felons.work

Inspiration

Through interviewing a few felons, I found that the most felons I spoke to said that people didn't believe they would want to work, or would work and find a job. This led to the idea of listing positions that felons did get. Furthermore, they said that people looked down on them making the experience of finding a job harder. I needed to take the idea seriously. Lastly, they said that people were afraid of them. So, from this, I knew that it had to be a design that was approachable.

I thought that an anonymous group resume might just be easier on most people to go to on the web and read. There is the assurance that posts would be protected for those posting (I never collect the name or business that the felon works at). But, also that there would be encouragement that, "Yes, you as a felon can get work and here is a place that you could work at."

Furthermore, the felons.work website works against stigma in showing that felons that have served their debt to society can and will work.

How it works

It collects anonymous job stories then searches on the title and location of those jobs stories and presents them in a link format for others to also apply to.

Challenges I ran into

The single biggest challenge was finding out what challenges were in the lives of felons when it came to finding work.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The site is done and can effect change.

What I learned

I'm a newcomer to the Indeed.com API. The API has a great deal of potential for good results in the world (introducing people to jobs they can get and them getting jobs is a wonderful thing). It should prove useful for many other projects and I'm glad that I learned it.

What's next for felons.work

I think many felons don't know about indeed.com, I might include further search function on the felons.work website for a place that felons can search for work.

Built With

• heroku
• indeed.com
• javascript
• php