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Why Do You Hate Background Checks?
Posted by jahstafari • 7/18/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
I am planning to join a company in the bacground check niche and I have noticed that not all people are comfortable with their past being checked. Granted, alot of people are not bothered about it, but in any case, can you help me out and point out your reason/s why you don't like background checks?
Or better yet, maybe you can share what you think about this process. Thanks!
User Comments
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I believe its a formality... Let them do it and satisfy themselves
Ppl don't like it coz they fear something ... the only reason i would hate it would be if my on paper track record doesn't reflect the original me ...
But the employer has every right to get this process done!-
Yeah, I've read about this guy being mistaken for another who was a sexual offender so he ended up not being hired for a job he applied for. It's on a digg discussion or somewhere.
Thanks for the reply.
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Unless you are working with kids or vulnerable adults your background has nothing to do with your employer. -
So it depends on the job one is applying for, right?
Thanks! -
in my background check for the navy, my neighbor told them how i tried to run him over with my car..
(total lie it was so funny)-
That's a plus if you're joining the armed forces it shows you have the required aggression.
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lol... of course you don't want a liar for a neighbor so you tried to run him over after the background check? lol.. just kidding..
what happened then? -
nothing i went to hawaii and never saw him again
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Hehehe.. good neighbor..
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It doesn't bother me at all.-
Good for you!
Thanks!
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I can't say that a background check thrills me, but I don't 'hate' it, either. A prospective employer would be crazy not to look a little into the background of someone before hiring that person.
Trust goes both ways - I trust an employer to pay me for what I do, be around next week to do the same thing again, and not do something stupid like make my job harder with things like unsafe equipment.
My trusting an employer is pretty easy. There's generally a building, other employees, and a very public record to show that the employer really does make widgets, or whatever, and isn't in the habit of hurting employees - or is in the habit, in which case it's a good idea to stay away.
Outside of small towns (like the one I live in), a prospective employee doesn't have that sort of extremely visible public record. An employer needs to do a little checking to see if what the wannabe employee wrote down on the application is for real or not.
I'd love to be taken at my word for everything, but it isn't going to happen. Not until we have the sort of everyone-know-everyone-else situation that can exist in very small communities.-
as always... great stuff Norski...
big fan here..
I agree with you totally on trust being a two-way affair. And if a background check would help with that trust thing, then it should be good right? -
jahstafari,
Thanks.
"...it should be good right?" I think "should be" is an important part of your comment.
I'm not all that comfortable with background checks - one's probably being done on me right now. But they're an important part of the hiring process.
A "good thing?" I think so, overall. Even if a prospective employer is unreasonable, and doesn't hire someone because of something trivial that came up - would that person really want to work for that employer?
In my case, maybe yes - this household has cash flow issues. But overall, all things considered, I'd rather not have a nut job for a boss. -
I wouldn't want to work for a nutjob too.
And let's face it, there will be times when the background check is not reliable. I know there are some people screwed out of a job because of errors on the report.
I think background checks are important but it should be done carefully to be sure that the report given to the employer really paints the real person that the applicant is.
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Because they always say I killed someone and stuff. I hate that stupid thing.
Seriously I never think about it. I guess I'm a great person (at least when paper and records and all that messy stuff aren't involved).-
I know that sometimes, there are errors on background checks, but something should be done about it so that no longer will people be turned down from a job they are applying for because of errors on the background check report.
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I could care less about background checks. I don't have a criminal record. It would depend on how deep they wanted to dig. Most of the time, they are just checking your credit history and your criminal record.-
Yeah, I think, those two areas are what's really important in a background check.
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I only worry because I fear mistakes, and my not being made aware of that. I have had creditors after me for mistaken identity in the past. I know I have remained relatively felony free my entire life, but wonder what is in my permanent record. -
Maybe you should do a background check on yourself.. hehehe.. just to find out what what's on your record.
But then again, that would cost you so, on second thought, that's not a good idea. -
The last time I had a background check was about a year ago? They found some petty crimes from like 10 years ago and didn't hire me. One was shoplifting which resulted in a Judgment. One was driving without insurance which was thrown out since I did have insurance. And the other one was not paying a fare to use the train, the fine was like 20 dollars...
All of them were misdemeanors, and actually the shoplifting thing was reduced to a simple Violation. But my guess was that the place I applied at didn't hire me because of the shoplifting thing from back in like, 2000. It was completely ridiculous because I worked for the same company long after that, but they didn't start doing backgrounds until I reapplied much later on.
