Fair-chance hiring: a real guide if you have a record
If you have a record, you already know: the job search is harder. About 70 million Americans are in the same spot — roughly one in three adults. Unemployment for this group runs more than five times the national average.
The good news: 32 states and over 150 cities have ban-the-box or fair-chance laws that delay background-check questions until later in the process. The bad news: a law doesn't help if the posting never reaches you, or if the employer filters you out before a person ever sees your resume. Here's what actually works.
How to tell an employer is fair-chance
- Language in the posting. Look for "fair-chance," "second-chance," "all qualified applicants including those with arrest or conviction records," or "individual consideration for applicants with criminal history."
- Named coalitions. Fair Chance Business Pledge. Second Chance Business Coalition. The Responsible Business Initiative for Justice. These keep member lists you can check.
- No "have you been convicted" checkbox on the initial application. Most ban-the-box laws ban that upfront.
- Industry tells. Warehouse, food service, construction, and parts of hospitality hire fair-chance routinely. Tech and finance are more mixed.
Real companies that hire fair-chance
- Shopify Logistics
- Home Depot (Path to Pro)
- Dave's Killer Bread
- Greyston Bakery (Yonkers, NY)
- Nehemiah Manufacturing
- Total Wine & More
- Koch Industries
- Target (after conditional offer)
- Starbucks (Military and Second Chance Hiring)
Jobeezy keeps a live list of 164 confirmed fair-chance employers (updated quarterly). See the full list.
What we do automatically
Turn on the fair-chance filter in your Jobeezy profile and we only match and apply to employers in our registry. No wasted applications. No getting all the way to a background check only to have the offer pulled.
Fair-chance was the first filter we built, not an add-on.
References
- NELP ban-the-box state and local guide
- Prison Policy Initiative — Out of Prison & Out of Work
- Second Chance Business Coalition
See something wrong? Email hello@jobeezy.com. We log corrections in the changelog.