We recently did a poll on this subject on twitter and the results are fairly conclusive. Out of 98 votes, only 13% said they would hire an ex-con.

There could be many reasons for these results, but one high on the list may very well be a “once a criminal, always a criminal” frame of mind. There is good reason to think that way. According to the U.S. Department of Justice * Office of Justice Programs,

Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime.

Taking this into consideration, it’s not surprising that most people would not want to have an ex-con working for them.

Personally, I wouldn’t hire an ex-con, either. There may be a good reason why someone committed a crime, and it very well may have been a one-time-only thing. However, without knowing the circumstances behind every individual’s actions, people with bad credit wouldn’t make me look over my shoulder every two seconds. Here’s why. While not paying your bills isn’t legally or morally sound, I’d be willing to bet that most people have been late making a payment at least once in their lives. Things happen, and even the most responsible person can make mistakes. Right now, the economy isn’t doing so well, and it would be easy for any of us to fall behind. That’s not criminal, as long as you don’t completely slack off and stop making payments all together.

People who have been convicted of a crime can’t say they haven’t done anything wrong. For arguments sake, let’s not include those who were wrongly convicted and assume that all the ex-cons did something illegal. Now, there are people who have been convicted of theft, but they only stole a loaf of bread to feed their starving, homeless families. I understand this. My heart bleeds for them. But the law was still broken, and I can’t do anything about that. Sob story or no story, breaking the law is wrong. When you’re scanning applications to find suitable applicants, you won’t know if there is a good and sympathy-gaining reason behind someones conviction. All you’ll see is that they have a record, and you’ll have to base your decision on that.

On the flip side, we have people with bad credit. Of course, there are those whose credit is bad because they simply don’t care enough to pay their bills. There are those who buy, buy, buy, knowing that they are spending beyond their means, and they just don’t care. There are those who have hospital bills they never intend to pay. There are also those who lost their jobs and never meant to fall behind on making their payments. Again, if you’re looking at applications and credit reports, you won’t know why anyone’s credit is low. You’ll have to make a decision on the credit alone.

Some of you may be thinking, “That’s what interviews are for.”  That’s very true, but it’s not practical to give interviews to every person who submits an application or resume. That would be incredibly time-consuming and would only further complicate the process of narrowing down your applicants into “maybe” and “definitely not”. The more applicants you have, the longer the whole process takes. All the more reason to have people fill out applications and submit. Applications and resumes allow employers to not only weed out those with undesirable traits, experience, and marks to their reputation, but it allows employers to weed out those who simply aren’t qualified for the positions. It would be nice if everyone had the chance to give a pitch as to why they are the best choice, but it just doesn’t work that way, and for good reason.

So we have only generalities to go on. Faceless credit scores and criminal records. If I had two applicants in front of me, one with bad credit, the other with a criminal record, both who may or may not have good reasons for doing what they’ve done, I know which one I would rather hire. I would hire the person with bad credit, because while I don’t know whether they are intentionally defaulting on payments, I do know beyond a doubt that the person with the criminal record did something illegal. I would have to hope that the person with bad credit was simply down on their luck. I would probably feel good that I was giving them some hope at making their situation better. And I would hope that their yearning to end their hardship would make them a better, hard-working employee.

That was my opinion. Would love to hear yours? Please take the poll below and share your thoughts in the comments section.

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