Careers that don't ask for a clean record. Real work, real money, and how to get in.
Pay shown is the U.S. median for each occupation, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024 (commercial divers: May 2023; machinists and sterile processing: May 2025; nondestructive testing: broader BLS engineering technician group, May 2025). Starting pay runs lower. Half the field earns more.
Federal bans are narrow and mostly tied to crimes committed with a motor vehicle. The hazmat endorsement runs a separate TSA check. Everything else is carrier by carrier, and more carriers say yes every year.
FreeWorld is a nonprofit that takes people from prison to a commercial license to a paycheck. freeworld.org
There is no state license and no board. Certification comes from commercial dive school. Offshore work can require a TWIC card, and most records still qualify.
Commercial dive schools admit students with records. Call admissions and ask directly, they've heard it before.
No license required for roustabout and floorhand work. Companies run their own checks, and the industry has hired second-chance labor for decades. Offshore platforms can require a TWIC card.
Staffing firms that feed the oilfield hire records every day. Apply direct to operators and service companies too.
Certification comes from testing, not from a state board. Many people earn their first certs inside. AWS certification does not ask about your record. A few cities and states add their own license for certain structural jobs, so check local rules.
Many prison systems run welding programs. If you certified inside, those certs count outside.
TSA screens against a specific list of disqualifying offenses with a 10-year lookback. A short list of the worst crimes is permanently barred: espionage, treason, terrorism, murder, explosives. Expunged or pardoned convictions don't count against you. U.S. citizenship, a drug screen, and a credit check apply, and TSA makes the final call. The rule is a clock, not a wall. Other TSA credentials like PreCheck and TWIC run shorter clocks: seven years from conviction or five from release, whichever ends later.
No middleman on this one. TSA posts openings straight to jobs.tsa.gov. If your conviction is past the 10-year mark, or expunged or pardoned, apply.
Plumbing is a licensed trade, but the door in is the apprenticeship: you work and earn for years under someone else's license before a board ever reads your name. Since 2015, about 40 states have reformed licensing so a record only blocks you when the crime directly relates to the work. Around 21 states will tell you up front, for a small fee, whether your record is a problem before you spend a dime on training.
Registered apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. And if your state offers a pre-clearance petition, file it before you pay for school. The board answers before you spend.
Barbering is licensed in every state, and it's one of the most common trades taught inside. The old trap was the board: earn the skill in prison, get denied the license outside. About 40 states have reformed licensing since 2015 so a record only blocks you when the crime directly relates to the work, and a growing number now count hours earned inside toward the license. Around 21 states will rule on your record before you spend a dime on school.
Many prison systems run licensed barber programs. If your state offers a pre-clearance petition, file it before you enroll. The board answers before you spend.
Cosmetology is licensed in every state, and it's one of the largest trade programs in women's facilities. Boards used to deny licenses over records that had nothing to do with the chair. About 40 states have reformed that since 2015: the conviction has to relate to the work. Around 21 states will rule on your record before you enroll, so the tuition is never wasted.
If your state offers a pre-clearance petition, file it before you pay for school. And if you trained inside, make the board tell you what transfers.
That's the FAA's own answer on its own website. The exceptions are drug and alcohol convictions: a one-year wait to apply after conviction, and a substance history means showing about two years of sustained recovery for the medical. The medical application asks about convictions. Answer honestly, lying to the FAA is its own federal crime. TSA screens student pilots, and airlines run their own checks on top, so tours, charter, cargo, ag, and instructing are the realistic first rungs. The real gate isn't your record. It's the training bill.
No felon-specific pipeline in aviation yet. Flight schools train anyone who can pass the medical and the TSA screen. Call the school and ask straight.
No license. No board. No background check on a pull request. Employers run their own checks, and regulated corners like banking and defense have their own rules. The junior market is a fight right now, for everyone. The work you can show is the currency.
The Last Mile has taught full-stack development inside prisons since 2010, over 1,400 students across sixteen facilities, with recidivism under five percent. Next Chapter, built with Slack, runs year-long apprenticeships placing formerly incarcerated engineers at tech companies.
There is no state license and no licensing board. Journeyman status comes from the apprenticeship, not a government application. You'll need a CDL for the trucks, and a felony does not automatically disqualify you: the narrow federal lifetime bars are for using a commercial vehicle in drug crimes or human trafficking. DOT drug testing is constant, pre-employment and random, so solid sobriety is part of the job. Utilities can be cautious. Line construction contractors and storm restoration crews have long been the readier door. Be straight on every application. They will check, and lying is the only guaranteed no.
