NCJ Number
171904
Journal
HR Magazine Volume: 42 Issue: 12 Dated: (December 1997) Pages: 92-94,96
Date Published
1997
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Human resource professionals who help prisoners improve their interviewing skills at mock job fairs held inside prisons return from the experience with a new attitude about hiring ex-offenders.
Abstract
More than 500 human resource professionals have attended these 1-day volunteer events, which aim to improve the job-seeking skills of offenders who are soon to be released. Correctional life skills instructors and offender job placement specialists train the job fair participants in interviewing skills and etiquette before the offenders meet with the volunteer human resource professionals. The mock interviews give participants an opportunity to test what they learned. The human resource professionals usually conduct six one-one-one mock interviews lasting 30 minutes each. The first 20 minutes are spent on the interview; the employers use the final 10 minutes to give the offenders immediate feedback on their performance. Human resource professional Frank Henry was reluctant to take part due to the murder of his wife 10 years earlier. However, the interviews changed his perspective. He was impressed with the inmates' openness and frankness. Henry has hired 18 ex-offenders since his first experience with a mock job fair. Other human resource directors have also changed their attitudes, although not all professionals change their hiring practices. However, practical business reasons and the estimate that 5.1 percent of the population will go to prison at some point indicate the benefits of considering parolees and ex-offenders a vital source of labor in the future. Full employment and intense competition for workers may also be changing attitudes toward hiring ex-offenders. List of 4 related publications available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service