Decent jobs (with criminal record)

Nut97

Hello, at the moment with having a criminal record I'm finding it hard to find any job which isn't warehouse or food production work for NMW. Now I know I should be thankful for a job which I have (temp) but I can't help but think thats me done now for the rest of my working life.
Has anyone managed to over come having a criminal record to have a decent paid job?

MackemPunk

Nut97 wrote: »

Hello, at the moment with having a criminal record I'm finding it hard to find any job which isn't warehouse or food production work for NMW. Now I know I should be thankful for a job which I have (temp) but I can't help but think thats me done now for the rest of my working life.
Has anyone managed to over come having a criminal record to have a decent paid job?

Asuming it isn't a major offense, just ride it out till its 'spent' then unless the vacancy needs a crb check you should be fine

Uncertain

Nut97 wrote: »

Hello, at the moment with having a criminal record I'm finding it hard to find any job which isn't warehouse or food production work for NMW. Now I know I should be thankful for a job which I have (temp) but I can't help but think thats me done now for the rest of my working life.
Has anyone managed to over come having a criminal record to have a decent paid job?

The more track record you can build up the more it will help.

Have you double checked when your conviction(s) become "spent" from the point of view of having to disclose them?

There are a number of organisations that specialise in helping ex-offenders, have you sought their help?

Another option is to look seriously at some form of self employment. Do you have, or could you learn, skills that would be easy to market?

Googlewhacker

Uncertain wrote: »

The more track record you can build up the more it will help.

Have you double checked when your conviction(s) become "spent" from the point of view of having to disclose them?

There are a number of organisations that specialise in helping ex-offenders, have you sought their help?

Another option is to look seriously at some form of self employment. Do you have, or could you learn, skills that would be easy to market?

I agree, you may not like the jobs you can get but as you have a record then maybe you need to do a year at one of these places to show that actually you are reliable and trustworthy

Nut97

Unfortunately (for me) they classed it as proceeds of crime so they could claim money back from me (which didn't happen) therefore is classed as a 'serious' crime which won't be spent for 7 years :eek:

Nut97

Uncertain wrote: »

The more track record you can build up the more it will help.

Have you double checked when your conviction(s) become "spent" from the point of view of having to disclose them?

There are a number of organisations that specialise in helping ex-offenders, have you sought their help?

Another option is to look seriously at some form of self employment. Do you have, or could you learn, skills that would be easy to market?

Hi Uncertain, the skills I do have all invole money (payroll and such) but due to my conviction, no bank, payroll department or insurance company will even look at me (which you can understand)

At the job centre one of the advisors did mention some but I had just got a job in the warehouse so didn't have the chance to follow it through.

Uncertain

Nut97 wrote: »

Hi Uncertain, the skills I do have all invole money (payroll and such) but due to my conviction, no bank, payroll department or insurance company will even look at me (which you can understand)

But, presumably, there is nothing legally to stop you setting up a book keeping service or similar? You could even do some in your spare time initially. Often, with this type of thing, one satisfied customer rapidly leads to a couple more......

Nut97

Uncertain wrote: »

But, presumably, there is nothing legally to stop you setting up a book keeping service or similar? You could even do some in your spare time initially. Often, with this type of thing, one satisfied customer rapidly leads to a couple more......

My solicitor advised against this, as if a customer went onto 'tweak' my figures and then said 'Oh it was Mr X I paid to do them, it was him' It could land me in trouble if they looked into my record...

Going to have to run now, will check the thread when i get back from work.

Googlewhacker

Nut97 wrote: »

My solicitor advised against this, as if a customer went onto 'tweak' my figures and then said 'Oh it was Mr X I paid to do them, it was him' It could land me in trouble if they looked into my record...

Going to have to run now, will check the thread when i get back from work.

Then if this is the case you need to look at a career change and almost starting from the beginning. Take any job you can and get a decent period of employment under your belt and then look at going into a differant route employment wise.

You could also be getting the education for the area you want to go into whilst in the first job

SarEl

To an extent, it depends on what you mean by a criminal record - what and how many and how long ago? You obviously aren't going to get over a recent conviction any time soon because people would probably be right to have doubts about you - it requires an effort on your part to prove yourself. And some areas of work may never be available to you. Have you considered retraining - a criminal record does not mean that you can't do any one of thousands of jobs, but it may mean that you have to relook at at your skills base, and show that you have learned the lesson. You can't expect (and to be fair, you don't seem to expect) everyone to fall over themselves to give you a helping hand or a good job. But it can be done. One of my paralegals has a (very distant now) conviction, and came to us originally as a recent offender (some 20 years ago!). She's worked her way up (from a very lowly position), the long and slow way, and she didn't get a lot of easy breaks in the first instance - she had a lot to prove before anyone would trust her. But she proved it. She worked hard, supported her own studying for quite some time to get on, and gave that bit more than she had to. So it's really up to you.

Nut97

SarEl wrote: »

To an extent, it depends on what you mean by a criminal record - what and how many and how long ago? You obviously aren't going to get over a recent conviction any time soon because people would probably be right to have doubts about you - it requires an effort on your part to prove yourself. And some areas of work may never be available to you. Have you considered retraining - a criminal record does not mean that you can't do any one of thousands of jobs, but it may mean that you have to relook at at your skills base, and show that you have learned the lesson. You can't expect (and to be fair, you don't seem to expect) everyone to fall over themselves to give you a helping hand or a good job. But it can be done. One of my paralegals has a (very distant now) conviction, and came to us originally as a recent offender (some 20 years ago!). She's worked her way up (from a very lowly position), the long and slow way, and she didn't get a lot of easy breaks in the first instance - she had a lot to prove before anyone would trust her. But she proved it. She worked hard, supported her own studying for quite some time to get on, and gave that bit more than she had to. So it's really up to you.

Hi, my conviction was put as proceeds of crime and it was just over 18 months ago, I'm still young so got time to rebuild my life and re-train. I do like the warehouse work so maybe something in warehouse logistics, all the members of low to med level management seem to enjoy the work and get well paid for it.