HR tool helps job applicants with criminal records land jobs | Cornell Chronicle

Despite a Stanford University degree and an impressive resume, Jodi Anderson Jr. couldn’t land a job.

“They’d run a background check and say, ‘Hey you didn’t tell me you were incarcerated when you were a teenager, and that you just got out three years ago. We’re not taking that risk,’” he said.

Finally, in the last round of interviews with Reddit, he laid it all out: Yes, he’d been to prison. But he’d done a lot of academic work in prison and after: Cornell Prison Education Program, Cornell classes, certifications and a Stanford degree.

“That’s what got me the job,” Anderson said. “They said, ‘We want to be part of the next chapter and not hold against you what we actually think is pretty compelling.’”

That experience inspired Restorative Records, an online tool where job applicants with criminal records can provide context about their past and details about education, rehabilitation and good conduct. Anderson, now director of technological innovation for the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative (CJEI) in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, co-created the tool with Timothy McNutt, director of CJEI, and Matt Saleh, CJEI co-director.

Cornell Human Resources plans to roll out a pilot of the Restorative Records tool across the Ithaca and Cornell Tech campuses before the end of the year.

“We’re trying to address the biases that exist in hiring flows,” Anderson said. The bias against formerly incarcerated people isn’t intentional, he added. “I just think it’s built into the system.”

An eCornell Keynote podcast will describe the effort Nov. 4 at 12:30 p.m. “Fair Chance Hiring: How HR Innovation is Creating Job Pathways for Justice Impacted People” will feature Anderson; Christine Lovely, vice president and chief human resources officer; and team members from the Yang-Tan WorkABILITY Incubator at the ILR School’s Center for Applied Research on Work discussing fair chance hiring and Restorative Records.

And the initiative is expanding beyond Cornell. CJEI has received a State University of New York (SUNY) Innovative Instruction Technology Grant to bring the tool to the SUNY system.

“There’s a labor shortage,” Anderson said. “Well, there’s a whole group of people who qualify. We’re missing out on them because our system just hasn’t been built for that.”

Benefiting employers

More than 70 million Americans have a criminal record, and nearly 75% of those who were formerly incarcerated were still unemployed a year after their release, according to a 2022 White House report.

But workers with criminal records often perform better at the job, are promoted faster and have fewer incidents at the workplace than workers without criminal records, McNutt said.

“We want to provide tools to help people overcome that hurdle, but also so employers can benefit from hiring this talented workforce,” he said.

Job openings that used to attract 30 to 40 applicants a few years ago now sometimes get only 10, so recruiting nontraditional talent to Cornell is crucial, said Donna Lynch-Cunningham, assistant dean of human resources for the College of Arts and Sciences, which will participate in the pilot.

“This pilot program aligns with our vision of being renowned for the way we value people and highlights the skills and unique experiences of nontraditional talent, all while assisting us in addressing our hiring needs,” Lynch-Cunningham said.

“Cornell has always been at the forefront of hiring justice-impacted individuals,” she said. “What we’re doing now is formalizing that process and making it more transparent with this system.”

Cornell HR has hired Thomas Jones, MILR ’24, himself a justice-impacted individual, as a fair employment practice specialist to help implement the tool at Cornell, train hiring managers and support Cornell Prison Education Program alumni use the tool. 

“I think this new initiative is going to make a lot of job applicants comfortable reporting out that information,” Lynch-Cunningham said, “because we’ll be demonstrating again, our sincere effort to be inclusive.”