Fun suggestion for Aradia.

Apply to be an extra on TV shows and films.

They only do basic DBS checks, no experience needed, lots of travelling and interaction etc, and you can earn a living.

If like me you live in Scotland it's even richer pickings.

All I can say is keep on trying and eventually someone will give you that chance. Now your conviction is spent you don't need to declare it to anyone at all when applying for jobs, the only time you will find that it will come up is if you need a job which has a standard or enhanced DBS check where the conviction may still show. Although only a handful of jobs actually need that type of DBS check most will want a basic at the most where the conviction will not show up.

Best of luck I hope you find something soon.

I wish I had the funds and confidence to do what you did. I spent years trying to get a job while unspent and now that im spent, Im finding it just as hard. I just need someone to give me a chance. Need to get some work on my CV

Since my conviction I have built up my own business. It does take some determination and some funds which I appreciate not everyone has. 

Most people who do use employment agencies or even apply online get turned down as one question that always get asked is about convictions and it is not worth pursuing after that.

There is however work out there, I would employ someone with a criminal conviction knowing how hard it is to get work. Many smaller companies will not be bothered about convictions if you apply to them directly. I am not saying it is easy and it does take some hard work (and luck). 

I was self employed when the arrest happened yes, but there is a lesson in the fact that I am currently employed with a small international analytical firm, who never asked for my criminal record seeing as I came recommended by someone else in the industry. So I guess the moral of the story is try working or a small but pioneering outfit? Or get involved in helping someone with something unique, rather than just shooting out a billion applications and agonising over the state of your CV.

Volunteer for a charity solving a kind of problem that they struggle with -- fundraising for whatever, see i they'll take you on.

It might develop into something else.

 Basically I look at post here titled "building a network to eventually find a job" I think "can it be that hard"?

I know in 2010 during the recession I just walked in and out of every shop in a shopping mall asking for work, and got a  4 hour per week job in a Cafe Thortons, which evolved into 40 hours 2 months later, and don't remember anyone asking my criminal record (there was none but I wasn't asked for one).

So there's an idea -- offer to work such small hours that nobody asks for a record, then grow the hours. Try rural areas and family run businesses where they might not bother asking. 

Hi
In short I think we can all agree it is down to how people consider your offence in relation to their social attitudes.
Old story I have said previously about a "big company" wanting to hire me for a contract. I declared and the interviewers still wanted my skills; however HR had a different opinion so the offer was retracted. That happened numerous times.

With over 2000 applications over a about an 8 year period I was not so fortunate my friend. The irony is that unofficially, ex-employers often came for advice, but off the books lol

Your story adds positivity to many struggling to get back into employment however, I would be slow on the "false elements" and only use explanations that can seem plausible and defendable. 

Society suggests I must let go of all my expectations but I disagree, as whilst I have a voice, I have hope.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.
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This forum supports these words, thank you Unlock and your contributors.

Thanks for clarifying things. Really good story and there is a lot in what you say. On the bit about 9 months discontinuity of employment, are you effectively saying that you are self employed? 

Consultancy/freelancing does rely on networks and contacts, and some may be more forgiving than others, particularly if you have a personal relationship and they know you well. But for mere mortals like the rest of us, the big barrier are the employment agencies. These agencies act like gatekeepers and often shut out people with convictions, who would like to work as self employed contractors in the IT industry for example. If we could speak direct to the employer and bypass the agencies that would be a big advantage. 

Some people did find out, but I see now I should have been a bit more helpful with my story.

Rather than just brag about my combination of brass and good luck, let's see if I can unpack the lessons in my experience, for other people, and you can take from it what you want to take from it.

First of all my employer is not the local nursery school. I was living in Scotland working as a consultant for a little constellation of biotech companies in Oxford / Cambridge , California and Hong Kong (who I would sometimes visit personally). In normal times there is some discontinuity of work anyway, so 9 months' absence (caused by prison) is not some great enigma that everyone's going to demand answers for.

Just as my career was taking off, I was arrested and bailed in Jan 2016, for several immature acts of voyeurism from 2007 (among which under 18s) and continuing to possess the fruits of those actions in the years since then (I won't go into how it came to anyone's attention -- too much digression).

