Expanding Access with Fair Chance Employment Policies

Organizations typically want to broaden talent pools rather than limit them, and in the age of the “Great Resignation,” the employee-driven labor market has made competition for talent fierce (Bayraktar, 2023). While employers have worked to make the application process as straightforward as possible to remove barriers to entry, there is still work to do when it comes to facilitating the process for people with conviction histories. One of the toughest decisions for a job candidate with a criminal conviction in their past is how to introduce that information during the recruitment process. A number of jobs still ask about criminal convictions on the initial job application, putting the candidate in a difficult position that pits practicality against honesty. Should the candidate be less than truthful on the application in the hopes that the employer will not eventually run a formal background check? Should the candidate be completely honest on the application, knowing that it might get the application summarily rejected? If the application does not ask about criminal convictions, but a background check is required to receive an offer, should the candidate volunteer information about the conviction during the interview in an effort to offer mitigating circumstances?