Registered line apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. Line contractors and storm restoration outfits run chronically short-handed. Walk in and ask straight.
The one federal gate is the EPA 608 certification for handling refrigerant. It's a knowledge exam: no background check, free study materials online, and the test runs $25 to $150. The certification never expires. State contractor licenses exist, but they belong to the company, not the tech starting out. Some residential outfits run their own checks because the work enters people's homes. Commercial, new construction, and install crews have long been the readier door. The federal numbers project 40,100 openings a year through 2034. If entering people's homes is the objection you keep running into, see commercial refrigeration.
Registered HVAC apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. Trade schools admit students with records. Call admissions and ask straight, they've heard it before.
Here is why this lane matters if you have a record. Residential HVAC sends you into people's homes, and that is the objection every hiring manager reaches for. Commercial refrigeration never enters one. Supermarkets, cold storage, restaurants, convenience stores, food plants, breweries. Every job site is a business, and the only person you meet is a manager who wants the cooler running. The gate is EPA 608 certification, Type II for high pressure, which covers most commercial refrigeration. It is a knowledge exam with no background check. Federal law is rewriting this trade right now. The AIM Act phases HFC refrigerants down 85 percent by 2036, with the next supply step-down in 2029. The leak repair and management rule took effect January 1, 2026 and requires leak detection and repair on any system holding 15 pounds or more of refrigerant, which is every supermarket rack in the country. EPA relaxed some equipment transition deadlines in a May 2026 final rule, pushing retail food and cold storage limits to 2032, so the transition is running on a longer clock but it is running. From 2029, supermarket systems must be serviced with reclaimed refrigerant. The whole trade is relearning at once. Note that BLS lists typical entry as a postsecondary award rather than just a diploma, though some enter with less. The hours are nights, weekends, holidays, and on call, because food does not wait. Service means driving a company van, so a suspended license ends it before your skills come up. Fix anything like that first. And ammonia is genuinely dangerous. Those plants run under federal process safety rules for a reason. Pay note: BLS does not publish a separate wage series for commercial refrigeration. It shares an occupation code with HVAC, and refrigeration specialists generally sit above that median, with rack work, CO2, and on-call paying a premium.
Cold storage plants and food processors run ammonia, and RETA certifications open that door. CARO is the entry-level exam with no minimum experience requirement. CIRO requires a minimum of two years of machinery room experience. Certifications and testing information are at reta.com. Registered refrigeration apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. If residential work is where the door keeps closing on you, this is the same skill set pointed at buildings instead of homes.
This one is different from the trades. Real estate licenses whether you can be trusted. Every state runs a character review: fingerprints, criminal history, and a commission deciding whether you are honest. That sounds like a closed door and it is not, because when a board judges character there is a process to argue it. About 21 states plus DC let you argue it before you spend a dollar on education, through a predetermination petition that usually costs around $25. North Carolina's runs $45. Ask two questions before you file: whether the answer is binding, and whether a negative answer becomes permanent. In some states a disqualification finding attaches to your record and cannot be reconsidered later. In Alabama the process is called the Determination of License Eligibility, and the Commission's own FAQ notes that the statute says it may reject an applicant with a felony or crime of moral turpitude. The key word is may. AREC also states that just about every month someone with a criminal record asks the Commission for permission to be licensed, some by letter and some at a hearing. They are used to the question. Alabama defines crimes of moral turpitude to include theft, forgery, and writing a bad check, and those are exactly the records scrutinized hardest here, because you will hold keys, earnest money, and somebody's largest asset. If that is your record, this is a steep climb and you deserve to know it going in. Your state matters more here than in any trade on this page. Some states run hard walls and waiting periods tied to restitution or sentence completion. Others have moved toward a direct-relation standard, part of the roughly 40 states that have reformed licensing since 2015. Look up your own commission before you plan around anything. One more thing: this is commission only. No paycheck until you close. Between the course, the fees, the dues, and that first closing, you could be months from your first dollar. If you come home Tuesday and need money Friday, this is not that job. Build it on top of work that pays now.
