Guest Commentary | Second chance hiring events remove barriers to work
As parents, we help our children develop resilience through life’s storms. We remind them that their past does not define them-and that what matters most is how they learn, grow and rise from hard moments.
Progress over perfection. We believe this as parents, but we forget it as employers.
Outdated hiring practices and cold and impersonal online application algorithms are excluding countless smart, motivated people who may not be the “perfect” candidates on paper but are eager to show up, work hard and grow into the role.
I can tell you that overlooking these strong, resilient candidates is a mistake.
For the past five years, we at Better Together have partnered with churches across the country to host hiring events through our Nationwide Day of Second Chances. These aren’t your typical job fairs-they are celebrations of new beginnings for people with incredible potential.
We offer hope, connection and the support people need to step confidently into their next chapter. Job seekers can come as they are, no suits required. We offer free haircuts, clothes, resume reviews and interview coaching, all from trained volunteers who are here to help.
The results? Last year, a dozen churches brought nearly 100 employers together with almost 2,000 job seekers in two states and the District of Columbia. Hundreds received free resume and interview coaching, connected with hiring managers and were hired on the spot.
More broadly, our job fair program has helped more than 40,000 applicants connect with job opportunities across 24 states. On average, 60% find work within six weeks. These aren’t just stats — these are lives changed.
That includes Lawrencia, a young mother who attended our Miami job fair last spring, where she secured a job in the hospitality industry. She’d been out of work since giving birth to her daughter shortly after graduating high school in 2019 but never gave up-she just needed a foot in the door to show the world what she could offer.
In Jacksonville, Navy veteran Gena attended one of our second chance job fairs hoping to find stable, long-term employment after overcoming some mental health challenges.
“I don’t want to come to work just to get a paycheck. I want to come to work and find that second chance out there,” she told a local TV station. She did the inner work and was ready to begin again.
With labor shortages in industries like construction, hospitality, retail and industry trades, top companies and state business organizations (including the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida) are finally catching on that second chance hiring is a win-win for employers and society at large-especially the six million Floridians with an arrest history.
It costs Florida taxpayers nearly $30,000 a year to house an inmate in state prison, and nearly 75% of those who served their time are still unemployed a year later. People lose hope when they can’t find a job and two-thirds of them will return to jail.
Companies like JPMorgan Chase, AT&T, Microsoft and Walmart are taking action to help these citizens get back to work. Nearly one in 10 new hires at JPMorgan Chase has a previous record with no bearing on their role, which seems pretty reasonable given national averages.
For comparison, one in three Americans has an arrest record-which means if we left it up to the algorithms to decide, a third of America would never find work again.
Companies of all sizes have an opportunity to rise to the occasion and remove barriers to work through human connection, joining a collective solution that fills business needs while bringing gainful employment to residents who need a hand up, not a handout.
This April, our Nationwide Day of Second Chances hiring events will take or have taken place in Fort Myers; Jacksonville; Largo; Miami; Ocala; Port St. Lucie; Washington, D.C.; Ironton, Ohio; and Chicago, Illinois.
These job fairs offer hope and a solution to help our neighbors find work, restore their dignity and keep society healthy and working. Let’s practice what we preach to our children and look beyond the past and toward future potential instead.
To learn more about how to support or participate in Nationwide Day of Second Chances near you, visit BetterTogetherUS.org/NWDSC.
Megan Rose is the CEO of Better Together, a nonprofit organization that helps parents in crisis address the root causes of their struggle, find work, and keep their children out of foster care.