Anyways, I can understand people having complaints about background checks because the people who do them are typically one-sided on their opinions and don't care about when it happened and why it happened. If you don't want to let the company do one, then tell them so. If they don't want to hire you, that's their option. But they can't do a background check without your permission, so keep in mind that you're giving them the option to do that when you sign the application.-
Hey! That's a new one for me.
I'd research that but am kinda lazy so I'm gonna take your word for it. But chances are, if you don't give them your permission to do the background check, you will not be hired since they would be thinking that you are hiding something. -
Right. If it's company policy to do a background check and you refuse it, then they won't hire you. I really don't know what states require permission to do a background check, all I remember is when I applied they required my permission and I had to sign a bunch of papers.
I think the mistake I made on the application was not telling them about those misdemeanors..I honestly forgot about them and kept wondering why I wasn't hired until the company who did the background check sent me a letter saying what they found and why I refused employment.
Anyways, I guess it just depends on how good the company is and how lenient they are in who they hire. If they're a company with a lot of people applying and a big turnover (Like a simple retail store) then the chances are you probably won't get the job..Even if it's for something that happened 10 years ago like shoplifting. -
So the best way to handle such situations is to be honest. But if you have forgotten those misdemeanors, that's got to really hurt your chances of getting the job. So, people should really rack their brains for possible records no matter how trivial they are and make it known to the prospective employer.
Another thing some people are pointing out is that a misdemeanor committed during their youth is making it nearly impossible for them to get a good job.
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I don't have anything to hide. So, whatever. You can drug test me, background test me, or my husband and nothing will come up.-
Shiley, here's the problem with that. A few years ago, A person with a name similar to mine skipped out on a few bills. In fact, our names ended with a different vowel. His name is Mike, mine is Joe. Yet, somehwere, some skip tracer took a chance and started sending bills to me in his name. Eventually every bill collector jumped on the bandwagon because they all share information, even wrong information. It took 2 or 3 years before they finally stopped.
It took me getting various supervisors on the telephone and telling them, using very "colorful" language and including the threat of lawsuits, to get them to stop.
Who knows what happens with other misinformation? -
Pretty interesting... I'm sure that there are worse cases than yours. And that's not making any good impression on background checks overall.
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And keep in mind what I mentioned above...Some people who do background checks are just unforgivable, no matter what it is or when it happened. I can totally understand not hiring someone for a driving job if they got a DUI within the last few years and showed no signs of rehabilitation. But if they admitted it on their application and could prove that they sought treatment and completed it, I wouldn't use that as a disqualification if they were sincere about it (Yeah, I can usually tell when someone is honest about drug and alcohol abuse).
Shiley, if they wanted to, they could refuse to hire you because of a jaywalking ticket or something just as stupid.
But in defense of it: I also don't care about background checks because I realize that employers just can't trust everyone and there are a lot of criminals out there who look clean but still break the law.
I guess this is just one of those personal opinion things. Drug testing falls under the same category of debate. Some people claim it violates privacy since what someone does in their free time is their own business, and some people just don't care because they don't use drugs, and even the ones who do use drugs always know the ways to pass a test...So all it ends up doing is accusing everyone of being on drugs and you have to prove your innocence. I don't use drugs, but I would feel kind of insulted if someone asked me to pee into a cup. Keep in mind, this is a pre-employment condition for some companies. If you don't pee into a cup of let them draw your blood, you will not be hired.
The same company who refused to give me a job because of something that happened 10 years ago also gave me a drug test. It wasn't just any old drug test though...They made me put on these Really strange pants that looked like something MC Hammer would wear and wash my hands and do all sorts of other weird things. I just felt rather insulted about the whole thing, and they still ended up not hiring me.
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I always thought if you passed a background check, it just meant you were good at not getting caught.
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lol... i find that funny...
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Well, for some, such is very true.
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For me, the only real problem is the ketch22 that I see in the background check. Maybe you have a sorted past or bad credit and would like to turn your life around by starting with a better job. You need good credit to get a good job and vice versa.
So, maybe you bounced a few checks because it was hard to make ends meet and wound up with a misdemeanor on your background. With this in mind, it is hard for some good people to make changes in their lives.-
Thanks for the reply. Big fan here again..
You have a really good point there and I totally agree with that.
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Depends on what's being checked. -
My company does background checks, and we are expanding into the Philippines, are you coming to work for us? :-)-
Hahaha.. I don't know.. What company do you work for?
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SIS
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as in the MI6???
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I think there are a couple of reasons. One is that they're often inaccurate.
A second is that even when they are accurate, they often send up red flags that might be easily explained in an interview, but prevent a person from ever getting that far. For instance, I had a client who had filed for bankruptcy after a family medical crisis that ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars in uninsured medical bills and would otherwise have lost his home and still been nearly $200,000 in debt. It's hard to believe that most employers would have held that against him if he'd had the opportunity to explain, but it can easily lead to being weeded out before the opportunity to explain arises.
