by Becky Cole

Finding a job can be a tough thing when you have a criminal history, but it is not impossible to do. With persistence, you can make it happen. Some employers will do a background check before they offer the job to you, and others will wait until after you have been hired to do it.

Following are some things to keep in mind as you are filling out applications.

Understand your report
There is a difference between being arrested and being convicted. If you aren’t sure about what it says, get a copy of your own report. If you have a misdemeanor, or a simple arrest, you can go to your local police department and get a copy of you report. If you have a felony, you will need to go to your state police to get it.

A deferred prosecution, the proceedings in a criminal case are put off for a period of time, say one year, subject to certain conditions. The typical condition is that the defendant not be charged or convicted of other crimes during this period. At the end of the time period, if all conditions have been met, the charges are dismissed. No plea of guilty or judgment of conviction is entered. If the defendant doesn't comply with the conditions of the deferred prosecution, the prosecution of the case continues and the defendant can either plead guilty or go to trial.

With a deferred judgment, the defendant must enter a plea of guilty. The case is continued for a period of time subject to certain conditions, usually including that the defendant not be convicted of another crime. If the defendant satisfies these conditions, at the end of the time period the guilty plea is considered withdrawn and no judgment of conviction or sentence is entered. While the defendant is free to say he's never been convicted of a crime, the guilty plea could have possible future ramifications. For example, deferred judgments are counted in computing a defendant's criminal history score under the federal sentencing guidelines.

Read the question and answer the question
Have you ever been convicted of, been given probation, or deferred adjudication in lieu of sentencing or pled no contest for any offense other than a minor traffic violation?

O YES O NO
If YES, please explain fully:

Have you ever been charged with an unresolved criminal charge? (Have you ever been charged with a crime that has not yet resulted in a plea of guilty, court trail, deferred adjudication or dropping of the charge?)

O YES O NO
If YES, please explain fully:

Read the question, honestly answer the question they asked, and then stop. This isn’t the place to go into a great amount of detail in trying to explain things. Keep in mind that there is a very limited amount of space, and use it wisely. They aren’t looking for an explanation or a justification. They only want to know what it was you did, how long ago you did it, and are you done with it. Here’s the place to write, “will discuss at interview,” as well.

Different applications ask different questions. For example, some applications will ask if you have been convicted in the last 7 years. If your conviction was 10 years ago, you can honestly answer “no”.

If the honest answer to this question is, “yes” , it is usually a good idea to write “willing to discuss at interview” so that you are inviting them to discuss it with you before they make a decision on whether or not to hire you. This tells the employer that you have learned from what you did and are interested in telling them how you have dealt with this in a positive manner.

Avoid the urge to not answer the question at all. Not answering the question is the same as lying on an application, and it is grounds for termination, when they find out about it. Someone I met recently said he once was hired by a company who knew about his criminal history. They knew about the changes he made in his life to make sure those things didn’t happen again, and they offered him a job. He filled out the paper work and started the job the next day. One day later they came to him and told him they had to fire him because he lied on the application.

They knew about his history, and yet he purposely didn’t answer the question on the application because he didn’t want it to be in his employee file that he had a criminal history. The lesson he learned from this is to always answer that question on the application.

Employers don’t ask this question for the fun of it. Many employers simply can’t hire employees who have criminal backgrounds. Typically this has something to do with potential liability (the fact that they could be sued) if there is a repeat offense. If you have a felony, you may also be barred from jobs in government, healthcare or childcare (to name a few examples).

On the other side of this, though, is about your own integrity. Would you rather get a job because you lied, and have to spend the time you are there wondering when you are going to get caught? Or would you rather spend more of your time showing the employer that you really were the right person to be hired for the job?

The rest of the application
Your criminal history is what you did. How you are dealing with it is who you are. The way you fill out the rest of the application tells that part of your story. There isn’t much room on an application to tell them about yourself and why you will make a good employee, so don’t waste the space.

Read the job description. Look for key words about tasks and skills they state are involved in the job, and tell them you have those skills and abilities.

Be sure to list all positive, relevant work experience you’ve acquired either before or after your conviction. If you worked or received training while incarcerated, you may want to list this information in your work experience.

It’s the difference of telling an employer you will be an asset to them, or telling them all you plan to do is show up so you can collect a check, that will help you to get the job.