The NoDegree Podcast – No Degree Success Stories for Job Searching, Careers, and Entrepreneurship · Jonaed Iqbal

Had encounters with the law? A look at Fair-Chance Hiring & Opportunities | E213

·37 min·2 clips

K.O. argues that “the skills that you learned on the block can translate into the boardroom.”

1. The NoDegree Podcast episode centers on fair-chance hiring, justice-impacted job seekers, and Talent Nova’s tools for career access. 2. Host Junaid Iqbal introduces Kalila K.O. Olokunola as a fair chance advocate, senior advisor to Talent Nova, and founder of Re-Engineering. 3. The episode asks how arrest, conviction, and serving time affect interviews, job offers, and long-term career mobility. 4. K.O. defines “justice impacted” as having interaction with the justice system, including arrest, conviction, and serving time. 5. She says many people coming home first look for work in hospitality, tourism, food service, production, and manufacturing because those fields have fewer barriers. 6. K.O. describes her own first post-release job at DF King, a third-party call center for Sprint, after she spoke with a manager in an elevator. 7. She says that job lasted almost two years before she found work that aligned more closely with her career goals. 8. K.O. names the basic reentry needs as money, housing, transportation, healthy relationships, and job-search tools. 9. She says positive relationships matter because old environments and “old people” can pull someone back into earlier cycles. 10. K.O. explains ban the box as a campaign that removed criminal-record questions from applications and delayed background checks until later in the process. 11. She says the change was meant to shift hiring from judging history to evaluating the present applicant. 12. K.O. identifies resilience, loyalty, teamwork, leadership, and communication as skills many justice-impacted people already have. 13. She says those lived experiences can become learned experiences that employers value in hard times like COVID and the great resignation. 14. K.O. gives examples of work done while serving time, including safe serve training, maintenance, kitchen work, GED instruction, and babysitting in Taconic Correctional Facility. 15. She says those jobs can be listed on a resume, along with accomplishments such as people served, GEDs earned, or customers handled. 16. K.O. explains that some jobs inside facilities can be translated into outside work experience instead of leaving an employment gap. 17. The conversation stays interview-driven and practical, with Junaid asking direct questions about rights, confidence, community, and career progress. 18. K.O. speaks in a direct, example-heavy style, moving between personal history, policy details, and specific resources like Talent Nova. 19. Listeners interested in fair-chance hiring, reentry, and resume strategy will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting entertainment-first banter or light topics may skip it.

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