As a felon myself, I have never had anything good come out of early disclosure. I think your best bet would be to target jobs in areas that have "banned the box" for private employers (I believe Chicago is one of these cities). If you receive a conditional offer of employment, they will most likely run a background check at that point. Some lower quality background checking services can provide surprisingly incomplete results. More than likely though, it will return your conviction history. Once you get that call from the HR representative questioning the conviction, simply state that you didn't feel it was relevant to the position being applied for. Refer them to the EEOC guidelines on hiring people with felony convictions (especially the part about individualized assessments). These guidelines are merely a suggestion, but it might be enough to sway the mind of someone in the company who has that discretion.