The situation thereafter was pretty stressful but there was a strange dissonance about it -- my career was still blossoming that spring while I was on bail, as my mere initial arrest hadn't made headlines. Also I became a workaholic after my arrest. From my point of view, these crimes were the act of a sad sack from long ago -- and although I didn't really have a problem taking responsibility --  I did resent being spoken to as though I had nothing better to do that what I'd been collared for.

I think that there was the trigger -- pride -- I could take being spoken to as though I did it -- but not being spoken to like I was Bart Simpson. Somewhere along the line I think I made a positive decision to separate danger from fear, not to miss a single step more than was necessary. Not to lie down in the chalk outline drawn by society. After that weird period of trying to work out exactly how fecked I was ("Is this the sex equivalent of jaywalking or am I Jimmy Saville?"), I decided I would live my life as man who had been locked in the cupboard for 9 months, and had petty local officials write mean things about me in their notepads. That's it.

I plead guilty but I was not guilty exactly as charged, which was annoying as it gave the press carte blanche to write all sorts of waffle. Nonetheless in the end my 9 month jail sentence -- and the newspaper article that resulted -- was like a sword through the body that missed all the organs. 

The Chief Science Officer of one of my client companies found out, and is an eccentric so he sort of shrugged it off. He himself is a polyamorous British man (the Russel Brand of biotech) who was sort of "me tooed" by his company in California for the crime of not quite asking out a 17yo intern 10 year ago (age of consent is 18 in CA so duty of care principle was broken when he made "lewd comments to a minor"). That 17yo later became a Silicon Valley titan at 27, who used her anecdote to oust him from the company. So he is cynical about news stories, doesn't take anything at face value. 
So I guess one lesson is that the type of people I was dealing with were a combination of foreigners who don't know how to equate me with the person in the story, and open minded or eccentric (dare I say autistic, in a particular way that equates to being realistic) people who don't internalise stigmas automatically.

Other techniques used: 

• Also when I was in prison, I paid a departing fellow inmate to log into my social media and take some actions there, so that the record would show I wasn't in prison for all of that period.
• When I got out, I made a Wikipedia page about my uncle who is a historian and has the same name as me, and in the long term this dampened the Google Effect, as Google adds an "entity" to its general understanding which influences the algorithm.

I picked up so completely where I left off, and jail did not impair momentum. I weaponised my autism enough to sort of drift along not looking like someone whose life should be ruined. 

I didn't live my life with my head down -- in the months before and after prison, I made very very public speeches in places like the House of Lords (hence why I mentioned it) -- so that people wouldn't equate me with the person in the article, because the natural assumption is that such a person would be keeping their head down not showing their face in corridors of power.

Moral of the story: My initial circumstances (mode of employment etc) were a matter of luck, but there are bits of advise you can selectively take, depending on the nature of the conviction -- widen your perspective, make your own luck, widen your networks, think big, do the opposite of what everyone expects, and create a historical record of constructive activity (work or pseudo-work, social media activity) around the time of the conviction. Don't let a random sense of fear and shame be an additional reason for your own stumbling. Don't just lie down in the chalk outline society has made for you. Ask yourself "how much does this obstacle matter really, and how much of it is just a stigma in my own head"?

This was basically my modus operandi (in terms of not being perturbed by becoming the object of scandal-- obviously remorse is something that should be brought in where appropriate and I'm not an advocate for gaslighting).

Some people in my home town did find out, but the problem is there's no story anymore, nothing to blow the lid on -- it's not like I've changed my name and it's up to the press to reveal it.  I did turn down an opportunity to stand for parliament, because that's tempting fate, but that's the only career setback I've ever had as a consequence of this conviction.

Based on what he said, the employer does not know about the conviction and nor do his colleagues. May be a different matter, if they find out.

Hi
Though I am extremely pleased you have managed to regain employment I wonder what your offence was? I ask this not being nosey but to try and understand partially why the "acceptance" was so easily given especially given the default societal bias. Please note I am very pleased for you.

It may be my grey cells are tied but I do not understand the "lords" comment? lol

Otherwise, I hope others are as fortunate as yourself, and please offer your support to others not as fortunate.

Society suggests I must let go of all my expectations but I disagree, as whilst I have a voice, I have hope.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.
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This forum supports these words, thank you Unlock and your contributors.