Interesting question from a woman who wants her brother in law to find work. He is a felon and is having a hard time getting a job:
”This person is 24 years old and is under medical treatment for bipolar disorder and ADD. He is a high school graduate, but has not pursued any vocational training beyond that (this is not a possibility now, either, due to financial constraints and a need to gain employment ASAP to support himself). Previous jobs have included kitchen work in a restaurant, food prep and counter work in a deli/bagel shop, roofing, and warehouse jobs. He has left these jobs due to either conflict with management/coworkers, or a lack of steady hours.
Now, understandably, he’s having tremendous difficulty lining up any kind of work.”
The ask.metafilter community have lots of interesting answers.
Ranging from the unethical, but extremely practical: “The other option is to put “no” to the felony question on employment applications. IANAL but I am almost certain that this is NOT illegal but is simply a civil matter, providing he’s not applying for something like daycare or some sort of licensed trade. The worst that can happen is they do a background check and tell him to get lost. This won’t work for getting a job at IBM of course, but a lot of businesses don’t run checks, particularly small businesses and quite a few entry-level positions. If he starts small, it may not come up later — and even if it does, he has still scored a nice period of employment.”
To more conventional suggestions about going to college or back to kitchen work. It sure is no easy way to solve this, but the man is 24 years old and is ready to make changes to his life. Read the full post here.