Will An Employer Hire Someone With Misdemeanor Convictions In Their Background?

For most people, background checks are simply a passing event of the hiring process, while for others, particularly those with one or even multiple misdemeanors, the process can be tense, nerve-racking, and has the potential to be an enormous lost opportunity for a great position.

Although there’s nothing that can be done to keep a misdemeanor from showing up in Personal History Report/Criminal Background Check there are steps you can take to minimize the damage when it does.

Due to growing concerns about employee violence, theft and other criminal conduct, more employers are using criminal background checks to screen potentially problematic job applicants.

What strategy should you really take with employers? Is it even possible to still get the job with a misdemeanor?

Personal History Report/Criminal Background Check

Some employers, like those in child care, are required by law to screen applicants for certain crimes. Others do so voluntarily to improve the quality of their workforce. Highly publicized tragedies have heightened concern about a safe workplace. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates an average of twenty workers are murdered at work each week and another 18,000 are assaulted. While criminal background checks can be useful tools to filter potential troublemakers, employers must tread cautiously, as many states limit how such checks may be used.

Workforce Violence

Workplace violence is a major public health concern that has increased in incidence and attention within the past decade. From 1993-1999 alone, 1.7 million incidents of workplace violence occurred annually in the US, with 12% of all victims reporting physical injuries.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) define workplace violence as any physical assault, threatening behavior or verbal abuse occurring in the workplace. Violence includes overt and covert behaviors ranging in aggressiveness from verbal harassment to murder.

Violence claims a significant toll on all. In addition to the physical, emotional and mental affects on the victim, other negative effects include: financial loss resulting from insurance claims, lost productivity, legal expenses, property damage, and possible staff replacement costs.

You better believe when there is an incident, HR will make a beeline for your Personal History Report/Criminal Background Check. If there were prior misdemeanors, (or even felonies with some tolerant employees) the company will be tasked to explain why they made the decision to bring you on-board.

"What did you say will come up on your Background?!"

How To Handle Misdemeanors With Employers

1) Get a copy of your own Personal History Report/Criminal Background Check. — It’s important to know exactly what an employer will see when they pull your background.

2) When given the application, answer it truthfully. — You’d be surprised to know many companies do not have a clear-cut policy on what misdemeanors are considered “deal-breakers”. You just make it easy for then when you say “no” even though you did have prior misdemeanor convictions. They simply write you off as someone who lied on their application.

In many states, the convictions may only be considered to the extent they relate to an applicants’ suitability for the specific job in question. An employer will be required that if an employer’s decision not to hire an applicant is based in whole or in part on criminal history record information, then the employer must so notify the applicant in writing.

3) Do not become overly defensive or try to minimize what had occurred. — Someone’s view of your charge(s) may range from complete unconcern to disgust. To try and dismiss what happened will have negative results.

The reality is a job-related misdemeanor can be the “kiss of death”. No decision-maker wants the personal liability that they were aware there was theft, violence, or abuse from your previous employer and they took the chance of introducing that to their organization.

Regardless, you’d be surprised how understanding (and forgiving) some interviewers and HR managers can be sometimes. No one is perfect. Perhaps you were going through a tough divorce? Perhaps you were making a tough transition out of the military? This can explain why you overlooked paying your insurance bill and were arrested for driving on a suspended license. Or maybe you bounced a bad check? Things happen.

4) Wait until you have established a rapport with the employer and they have demonstrated a sincere interest. — You know you will have to explain your past; but doing so too early in the process will eliminate your chances prematurely.

5) You will lose. — Some employers do not tolerate any misdemeanors. All the rapport, comradery, mutual respect, and disclosure will not overcome that. It’s their company and they make the rules.

Sure the temptation to “beat yourself up over” what happened is there, but you can’t allow a small, temporary setback to keep you from your career goals.

Remember there are people with similar criminal offenses like yours that were offered great jobs. They overcame their past. Will you?