SurvivingInfidelity.com Forum Archives

True or false, a potential employer is able to and may check your credit score?

Very true.

And many do.

AJ's MOM

True.

True. Mine did as part of the background check, but I had to give permission first.

True but you must sign an authorization before they can do so.

sunandmoon

True.
You have to give permission, but if you don't, then no job for you I'm guessing.

I wouldn't be too scared of it. Some jobs require it, yeah, but I got my current job when I had a credit score in the 500's (bunch of charge offs/delinquencies) and it's a pretty good job.

I'm in banking, so it's a given. Poor credit means no job in my field.

In the uk it's a different credit score than lenders would see, less detail and usually a lot higher even from the same credit companies.

True. You have to provide your consent. If you decline, though, you will probably be out of the running for the job.

Depending on the company, they probably don't care if you have some missed payments or minor blemishes. I think they are looking for big things - like liens or bankruptcies, etc.

I work in banking and they look to see if your credit history makes you high risk for stealing money.

Yep, many do. My husband was denied a job due to his credit once.

True,
Discrimination at it's worst. I hear that folks are now being denied jobs because of their tobacco use.

I remember going over resumes with my boss in his office and the hr lady coming in and telling us that one of the candidates had fine credit. I said something to my boss about it and he just said that's the way it is now.

True. I will keep my political opinions of this out of the forum (as appropriate).

However, you must give authorization which means that you can provide an explanation in advance.

Very true. They want to see if you mishandled company credit cards from previous employers or have missed payments or filed bankruptcy. In the past, this kind of stuff was a huge red flag. Now that the mortgage crisis happened, it's not as uncommon for someone to have a foreclosure or many blemishes. It's still not great but I think employers have become more lenient. However, if they have a choice between someone with GREAT credit and someone who doesn't have decent credit, all other things being on par…my guess is they will choose someone with great credit. Better risk for them.

It's like a vicious circle. You can't pay your bills because you don't have a job, which is why you're looking for a job so you can dig yourself back out of the whole, but they don't want to hire you because you have bad credit, because you didn't have a job, which is why you're looking for a job....etc. etc. etc.

With that being said, I finally got a job at a bank, in the mortgage fraud prevention department. I'm glad they took a chance on me. If they ran my credit, they must have seen numerous late mortgage payments, collections, etc. and hired me anyway. If they didn't, which I don't think they did, score for me!

Now I can finally dig myself out of the hole and pay my bills and fix my credit.