text: i am a convicted felon should i answer truthfully on employment applications?   yes.  if you get caught later on, you'll get fired, and then you'll have to explain an even larger gap in your employment history.  if you're going to make it on the outside, you have to put the felony behind an uninterrupted work-history, so you can't afford to get fired.  get a short term job, if necessary, and then find a better one.  be reliable especially at short-term jobs, though, because you really don't want to lose that reference.  good luck.