Are most engineering jobs public sector?

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AirborneXander

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I don't know if this is the appropriate thread to post this, but I'm currently in college studying mechanical engineering and computer science. One issue that I'm facing is that when I was 19 I got arrested for a misdemeanor which ended up with the charge being dropped and my record getting expunged. The reason why I'm asking this question is because I'm wondering if most engineering jobs today are all public sector? I'm curious to know if there are still private sector engineering jobs out there and if not does this mean I'm screwed now since I have a past arrest record even though its expunged? 

 
I would say no. No, most engineering jobs are not private sector. But if the charges were dropped and expunged, why would it be a problem? 

 
There is a great balance between public and private sector.  In my 17 years working as an engineer, I've not had one public sector job.

 
My apologies for not posting in awhile since I was tied up with classes. Reason I was asking about the public/private sector jobs is because can't companies still find my record even tho it was dismissed and expunged?

 
If the incident has been expunged it is very unlikely that an employer will find out about it.  Furthermore, you can even mark "no" on the question about if you have had any convictions in the past (assuming that it was your only one and/or the rest have also been expunged).

Really the only people that can view expunged records are judges, police, etc. in regards to future criminal cases and also some jobs may have special access such as if you are applying to become a police officer or work with small children (and even then they will only be really looking for certain things).

 
Oh really? because I just asked on another engineering forum and the person was saying since this is the  "internet age" people would be able to dig it up that way. I basically just wasted money on an expungment and I wasn't even trying to get a job at google, Microsoft, adobe, etc. cause I don't even go to a tier 1 school. So I guess my chances are gone now probably. 

 
Oh really? because I just asked on another engineering forum and the person was saying since this is the  "internet age" people would be able to dig it up that way. I basically just wasted money on an expungment and I wasn't even trying to get a job at google, Microsoft, adobe, etc. cause I don't even go to a tier 1 school. So I guess my chances are gone now probably. 




 
Frankly, you are wayyyy overestimating how much time and effort most companies will put into researching your background.  If you want to see what sort of info a company will find on you by searching the internet then simply google yourself and see what comes up.  What you are looking at is basically what they would be looking at.  They aren't accessing some special vault of deep internet info that you don't have access to if they try to look up internet history on you.  Yes, arrest records and any news or articles related to your crime/arrest/trial that were posted may still appear after expungement but a simple google search will tell you if this should be a concern.  If you do find a mug shot of yourself or an article about your arrest (unless you did something particularly interesting/stupid then there won't be an article about your arrest) there are services out there that help to bury those things into the depths of google search results.

They will also most likely use one of the standard background check companies to pull your criminal/credit record.  You can run a background check on yourself to see what comes up for peace of mind but, assuming you properly went through the expungement process, then it should come back clean.

 
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