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The only companies that have ever cared about running background checks in this industry in my personal experience have been the likes of Microsoft and Genentec

by joesmo 12y ago

The only companies that have ever cared about running background checks in this industry in my personal experience have been the likes of Microsoft and Genentech--giant corporations (on contract--not sure about their 'full-time' hiring policies). Everywhere else I've worked, both contract and full-time (quite a few places) have not cared. Perhaps you can target small to medium companies. Especially startups (if that's your thing) don't care too much about such frivolities. This comes form working mainly in the Bay Area, however. Speaking of which, if a recruiter is unwilling to work with you, stop talking to them. Recruiters are dime a dozen. When one drops out, ten pop up. There is no need to deal with the bad ones (almost all of them). I've noticed this in the Bay Area, Austin, Portland, and Seattle. I'm sure it's no different in Orlando. Basically, don't tell them about your past. They don't need to know anyway. Just ask about the hiring process and decline if it includes a background check. There's no need to be honest with recruiters. Seriously, if I had to guess, I'd say there are at least ten recruiters for every engineer, designer, etc. Now, if you need help getting in touch with more recruiters that's very simple. Use dice, linkedin, stackoverflow careers, or whatever. Just post your resume up and make sure your availability date is in the near future. You may want to use a separate email (and maybe even phone number) just for this as it's guaranteed to get recruiter's attention and offers (oftentimes referred to as recruiter spam).

bluedino 12y ago
>> the likes of Microsoft and Genentech--giant corporations I've found a lot of smaller companies (5-40 people) have owners who are careful to not hire people with criminal backgrounds. I'm assuming they don't want someone who's potentially a danger to other employees or customers, or capable of committing theft on their premises.
mcguire 12y ago
"Just ask about the hiring process and decline if it includes a background check." I'm not sure there's any need for that, especially since everyone will have some kind of background check. Just don't tell them about the conviction up-front. Don't lie about it either, when you get to the background check part, but in my experience that is usually fairly late in the game. But don't volunteer it. Note: I don't have any convictions, so no direct experience. Just been a contractor for most of my career.

by joesmo 12y ago

bluedino 12y ago

>> the likes of Microsoft and Genentech--giant corporations I've found a lot of smaller companies (5-40 people) have owners who are careful to not hire people with criminal backgrounds. I'm assuming they don't want someone who's potentially a danger to other employees or customers, or capable of committing theft on their premises.

mcguire 12y ago

"Just ask about the hiring process and decline if it includes a background check." I'm not sure there's any need for that, especially since everyone will have some kind of background check. Just don't tell them about the conviction up-front. Don't lie about it either, when you get to the background check part, but in my experience that is usually fairly late in the game. But don't volunteer it. Note: I don't have any convictions, so no direct experience. Just been a contractor for most of my career.