Preparing to interview: Someone with a criminal record

The rails What you may not ask

Have you ever been arrested? An arrest is an accusation that may have gone nowhere. Basing any part of a decision on one invites the disparate-impact challenge you are trying to avoid.
Anything that becomes a blanket rule. "We don't hire felons" is the single most legally exposed sentence in hiring.
Sealed or expunged records. Under Indiana Code 35-38-9-10 the person may lawfully answer no, and holding an expunged record against them is unlawful.

The rails What you may ask

Convictions, asked consistently of every candidate for the role.
The three Green factors, individually: the nature and gravity of the offense, the time that has passed since it or since the sentence ended, and its relevance to the specific duties of this job (EEOC Enforcement Guidance, 2012).
Everything about the work itself: skills, reliability, judgment, references, work samples.

General information for interview preparation as of August 2026, not legal advice. Your employment counsel owns your policies.

Avoid this The mistake most employers make

Turning the interview into a hearing. A candidate discloses, the room goes quiet, and the interviewer starts asking what happened, who else was involved, why. The details almost never change a sound job-related decision, and the cross-examination costs you the candidate who was honest while rewarding the one who said nothing.

Instead What actually predicts performance

Not the record. Structured questions asked identically of everyone, scored as you go, combined mechanically (Sackett et al., 2022; Kuncel et al., 2013). For hands-on roles a work sample is both the strongest and the fairest single method, because the test is the job (Roth, Bobko and McFarland, 2005).

Build the interview that does this

Worth knowing The evidence

81 percent of HR professionals report workers with records perform the same or better than their peers, and 85 percent report cost per hire is the same or lower (SHRM and Charles Koch Institute, 2021). Johns Hopkins measured retention 3.5 points better across 500-plus hires with records over 40 months.

What is actually available to you

Federal Bonding: ACTIVE. Free fidelity bond covering the first six months, up to $25,000 in some states.
WOTC: IN HIATUS since December 31, 2025. Keep screening and keep Form 8850 documentation in case of retroactive reinstatement, but do not build the business case on it.
Indiana HIRE and WorkOne placement support: active.

Both chairs Practice the moment

Read their chair The silence after “The silence after I tell them. Watching their face change.” Open → Practice yours The disclosure moment “If I respond wrong, I create legal exposure. If I freeze, I humiliate someone who just trusted me.” Open →

Reading the other chair is the fastest empathy training available, and it is free.

Before you move on: one if-then

When a candidate tells me about a conviction in an interview,

I will… pick one or write your own

Stays on your device. Never sent to us. See all your commitments →

Naming a specific if-then plan improves follow-through by a medium-to-large margin over holding the same goal without one (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of Effects and Processes, 2006; update Sheeran, Listrom and Gollwitzer, 2024).