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Comment by x0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Are you proactively bringing this up during the interview process?

If not, you almost certainly should. It's like a conviction: if I find it when I run the background check, first I'm surprised, and second, the candidate has lost all opportunity to set context. Plus not mentioning it borders on lying.

I don't suspect the best context for you is someone set me up; you should try "I did some dumb things (assuming this wasn't outright criminality), stuff was someone exaggerated, I'm a different person."

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This + write a blog to explain your side of the store + SEO for the blog.

You could also publish another blog about cancel culture and lies (no burden of proof) and impact on real life.

This could turn into you favour.

I am purposely being vague to avoid outing myself, but knowing the situation, and knowing what was attributed to me as being said, somehow this seems like it would just highlight a toxic situation and be an automatic red flag to employers. I wish I had the gumption to do this.

I agree this could easily be something that spooks an employer that is weighing you against another decent candidate. But then again, it might not be much worse than what they find googling already.

How you tell the story might influence people. Have friends/family read whatever you write about it and give you feedback on how it comes across.

Well, right now what you're doing isn't working.

The approach I suggested has resulted in the hiring -- including at a place where I worked -- of people with criminal conduct. Which is probably worse than what you did.

Again, if potential employers are finding out about this, you're choosing to either let them find out while reading stuff on the internet, or with you saying "read the stuff on the internet, but first listen: this was 10 years ago, I did something stupid, I've changed, blah blah blah."

If they read it without that context, does a potential employer even know you disagree with what was said? Probably not.

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