Your Credit Score
by mward846 Posted on July 13, 2010 in Uncategorized
I came across this article regarding employers checking candidate credit scores. Does your company check credit scores prior to hiring? Do you think it is fair to do so?
My company does not. We do however run certain candidates, depending on job title, through an additional background check to see if they had ever been convicted of embezzlement, etc. These are positions that work in Financial Aid or have access to such information. With those candidates having that access, I do not think it is unfair to be running the additional check.
What are your thoughts?
July 13th, 2010 10:33 pm
Marie,
We do credit checks on certain candidates, particularly those hired for finance positions. We don’t obtain their credit score per say (at least I don’t think we do). We are also mining for indicators that the candidate is not financially sound or savy and could be a risk for a position in finance.
Taking this a step further, each of us as potential candidates in the future should be well aware of what is on our credit report (and for other reasons of course). Just this past weekend I took advantage of fairly new laws that allow each of us to obtain a free copy of our credit report from each of the three main reporting agencies once a year. It’s important that we take the time to review this info should it be used to make a hiring or other decision about us in the future.
The official website to access the free credit reports is:www.annualcreditreport.com
July 17th, 2010 2:21 pm
We do not do credit checks as a part of the application process. In a prior job at a bank though everyone had a credit report run on them as part of the process. This is due to the fact that they are handling large sums of money. As Andrea said, those who have credit issues may be a higher risk of improper doings. Many companies run credit checks because they feel that they tell you a lot about how responsible, or not, the person is. If you pay your bills on time and make good use of your credit, they feel you will be a more responsible employee than if you don’t handle your credit properly or rack up too much debt.
I think that for some positions, especially if they handle money or have access to other peoples assets, a credit check is a good idea. If they are not handling money or do not have access to other peoples assets, I am not sure if it is needed.
I think the question really is if a credit report tells you what you think it does about someone. How correct are the assumptions you are making based on a report.
July 19th, 2010 8:42 pm
I have never gone through a job interview and had my credit checked. I agree with what Michael said that it could be a good indication of how an employee handles personal situations. I do not think that a credit score should be a reason for someone not to get a job. I have heard too many stories of people getting into bad situations because of id theft or issues out of their control and do not think that it should be held against someone.
July 20th, 2010 11:43 pm
Target does not check credit scores. However I interviewed for a Comcast Internship a few years ago and they did check my credit score. I was pretty surprised by this and wondered why it mattered. I agree with Dave in that it really shouldn’t be a reason why someone doesnt get hired. There are too many unusual circumstances, stolen identity cases and all sorts of other issues that could happen.