Illinois Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act: 2026 Employer Checklist

Illinois has two stacked layers. JOQAA — the Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act — governs the timing of the criminal-history inquiry. The Illinois Human Rights Act, amended in 2021, governs the substantive analysis the employer must conduct before taking adverse action.

JOQAA — the timing rules

• Applies to private employers with 15+ employees in Illinois.
• No criminal-history inquiry on the application or before the candidate has been selected for an interview, or — if there is no interview — before the conditional offer.
• Exceptions for positions where federal or state law expressly bars individuals with certain convictions, fidelity-bond-required positions, and certain emergency-medical roles.

IHRA — the substantive analysis

• Before taking adverse action based on a conviction, the employer must conduct an interactive assessment.
• Factors include the nature and gravity of the offense, time elapsed since the offense or completion of the sentence, and the nature of the job sought.
• The employer must provide written notice of the preliminary decision, a copy of the conviction record in the employer's possession, and a meaningful opportunity for the candidate to respond.
• A second written notice — the final decision — must explain the basis for the decision and provide notice of the right to file a charge with the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

The Illinois checklist

1. Remove criminal-history questions from every application used for an Illinois role.
2. Trigger criminal-history screening only after the interview-selection or conditional-offer event is logged.
3. Use the IHRA interactive-assessment worksheet for every adverse-action decision.
4. Send the IHRA-compliant pre-decision notice with the conviction record and the dispute window.
5. Send the IHRA-compliant final notice with the IDHR charge-filing instructions.