we hear it weekly…candidate gets into the finals of the interviewing process…is told they are a finalist…will have their references and credit checked…
then, oh my, the candidate reveals that they have “bruised” credit…this can be everything from very, very bad credit to poor credit…
in these difficult economic times, it is not suprising that many people’s credit is “bruised”…slightly to very badly..
these days, employers are more prone to check credit on most candidates, even if the position is not a financial oriented job….it use to be that a candidate’s credit was checked only when the job had to do with financial positions…i.e. where money was involved..
these days, though, hiring authorities have a hard time checking references with previous employers, who, more often than not, adopt a “we don’t give references of any type” policy…so, they resort to other objective reports like criminal records and credit reports…
the assumption is that, if your credit is poor, you are a poor employee…
it does no good to argue this issue…if you have bruised credit, best assume you will be eliminated from most any financially oriented job…we even had a candidate lately who was eliminated from an insurance adjusters position because of his poor credit…
we recomend not sharing a poor credit issue unitl you find out that your credit will be checked…(by the way, you can’t refuse this being done without immediately being eliminated from contention)..
once you are informed, tell the hiring authority that your credit has been bruised and ask him or her if that will be an issue…you might share with them the reasons for the situation…we had a candidat a few years ago whose identity was stolen and she was still “recovering” from a poor credit issue through no fault of her own…
some hiring authorities may be able to work with you if they really like you…sometimes they may not have any choice depending on company policies..
you want to be sure that, if you find that a credit report will be reviewed and you have had challenges, the employer does not find out from the credit report itself…especially if you are told that the report will be part of the screening process…
if an employers thinks you are withholding information from him or her, you won’t get hired…