Finally, not all managers exercise the discretion that they should. In my multi-national company, the background check is conducted by an outside company and referred to HR only if specific flags pop up, and then HR can make a decision or bring in the manager of the department, but many smaller companies don't have all those layers and thus information that should be private ends up in the hands of people you work side by side with and may turn into office gossip.
Finally, I think it just creeps people out that everything they do is, for better or worse, being documented and following them everywhere they go. -
I've had them for my past and current employers and I can understand why they are important. I don't hate background checks.
We all know that background checks are just that - they check your past - but such doesn't mean all people who pass are without blemishes. We all have issues. Admit it.-
Which, GG, might point up another flaw with background checks. Since they don't paint a complete picture, they may "clear" people with serious blemishes and exclude others with relatively minor ones.
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Right, Tiff.
One other thing worth mentioning is the fact that with each background check, the govt is collecting our fingerprints, in addition to checking for any criminal activity.
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I think (as other people have mentioned) that it is a bit creepy to have someone rummaging through your life and possibly interpreting events wrongly. Also, why is a background check even necessary? I can see the point for someone who will be working with vulnerable people, or handling large amounts of money, but in most cases it just seems like a step too far.
And what about employers? Not all are squeaky clean. Surely if they are allowed to make checks the same should be true for job applicants, and not just about the company in general, but about any people who will be in positions of authority. I have a couple of friends who ended up with bosses who were a little too 'hands on', that may not have happened if they had been able to check some kind of reference from previous employees. -
Sorry, I just came across this post and felt I needed to comment on it. First background checks themselves are not inaccurate. Many people confuse credit reports and background checks. When done properly, background checks are extremely accurate. Second there is something called negligent hiring. So, if I hire you and you work with my customers and get mad then punch one of them then I find out you have several assault charges, it is my fault as an employer. I did not not conduct my due diligence. With that being said I have every right to conduct a background check on you if you are working for me.
There are a few other arguments I see here that I get all the time. Most of them I cover in a post I had written several months back. Take a look at it here. www.crimcheck.com/background-check-news/the-perception-of-the-invasion-of-p...
Obviously this is written from the point of view from an American citizen so YMMV. -
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I have never had an issue with background check, or a drug test for that matter. I have nothing to hide.-
Would you have an issue with it if your background check erroneously turned up something that didn't relate to you, and you didn't get a job because of it? It happens all the time.
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Good morning, MadameX.
Me, personally, I have never had that issue. However, I am 35 years old. Six years ago, a background check was performed for a job that I was applying for. Something popped up on it that happened when I was 22, which did happen. They asked me about it, and I told them the truth. I received the job without a hitch, partly with my truthfulness and my work history. -
That's a nice deal, RT, when it works out that way. But often you just get passed over without any opportunity to respond, and in other cases getting the erroneous information cleared up simply takes too long and the company has to move on to another applicant.
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What a lovely argument.
If we can't guarrantee 100$ accuracy we can't use it..
Lets see where that takes us..
- Throw out the legal system. They don't get everything right.
- No more food safety controls, they DO miss some things.
- No security Checks at the airports, They also get things wrong
- No testing on drugs, dangerous drugs make it onto the market all the time
It's not perfect, but its a useful tool.
Until someone can tell me one system that is perfect, I don't see why we should demand that the background check has to be before we can use it.-
CSI, we've had this conversation before. 100%? Of course not. When we're talking about something more like a 25% error margin, it's no longer "a useful tool"--it's entirely random.
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25% ERROR
How do you even figure that. .
I'm looking at my account at the background check company i have.
Since I started using this one May 2006 I've run 139 background checks.
12 hits on something, all 12 checked with the applicant. all but one correct. The one that was wrong was right until after appeal.
where are the errors? I'll admit that it's not perfect. But i don't get where 25% would come from. I have Less than 1% error margin.-
So with millions of background checks run by hundreds of companies across the United States alone, you think that your 139 background checks--probably conducted through a single company--provide a representative sample? And you know that the 127 that didn't show anything you found worth following up on were entirely accurate?
25% is actually the low-end figure associated with error rates in credit reporting--a relevant number because many employers include credit history in background checks. If you're talking about a purely criminal background check, might the error rate be lower? Perhaps. I don't know (and neither do you) because we're not looking at meaningful statistics. Since you seem to place an undue value on anecdotal evidence, I do know that in my previous hiring position, I hired approximately 60 people, and of those three were delayed or excluded by errors in their background check reports. Keep in mind that the 1/20 rate there doesn't account for all errors, only those serious enough to delay or terminate the hiring process. -
I have to go by what i know.
and yes, i am referring to background checks as something separate to credit checks.
