Creating Success with a Criminal Record: Achieve Your Goals

By Archie R. Whitehill

This book is aimed at helping people with criminal records readjust to live beyond prison or jail. Primarily it is an in-depth guide to gaining self confidence and to obtaining a job that will provide a path to a career providing the money, satisfaction, and success into the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796046793

Archie R. Whitehill

Archie R. Whitehill has worked with ex-offenders (Returning Citizens) for about 20 years. He has taught pre-release classes in prisons and jails, and has worked as a post-release case manager, working one-on-one with men and women who have completed their sentences. As the VASAVOR (Virginia Serious and Violent Offender Reentry) Case Manager for STEP-UP, Incorporated for 13 years I worked closely with Department of Corrections staff, particularly Probation & Parole, with Sheriff's staff, with the Community Services Board, and with many agencies and other non-profit organizations. Most importantly, I worked closely, one-on-one, with hundreds of people, men and women, who had been incarcerated for violent and serious felonies. Convictions ranged from drug distribution, to murder, to rape, to sex offenses, to child molestations. My responsibilities were to conduct classroom training and work with ex-offender clients in the field, assisting with housing, employment, re-integration into society,

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Copyright © 2019 by Archie R. Whitehill.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/15/2019

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Let’s Get Started

It All Begins With You

Who Am I?

Look Closely At Your Interpersonal Habits

No One Will Hire Me

Some Will Not Hire You—So What?

Am I Really Ready To Meet An Employer?

Bottom Line Thinking—It’s The Money

What Do Employers Really Want?

Required Skills For The Job

From Go-To To No-Go Jobs

Résumé—The Bait Used To Catch Employers’ Interest

Preparing For The Hunt

Your Application Is Also Your Ambassador

The Interview—Your First Portal Into The Realm Of Employment

References

Preparing A Job Packet

Your Job Packet? What’s That?

In Conclusion—Time To Do Your Thing

TO MY WIFE, CLERIECE, FROM WHOM ALL MY INSPIRATION SPRINGS.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I AM DEEPLY INDEBTED to Sandra W. Brandt, executive director of STEP-UP, Inc., who took a chance on hiring me about a quarter century or so ago and taught me the skills to work with and assist people who were encumbered with criminal records. She is truly the guru of reentry. Thanks also to Sheriff Gabriel Morgan Sr., who was my program landlord at Newport News City Jail for almost fifteen years.

Further gratitude is owed to too many people to name separately: men and women within the Virginia Department of Corrections, probation and parole chiefs and officers, local and regional jail staff members, community services counselors, all those who do what I did to help returning citizens reenter our communities, and perhaps most importantly, to the thousands of clients with whom I worked, learning from them as I assisted them.

INTRODUCTION

A S THE VASAVOR (Virginia Serious and Violent Offender Reentry) case manager for STEP-UP, Inc. ( http://www.stepupincorporated.org ), for thirteen years I worked closely with the Department of Corrections staff, particularly Probation and Parole, with the sheriff’s staff, with the Community Services Board, and with many agencies and other nonprofit organizations. Most importantly, I worked closely, one-on-one, with hundreds of people, men and women, who had been incarcerated for violent and serious felonies. Convictions ranged from drug distribution to murder, to rape, to sex offenses, to child molestations.

I worked for STEP-UP, Inc. for over fifteen years and thoroughly enjoyed my work. My responsibilities were to conduct classroom training and work with ex-offender clients in the field, assisting with housing, employment, reintegration into society, and other aspects of helping people who have recently been released from incarceration. Additionally, my work included visiting correctional facilities throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, working with individual inmates and groups of inmates to help prepare them for their release back into society.

Job development has been an important aspect of my career since 1982. My first job after leaving the military was with a government contractor, reviewing résumés and conducting initial interviews. I worked for several other companies requiring the review of applications and résumés and conducting interviews of prospective employees.

While working on my master’s degree at Old Dominion University, I operated my own business, the Write Place Inc., which specialized in creating résumés for a variety of people, from recent graduates to retiring military personnel, as well as for those already in the workforce who were changing jobs for one reason or another.

During a four-year stint as a department head for a local business school, I taught career development classes. Career development, job development, looking for work—these all mean about the same thing. The key feature of most who look for work, ex-offenders or not, is that a person who wants to work is not working.

While working as a Job Corps placement coordinator, my job involved assisting graduates from the Federal Job Corps program to transition from student to employee. With this population, the attitude of the job seeker is also a major hurdle to overcome. Attitude and self-confidence are key tools any job seeker must use. That is true for new graduates, seasoned veterans, skilled workers, and people with criminal records.

My position with STEP-UP, Inc. centered on helping ex-offenders become employed. The clientele with whom I worked included men and women convicted of misdemeanors to long-term inmates who have committed violent and serious offenses. I mention this because if these violent and serious offenders can find decent employment, any ex-offender should be able to do the same. Let me repeat: positive attitude is the key.

LET’S GET STARTED

T HE PROCESS ONE uses to find work, develop a career, or become gainfully employed is not that much different between someone who has a criminal record and someone who does not have a criminal record. The difference is in the mind of the person with a criminal record. No one can change that poisonous thought process of an ex-offender except that ex-offender.

The same basic steps need to be taken, and a strong focus on getting employed must be developed. The main difference is that a person with a criminal record must, for the most part, not make his or her record a part of the sales pitch to an employer. Think about it: are you trying to sell your criminal skills or your productive work skills?

Overcoming an employer’s reluctance to hire an ex-offender or, as they are called now, a returning citizen is not as difficult as is popularly believed. So many who have criminal records have been falsely led to believe that no one will hire someone with a felony record. That is just not true. My direct, one-on-one, hands-on experience in working with returning citizens is strong evidence that runs contrary to that false belief that ex-offenders or ex-felons cannot be hired, that employers