I think anyone here that disagrees with companies doing credit history checks has a very good reason which they can cite. Mine-I had my identity stolen several years ago. I still get calls about it. Second hand-best friend while still in school started a business with a partner using his own perfect credit. Short story-great business idea but not enough clients to keep it going so when the lease was up so was the business. His partner refused to take responsibility during the liquidation, and there is always someone to pay. Then after graduation it took him 6 months to find a job. As a result of these combined factors my friend ended up in the lawyers hands. He fought as hard as he could to pay everyone, but everyone wanted their money NOW, not a minimum payment. This goes to show that having good credit does not have as much bearing on ability to manage and/or be a good employee. It was instead market forces that drove the business under not inability to be good businessmen. Although my buddy struggled mightily to pay it was not good enough.
Those who support credit checks seem to think that if you just pay attention and manage it right nothing goes wrong. Well, it does not quite work that way. As part of my identity theft cleanup I had to change account numbers. In the change process my mortgage company confused my name with another client - so I paid his significantly larger mortgage 2 months in a row as well as my own the first month. Since my mortgage came out second to the other guy's mortgage, the second month meant I did not have enough money. everything got cleared with the mortgage company - eventually. But, I hope everyone gets the point here. I HAD enough money, extra even, I was managing it properly, but due to forces out of my control I got screwed, so is it really fair that I should be out of contention for a job without the opportunity to defend myself? As others have stated, it is not easy to get a mistake cleared.
So yes, you might be able to look back at a bad employee in hindsight and say to yourself that by the looks of his credit score you should have known he was susceptible to doing something like XX, but should you deny yourself the chance to hire a good employee? Is that not what a probation period is for, to judge character and ability on the job? At my institution it is 6 months, 3 months longer than the industry average.
Companies should use their brains and not weed out a candidate before speaking in person.
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I think anyone here that disagrees with companies doing credit history checks has a very good reason which they can cite. Mine-I had my identity stolen several years ago. I still get calls about it. Second hand-best friend while still in school started a business with a partner using his own perfect credit. Short story-great business idea but not enough clients to keep it going so when the lease was up so was the business. His partner refused to take responsibility during the liquidation, and there is always someone to pay. Then after graduation it took him 6 months to find a job. As a result of these combined factors my friend ended up in the lawyers hands. He fought as hard as he could to pay everyone, but everyone wanted their money NOW, not a minimum payment. This goes to show that having good credit does not have as much bearing on ability to manage and/or be a good employee. It was instead market forces that drove the business under not inability to be good businessmen. Although my buddy struggled mightily to pay it was not good enough.
Those who support credit checks seem to think that if you just pay attention and manage it right nothing goes wrong. Well, it does not quite work that way. As part of my identity theft cleanup I had to change account numbers. In the change process my mortgage company confused my name with another client - so I paid his significantly larger mortgage 2 months in a row as well as my own the first month. Since my mortgage came out second to the other guy's mortgage, the second month meant I did not have enough money. everything got cleared with the mortgage company - eventually. But, I hope everyone gets the point here. I HAD enough money, extra even, I was managing it properly, but due to forces out of my control I got screwed, so is it really fair that I should be out of contention for a job without the opportunity to defend myself? As others have stated, it is not easy to get a mistake cleared.
So yes, you might be able to look back at a bad employee in hindsight and say to yourself that by the looks of his credit score you should have known he was susceptible to doing something like XX, but should you deny yourself the chance to hire a good employee? Is that not what a probation period is for, to judge character and ability on the job? At my institution it is 6 months, 3 months longer than the industry average.
Companies should use their brains and not weed out a candidate before speaking in person.