate's ability to perform that specific job for that specific company. Today, many employers have a blanket "no convicts" check-box on their application forms. This makes it very hard for convicts to find work. Yes, many companies will continue to have this practice, and some for very good reason, but this creates the potential for a little more sanity to be applied.
syshum 9y ago
>>will just encourage more people to lie about prior convictions What is the point in lying about conviction? All convictions from every location are recorded into central databases run by companies like Lexis Nexus, so unless the employer is not using any kind of quality back ground check service lying is pointless as your criminal history is about 2 clicks away on a keyboard.
- lovich 9y ago
  I've had three background checks and theyve come back missing information I gave directly to the company doing the background check. A lot of companies seem to be no better than 10 minutes with Google and are just for show. The only companies I know of that do actual, accurate background checks go through state services. Doing that as a regular part of your business makes you fall under extra regulations though, so many companies skip it to save money
  - __jal 9y ago
    Same experience. Commercial background checks as used by companies today are useless except as checklist liability-limitation. If you actually care about finding out what a person might not be disclosing with any reliability, that costs a fair bit more.
- phil21 9y ago
  Most companies are not spending the thousand of dollars each on a real background check that is very likely to find "all" the things. > All convictions from every location are recorded into central databases This simply isn't true. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of cases are? But definitely not all. Plenty of court systems do not provide free electronic access, and you must show up in person to do a search. Companies of course have existed forever to do this work for you, but it's not a simple SQL query. The standard $35/ea background check is effectively a credit check. Even the next "tier" up that costs $500+ simply does a credit check to pull known addresses, and then sends someone in to those counties to check them individually. If you committed your crime in a county you never lived in, you have a pretty decent chance of it not coming up on a background check. I would say if you have a conviction in your past that is keeping you from employment by disclosing it, there really is nothing to lose by lying about it. It can really only help you. The vast majority of background checks are simply checking a compliance box using the lowest cost provider, and have a fairly high likelihood of a false negative. I assume they do fairly well at federal felonies and major crimes committed in major metropolitan areas. Beyond that it gets spotty quick.
SatvikBeri 9y ago
By the time a company makes a conditional offer they've generally invested the equivalent of several thousand dollars into the search, if not more. So they're much less likely to reject someone for a conviction then, as opposed to when filtering resumes.
mabbo 9y ago
Consider sunk costs. As an employer, you've found a brilliant person to fill a position. You've gone through days of interviews, and this is clearly the best candidate. You put out the offer, and then ask for a criminal background check. At that point, the candidate says "When I was 19 I got into a fight in a parking lot and was convicted of assault, had three years probation". Now you've gone to all this trouble and you like the guy, but have to decide whether that history matters or not. Before, you'd have simply filtered his resume from the pile at the start and never even interviewed him.
- SerLava 9y ago
  Man, that is incredibly refreshing.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  however there are jobs subject to state regulations that forbid those with criminal history from obtaining said job or even the certification. this is just feel good do nothing regulation. it benefits no one because the end result will be the same.
  - lsaferite 9y ago
    For a subset of jobs.
- ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
  As I said, seems like it's going to waste a lot of company money. Maybe small businesses will take the risk, but big company lawyers are going to be telling their people to eat the cost. Now you're even setting the basis of the argument that would be used in court, that the company only hired the felon because it was cheaper than finding a new candidate. Imagine if a cashier, who had previously been convicted of assault for the fight you mentioned, gets into a fight with a customer for whatever reason. If you want past criminals to be able to be hired, you need to have the civil legal system fixed so that a company couldn't be sued for hiring one. That's most of the reason why a company doesn't hire past criminals.
- 9y ago

CodeWriter23 9y ago

So I guess employers will now consider anyone who does not come in saying "I have a clean rap sheet" to be former criminals, and not make the conditional offer.

stale2002 9y ago
99% of people aren't going to go to the company they are applying to and say "oh, by the way, I know you didn't ask, but I have no criminal history". If a company doesn't ask a question, they almost certainly aren't going to recieve the answer unprompted.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  You underestimate the value of ascertaining such answers to an employer. The Wiz, a big box electronics store on the Eastern Seaboard was wiped out of existence by employees selling truckloads of inventory out the back door. The criminal history screening matters.

notyourday 9y ago

> Under this law, employers will no longer be allowed to ask applicants about their criminal conviction histories until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. So they are making employer waste the time interviewing someone that they will not hire because he or she has a conviction.

cavanasm 9y ago
If they decide to reject a person after knowing their history, they have several legal issues to jump through unless they're in an exempted industry. They have to tell the person explicitly what about their criminal background keeps them from getting the job, and the applicant has some recourse if they disagree with that reasoning.
intopieces 9y ago
The theory being: employers will think twice about rejecting a candidate based on a criminal conviction if everything else pointed to a qualified candidate. Offers are always conditional on the passing of a background check.
- notyourday 9y ago
  It is a theory that came from those who do not hire people.