Start with your own state commission's website and look for a predetermination, pre-clearance, or eligibility determination process. In Alabama, the Determination of License Eligibility is posted at arec.alabama.gov. A license is one of the few things no company can lay off, which is what makes this worth building toward even slowly.
No license, no state board, no federal exam. The work is gated by tolerance, not paperwork. NIMS credentials are voluntary industry certifications that prove skill, with no background check. Defense and aerospace shops run clearances and their own checks. Job shops, tool rooms, and general manufacturing hire on skill and consistency. The federal numbers project 34,200 openings a year through 2034, every one of them replacing workers who leave or retire.
Registered machining apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. Job shops and tool rooms hire on skill and consistency. Walk in and ask straight.
No state licenses this work. Five states require a national certification, and even there you get hired first: the law gives you 18 months to 3 years on the job to certify. The one federal wall: anyone convicted of healthcare fraud, patient abuse, or felony drug distribution is excluded from facilities that bill Medicare or Medicaid, five years minimum under the statute. The exclusion list is public and free. Search your own name before you spend a dollar on training. If you're not on it, the rest is employer policy, and policy can be argued. Healthcare screens harder than manufacturing. Surgery centers, dental groups, and outpatient clinics hire for this work too.
Search the federal exclusion list free at exclusions.oig.hhs.gov before spending on training. Hospital sterile processing departments train in house more than almost any healthcare role. Apply straight to decontam openings and ask.
This is the fastest growing occupation in the federal projections, 50 percent through 2034, in a field of only about 13,600 people with 2,300 openings a year. No license, no state board, no federal exam, in any state. GWO Basic Safety Training is the industry card that gets you on site, and it runs no background check. There is no federal exclusion list for this trade. The gate is employer policy, and policy can be argued. Two things can stop you before your skills come up: your driving record, because techs drive company trucks to remote sites every day and a suspended license ends the conversation, and safety screening, because you'll be hundreds of feet up with a crew depending on you. Offshore adds a federal security layer at the port, so start onshore.
Registered wind apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. Community colleges in Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas built dedicated wind programs. And if your license is suspended over old fines, fix that first. It opens this door and ten others.
The federal handbook lists the typical entry-level education as a high school diploma and the work experience required as none. Licensing rules vary by state, and where a license is required it usually sits with the contractor, not with you. A licensed electrician makes the final connection. The crew setting racking and hanging modules does not need a license to do that work. There is no federal exclusion list for this trade. The gate is employer policy, and policy can be argued. One thing to know before you pick a lane: the 30 percent residential tax credit ended December 31, 2025, and rooftop work contracted hard. Utility-scale is the other half of this industry, and it is booming. Developers plan a record 43.4 gigawatts in 2026, a 60 percent jump over last year, with 40 percent of it going up in Texas. Aim at the solar farms.
Crossroads Solar in South Bend, Indiana manufactures panels, and every employee except the two founders has a record. They didn't build it as charity. They built it because it works. Registered solar apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov.
The union's published requirements are three things: a high school diploma or GED, being 18, and legal authorization to work. That is the whole list. The two gates are an aptitude test and a standardized interview, and neither one asks what you did. Most state licenses here are competency licenses, documented hours plus a passed exam, though a few states do ask about criminal history on the application, so check yours. The honest part: the union puts you on the list, but a company hires you off it, and that company runs its own background check and drug screen. Courthouses, hospitals, and federal buildings can require clearance on top. This is also a small trade. Only 24,200 people do this work nationwide, with about 2,000 openings a year, most of them retirements. Recruitments open only when a local needs people, roughly every two years, and the lists expire.
NEIEP runs the apprenticeship for the IUEC and posts every open recruitment at neiep.org, along with free study materials for the aptitude test. The ladder past mechanic runs adjuster, mechanic in charge, supervisor. The adjuster fine tunes the car, and that is the one a company cannot replace on short notice.
No license, no state board, no federal exam. What you need is a stack of certifications, and most employers pay for them: OSHA 10, RF Awareness, CPR and First Aid, Authorized Climber and Rescuer, NWSA TTT-1. Not one of them asks what you did. Nearly every posting does require a background check, a drug screen, and a clean driving record. That is an employer decision, not a legal bar. Every other part of telecom is shrinking and this part is not. The federal projections have tower installers up 9 percent through 2034 while equipment installers fall 4 percent and line installers fall 3 percent, because crews are building new structures instead of maintaining old ones. Expect travel. Plenty of crews run five weeks out at a time.
