Credit pulling for employment

[xcuriousx]

How does everyone feel about employers pulling your credit to determine wheter or not they should hire you?????

[Captain Worley]

I'm not crazy about it, but I see why they do it. If you have bad credit, it shows you've (generally) made some bad choices.

At any rate, i wouldn't make a fuss over it.

[The Voice of Reason]

How does everyone feel about employers pulling your credit to determine wheter or not they should hire you?????

[tamias6]

I am a bit cautious on this issue because things can happen that are beyond one's control. What if you were married, and the spouse is running the finances and he/she is doing a poor job of it and ruins your credit because of it. Does that mean you would not get the job because of your spouses mistakes? How about divorce? That could ruin one's credit. How about a serious illness in the family? Again credit could be obliterated by all the debts incurred and the struggle to keep up with them. What about those living from check to check? Most of us are are or have been in that position. Delaying payments on bills or skipping payments because one can't afford to pay them at the time are not good for credit. Lastly a person close to me is a very hard worker that gets the job done in what ever he does. But he has poor financial judgement. I'm sure he's not the only one like that. Employers might miss out on many potentially good workers if they started judging a person's abilities on credit scores.

The jobs that I would support credit checks on are those tied in financial fields as well as higher level corporate positions that affect a company's business decisions.

[ohioaninSC]

IMO, I believe it is a good tool to use to help identify how responsible you are...the more responsibilities a potential job entails (especially anything where you are deciding how to spend funds, or anything in the banking or financial sector), the more importance I would place on it.

[Gard]

No problem with it here, I've got nothing to hide and I might as well get used to it with obtaining my CPA license soon enough.

[monsoon]

In my career I have evaluated hundreds of resumes for employment. We hired people for what they could bring to the business. What was important was their professional experience, education, work history, and of course the interview. Never did the rating from a private company(ies) come into play in this decision. The 3 or 4 credit agencies are private companies that make money on by selling their ratings on individuals and they don't really publish the details on how they come up with these ratings, provide transparent access to corrections, nor how their business objectives might affect the ratings. Remember their business is making money on these ratings. We would never use something such as this to decide upon an applicant for a job.

If a company wants to pay the credit agencies for a credit rating on a person that is their business, but I personally think it is a stupid idea from a business standpoint. As an applicant for a job, I would question working for such a company as it tells me if they are clueless on this matter, then this probably isn't the only thing.

[The Voice of Reason]

In my career I have evaluated hundreds of resumes for employment. We hired people for what they could bring to the business. What was important was their professional experience, education, work history, and of course the interview. Never did the rating from a private company(ies) come into play in this decision. The 3 or 4 credit agencies are private companies that make money on by selling their ratings on individuals and they don't really publish the details on how they come up with these ratings, provide transparent access to corrections, nor how their business objectives might affect the ratings. Remember their business is making money on these ratings. We would never use something such as this to decide upon an applicant for a job.

If a company wants to pay the credit agencies for a credit rating on a person that is their business, but I personally think it is a stupid idea from a business standpoint. As an applicant for a job, I would question working for such a company as it tells me if they are clueless on this matter, then this probably isn't the only thing.

[davidals]

Tamias and Monsoon are right on with this one. In certain professions (financial services, primarily) there's a place for it, but using credit scores as an evaluation of people's qualifications is highly discriminatory for a variety of reasons, and the idea of permanently punishing people for past financial mistakes is both unfair and lazy. Given the current economic meltdown, I think it's a safe bet that a lot of people with great credit have created massive wreckage, while any number of hard-working people with lousy credit who might aspire to a decent job (to work their way back into financial stability) or - gasp - a reasonable, afforable apartment are left out in the cold.