Regarding criminal - You are absolutely right. The prospect of having a False Negative. And hiring a dangerous person that shows up as being of sound character scares me more than having to ask the applicant some extra questions.
Regarding The credit file, is something that every person could and should have an eye on. Those that have erroneous data in it can report that up front.
I recommended a client hire a person with a bad credit file because he did just that. Came out up front with what was in his file and the proof of why it was wrong. He was hired.
Wether I would recommend hiring someone to be hired that can't be bothered checking their own credit file... you do the math. -
I believe with background check that when they are wrong it is because they DON'T turn something up that they should. In that case it is the employer that should be nervous. -
I would say the thousands and thousands of checks we have conducted are representative and a good sample. Credit reports and background checks are two different things. Although a background check can contain a credit report they are usually not used or recommended unless the position includes handling large sums of money or the job is a particularly high paying position. The FCRA is the governing document when it comes to conducting background checks or pre-employment screening and companies are required to provide an avenue to respond. We do and we follow the law to the letter. I know many people in this field as well and they are very strict when it comes to following the guidelines established by the FCRA. I really have no idea where you get your 25% figure but it is ridiculous. Our margin of error when conducting background checks for employment purposes is below 1%. Also, as csiunatc said making the argument that they are not 100% effective is lame. Here is my argument: It's my company, my money, my family and my employees. I will conduct a background check on you to protect my (or investors) interests.
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Background checks are one thing, pissing into a cup another entirely (unless of course, there is a direct public safety concern related to being not under the influence of pot--pilot, surgeon, etc) -
I'm not familiar with what records are used when checking one's background, but If those records are as accurate as the records the top three credit reporting agencies compile, then I wouldn't want my potential employment riding on them. I've always been amazed at how different all three reports can be.
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Largely court records and public documents.
If an employer isn't willing to discuss the items on the report with the applicant for accuracy. I'd be less interested in working for them to begin with.
Most background checks aren't done as a step one process. They are expensive and time consuming. You do background checks on those that are serious contenders for a position.
You screen resumes, then references, Then initial interviews.
After you've gone through that. You'll do the background check normally before the second interview.
At the second interview, you bring up the points that are of concern. Which include background checks / credit information.
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I think verification of information provided by the applicant via his employment application and resume/CV are OK.
I think going any further is an invasion of privacy except in cases where the additional checking has a direct bearing on the job: checking for sex offenses when the job involves children or vulnerable adults, checking for a history of financial offences like embezzling when the job will involve handling large sums of cash, etc.-
Well, theft in general is a MAJOR problem for companies. and im not talking about the Pens and notepads.
If you are less than honest as a person, im sure that you are not going to say that on your application or REsume. I have yet to see someone put their past criminal record as a merit post on the resume.
Unfortunately, the dishonest aren't likely to be honest about being dishonest. -
It is inherently wrong for a person to be denied a job for something that does not have a direct bearing on the job.
If the application is correctly worded, it doesn't matter if the applicant admits a criminal past or not...the employer can VERIFY what the applicant says. And, if the verification process finds that the applicant lied, then THAT is cause for not hiring.
I hope you never find yourself unemployed for two years, like a friend of mine did, and your credit absolutely trashed while you sleep on friends' floors and scrounged day jobs like sitting in focus groups just to make enough money to eat...and then find yourself turned down for work you are eminently qualified to do because you can't pass a credit check! This happened to a friend of mine who lost his job as a content manager when Excite.com tanked. His credit rating was absolutely immaterial to his professional abilities, but he was turned down repeatedly anyway. That is just WRONG.
Verifying information provided by the candidate is one thing, but digging into unrelated personal information is an invasion of privacy and should be prohibited by law. -
I can understand and I sympathize with your friend. I am just curious though did he get a letter or something telling him it was specifically his credit that prevented him from getting the job? I am not trying to be snide I am actually curious because some people assume that it might be one thing when in fact it is not.
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Personally speaking, I don't think they work very well because certain people with violent crimes on their records can't be denied a job because of that if they served their time, except for certain jobs. I once worked a sex offender, who, upon stalking me and harassing me I found out he was as registered sex offender, but my boss simply said they couldn't do anything about it.
I thought, well, what's the point of that?
Otherwise, I agree with Anin, for certain jobs it would seem appropriate, for most jobs? References are probably good enough. -
I don't mind them at all. The worst I've done in my life is one traffic violation.
I especially think anyone who will working with children should have a background check. No exceptions!
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