[michaelochurch]

Don't deliberately lie to employers who ask about your criminal record. The only ones who won't go absolutely apeshit on you when they find out are the ones who would hire you anyways if you just told them in the first place.

What does "go absolutely apeshit" mean? I contend that there's risk of termination, likely without severance. Anything more would expose the individual in a way that most people would avoid.

Also, "employer" isn't a monolithic concept. The players all have different motivations. Maybe HR dings everyone with a conviction. He hides it, gets through the HR wall. His boss likes him. He gets in, does great work for 9 months. Then HR finds out. His boss has to fire him. His boss isn't mad at him (maybe at the situation, but not at him). In that very plausible scenario, yes he's fired, but he gets a decent reference.

If it's between the risk of getting fired later and not being able to get a job at all, then you take the former.

I proposed "odds and evens" because I don't think either of us know which is the better strategy (lie vs. disclose) and I think mixing is the way to go.

[droopyEyelids]

If I could interject 2 brief points:

In some industries, your advice isn't practical. Tptacek's home base being Chicago probably brings commodities trading firms to the fore of his mind.

Otherwise, your ideas benefit the individual with an almost adversarial approach to companies. Tptacek looks at things from the position of that adversary. Your advice stands to surprise the established order... Instead of relying on the mercy of an all-powerful business benefactor, someone who followed you would continue operating under their own power, through their own exploit.

So it's possible you guys might agree in certain cases but it seems unlikely you'll come to public agreement on the hypotheticals here.

Also, I like your blog.

[michaelochurch]

Right, I presume tptacek to be older and also see him as more in line with lawful good. I'm closer to chaotic good.

It's generational, I think. My parents grew up in a time when it was unthinkable to do some of the things I've advocated (e.g. concealing a felony record, using harsh tactics to improve a reference) but, in their time, it was much more the norm for employers to be decent. You wouldn't get fired because your new boss (hired 2 days ago) wanted his high school friend in your position. That happens all the time now. My parents' generation grew up before the corporate social contract fell to pieces. It vanished for them before most of them could get to the top of anything, but they still want to believe in it and have a hatred for the rule-breakers at the top who killed it.

Millennial rule-breakers are different. We never believed anyone took the rules seriously, and we break them from the bottom.

I was born in 1983 (after the apocalypse had begun) and the differences in assumptions are huge. I never grew up thinking anything positive about corporations in general. Specific companies, sure. Microsoft seemed OK, Google was neat for some time. But it was clear even in the mid-90s that most of them had turned brazenly evil and weren't coming back.

As a generation, we are ethical, but we have more fluency with rules than older generations. None of us would think twice about bumping a performance-based bonus to the top bucket (e.g. in finance where that's important for future jobs). That's just something you do. It's none of their business and the lie is what they get for asking. On the flip side, there are a lot of things that most of us find disgusting and truly unethical (war, pollution, oppression of overseas workers) that Baby Boomer CEOs don't seem to oppose.

Frankly, in a world with the Koch Brothers and Xe/Blackwater and private health insurance, I don't give the square root of a fuck if someone decides to lie on his resume. I don't lie, but that's because I have a good resume and don't want to gamble credibility, but other people who do it are a rounding error, compared to the real shit going down.

[Daniel_Newby]

> What does "go absolutely apeshit" mean?

1. Criminal complaint that results in arrest. Youthful folly can be forgiven, but being caught in a calculated adult deception is pretty much nonrecoverable.

2. Audits of everything he touched, with a view towards uncovering a repeat of his earlier deceptions. Even if he is innocent, there is a good chance that the security consultants and forensic accountants will find something interesting. Something that the detective investigating the case will not understand.

[michaelochurch]

Criminal complaint that results in arrest.

Lying in a job search, while usually unethical, is not always illegal. Most of the lies people tell to make themselves look more impressive or to conceal blemishes are not in violation of law.

Job fraud is pretty tightly defined. If you cannot perform the job (or have no intent to do so) and know it beforehand, you're committing job fraud. It's illegal (it's fraud) and you can go to jail for it. The same is true if you feign qualifications to get a job you cannot legally perform (e.g. quack doctors). Also highly illegal.

However, if your deception makes you a more attractive candidate for a job you can perform, then it's not job fraud. It might be unethical, but it's not jailable.

In fact, job search lies are only cause for termination if the employer can establish (sometimes requiring cavity searches of personnel decisions) that the person would not have been hired were the truth known. If the company only hires 3.5+ GPAs as a matter of HR policy and he turned a 2.8 into 3.7, that's "for cause" (even if he was a great employee) because there is an internally published and consistent policy and he didn't fit. However, if the person concealed a 5-month gap in employment history, that might have been a factor but the onus is on employer to establish that it constitutes "cause".

However, with this particular case (concealed felony conviction) the employer will have almost no controversy on that one when it comes to firing for cause. I don't think anyone doubts that. If he gets found out and fired, he can't expect severance.

Audits of everything he touched, with a view towards uncovering a repeat of his earlier deceptions.

Yeah, he's got to be whiter than white, ethically speaking, from here on out, except when there is strategic necessity. Avoiding long-term unemployment constitutes "strategic necessity". Once you're in check, the way he is, you really have to limit your lies and make them count. Picking your battles becomes key.