I had a misdemeanor on my record when I was 16, which was 10 years ago. It was petty theft of a CD. Should I admit it on the job application? Should I just admit it and say that there’s nothing else on my record?

There is a difference between sealed and expunged. When a criminal history record is sealed, the public will not have access to it. Certain governmental or related entities have access to sealed record information in its entirety.

When a record has been expunged, those entities which would have access to a sealed record will be informed that the subject of the record has had a record expunged, but would not have access to the record itself without a court order. Such entities would receive only a caveat statement indicating that "Criminal Information has been Expunged from this Record.

There big problem with both sealed and expunged is that they took a motion, court hearing, and court order to get it done. Until then, an adult criminal record is public information and a private company like backgroundsearch.com will collect that information and put it in their database. Then it will forever be available to anyone that purchases a background search on you, which includes most employer companies of medium to large size. Sealed and expunged only works on government databases, but not on the databases maintained by private companies.

April's advantage is that her crime happened when she was juvenile, so most probably it was always sealed, and the information was never seen by a private background search company. So, if she's not applying to one of the government agencies that have access to all criminal records, she might well feel comfortable just not mentioning the crime. If the employer does find it (doubtful), she has good reason to have omitted it. 1) If their application asked about felonies, it was not a felony. 2) It was a misdemeanor because it was a small dollar value. 3) She was a juvenile and the records were sealed or expunged. And 4) She made or offered to make restitution on the small dollar value item. If a company denies her the job because of a background search, they are required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to tell her what info they found and where they got it. Then, she will know better what to do on the next job application.