The myth of the “clean” record: Why your background check policy is flawed | ep124

Emily Baxter, director of non-profit WE ARE ALL CRIMINALS, joins the High Volume Hiring Podcast to discuss the impact on people and employers of 1/4 of the U.S. population having criminal convictions and the opportunities that exist to employers of employing these people.

Not only do these people deserve a second chance when many of us have had far more chances than that, but the data show that they often outperform the other 3/4 who also committed crimes but didn’t get caught.

Organizations like MOD Pizza and Dave’s Killer Bread understand that excluding from their workforce people who happened to have been caught is detrimental not just to society, but to their businesses. Employers should take the convictions into account and refrain from placing someone recently convicted of embezzlement into a financial role, but hiring those with convictions leads to more a more productive workforce with lower turnover and, therefore, reduced recruitment costs.