This trade earned a terrible reputation honestly. ProPublica and PBS Frontline documented tower workers dying at more than ten times the rate of construction workers between 2003 and 2010. Free climbing, which OSHA prohibits outright, was involved in about half the deaths they examined. The industry has improved enormously since, with recent industry figures near 11 per 100,000. But people still fall. Before you leave the ground you should have four things: hands-on climbing and rescue training, not a video. Your own inspected harness and lanyards. A crew with a written rescue plan for that specific tower. And a foreman who has never once told anybody to free climb. A company that will not give you those four things is not offering you a career. Walk.
There is no felon-specific pipeline here. What there is instead is an industry that trains from zero and hires off background checks that scare other employers. Ask every company two questions before you accept: who pays for my certifications, and what is your rescue plan. The good ones have an answer ready.
No license. The federal handbook lists none for this occupation. The only credential on the page is manufacturer certification, and BLS says plainly it is not required, though it usually commands higher pay. Entry-level education is a high school diploma, and work experience in a related occupation is listed as None. There are 245,600 people doing this work nationwide and 21,700 openings a year. Government shops pay the most at $68,860, which means your city, your county, your state DOT. The real barrier here is not your record. It is your toolbox. BLS says mechanics generally buy their own tools over the course of a career, often thousands of dollars worth, and plenty of postings say furnish your own. Ask about tools before you accept the job. If you move to field service and the truck is heavy enough, you will need a CDL, and a felony does not block one. The federal rule looks at whether a commercial vehicle was involved in the offense, not at whether you have a record.
Search job boards with the fair chance filter turned on. This industry is short on skilled people and it shows in who gets called back. On tools: some shops supply them, some run an allowance or a payroll deduction plan, and some reentry programs will fund a starter set. Ask before you accept, not after. Registered apprenticeships are listed free at apprenticeship.gov.
Nobody certifies you for this job. Your employer does. There is no state board and no federal exam. The dominant standard in this country, ASNT SNT-TC-1A, is employer-based: your company writes its own written practice, your company's Level III tests you, and your company signs the paper. The authority that decides whether you are qualified is the same one that already decided to hire you. Note that the certification is tied to the job, and it is revoked when the employment ends. On pay: BLS does not publish a wage series for NDT by itself. It folds these technicians into a broader engineering technician category with a 2025 median of $78,350. Treat that as context, not as an NDT pay scale. Two doors here do have federal locks. Radiography with a radioactive source requires fingerprinting and an FBI criminal history check before unescorted access, and the investigation covers the last seven years. But the rule never publishes a list of disqualifying convictions. A reviewing official at your own company makes the call. And refineries, terminals, and port facilities require a TWIC card, which does have a published list of disqualifying offenses. Check that list before you build a plan around refinery work.
This is an approved federal registered apprenticeship occupation, RAPIDS code 1010D, and openings are listed free at apprenticeship.gov. The federal occupation database lists the defining work styles for this trade as attention to detail, dependability, and integrity. This entire trade runs on whether people believe your report. You do not prove that with a background check. You prove it with a logbook and years of work nobody ever had to check twice.
The national apprenticeship program states it plainly: applicants are selected first on the basis of welding qualifications, and then on the basis of random selection. Not on your record. On whether you can lay a bead. The published minimums are five things: be 18, hold a diploma or GED, declare you can physically do the work, agree to drug and alcohol testing within 48 hours of signing the agreement, and have reliable transportation. There is no item about your past. Now the honest part. This trade is shrinking. The federal projections show a 2 percent decline through 2034 as coal plants close. There are only 10,400 boilermakers in the country and about 800 openings a year, every one of them replacing somebody who left. Not a growth trade, a replacement trade. The work is confined spaces and heights, and it is contract work: when the turnaround ends, the job ends, and you will travel. Drug testing runs the whole apprenticeship and the rest of your career. If you are in recovery, that is accountability built into the job. Nuclear work adds an FBI fingerprint check, but nuclear is one slice. Refineries, paper mills, shipyards, and tank farms all need this work.
Welding is one of the most common trades taught inside American prisons, and in this trade that training is the selection criteria. If you learned to weld inside, ask the area apprenticeship office in writing where your training places you before you assume anything. Get the answer in writing. The Southeastern Area committee covers Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Find your area program at bnap.com.