This is definitely a relevant question. My organisation checks Facebook for all applicants. A not insignificant proportion get culled as a result.
unless it’s something in your background check that says - Murderer, armed robbery, pedophile, etc. They don’t have to tell you and they are not obligated in any way to tell you. The answer can always be “We found someone else that met our needs better.” Can’t really argue that, can you?
And Markxxx is right about verbal offers being worth nothing. I don’t know about offers on paper, especially if you have to relocate, for instance, and do to get ready to start your job. They may be able to be sued for the expense of your move, but in most right-to-work states, they aren’t obligated to give you anything - they can fire you the day you start and say that the requirements of the company changed.
There is a big fear of lawsuits, which is again what HR is there for. To try to minimize people suing them, even if they have grounds. The laws really favor the companies in this area, so unless you have someone on the inside that knows the real reason you weren’t hired you will get no answer that will satisfy you. I think looking at your background check is an excellent idea, especially if you have no idea why a company would back out at the last minute. There could be something on there. There could also, as someone upthread mentioned, someone’s nephew graduating this summer and that job all of a sudden goes to him. Too bad for you, job seeker. You lose.
I’ll share a story that happened to me a number of years ago that always pops into my head when I see a thread like this or someone relates a terrible job hunting experience. I had an ex-boss and a good friend of mine (so I thought) recommend me for a job working for him at his company. It was a good job, and I was willing to take it.
The interviews went very well. It turned out, they were searching for someone at a higher level than my “friend”, and changed my interview schedule to meet with the CEO and President of the company, instead of talking to some mid-level managers. I thought this was a VERY GOOD sign. Turned out, over the few years since my friend and I had not been working together our career paths had changed a bit. I was exposed to some things that he hadn’t been, and I was much more qualified for the VP level position I was now being considered for. (He was not a VP, and by the sounds of it, he was not going to be one any time soon).
Needless to say, this information got back to him and he was not happy for me. I met him after the interview day was over and we went out for drinks. He informed me that I was not brought down to interview for that position and “what the hell did I think I was doing?” I replied simply that I didn’t seek this other position out (I didn’t even know it existed before that day), and had no idea they were considering me for it until they changed my interview schedule. He was beside himself. Here I was, someone that he wanted to hire to work under him potentially getting a job that was above him in title and pay. I knew he was upset, but I thought to myself “if they want to hire me for the position, I’m taking it. I can’t worry about his feelings, and I’m sorry his career hadn’t gone the way he had hoped.” The next day, I was slated for another half day of interviews.
Early the next morning, I received a phone call at the hotel telling me the interviews had been cancelled and they would be in touch. I asked why, and they wouldn’t answer the question. I called my former friend, who said that he’d tell me everything that happened right after a meeting he was rushing into, but he never called back. Finally, I called one of the C-level people I met the day before and asked some direct questions. He wouldn’t answer them, but he was very sympathetic to the situation and said, “what you are thinking happened is probably what happened, and I can’t share anything with you on this topic for reasons that I’m sure you can figure out.” I said, “Lawsuit”?, and he said “Yes.” He wished me luck, apologized and hung up the phone. That was over 8 years ago, and I’ve never heard back from the company, my friend, or anyone about what happened.
What DID happen was obvious. My ex-boss sandbagged me. He must have burned up the phone lines after we went out after work, making sure I didn’t get the job above him. He simply couldn’t take the idea of a former subordinate being hired to a position above him, I guess. But he must have said some pretty slanderous things about me, because no one would talk or give me even a hint as to what was said, or any chance to defend myself. The only thing I was told was that SOMETHING was said.
That day was truly strange. I went from practically being told the job was mine and that they were going to have me back in a couple of weeks with my wife to tour the area for a few days with a realtor, to a non-person who seemed to have flung poo at the boss like a monkey. Got on the plane, went home, and that was that.
Whatever was said required no proof. There simply wasn’t enough time. But the folks at the company, the HR people, the C-levels, and other decision makers probably decided that hiring me was going to be a lot more complicated than they needed it to be. They didn’t want to lose my “friend”, because he had a job that he was doing well enough in, and hiring someone to take his job AND the VP job at the same time didn’t make sense. So, the easiest thing to do would be to drop me, keep the other guy on board, and talk to someone else in the loop for that position. That’s what they did. I never sued (no grounds that I could PROVE), they hired someone else, and Mr. “Buddy” stayed in his position. All this time later and he’s still there, and still not a VP. There’s a reason, of course. He’s not VP material. His position in life or that company had nothing to do with me. I wonder if he’s ever figured that out.
My advice to you is to get your report, but don’t expect too much. There are a thousand reasons why you were rejected at the last minute, and unless there is something glaring IN the background check, it’s doubtful you’ll ever know. The best thing to do is to try to forget about it and move on, because you will drive yourself crazy trying to pinpoint the reason.
Good luck!
You didn’t say your name was Paul Avery, did you?
Seriously, I’ve had this happen, too. It’s maddening. To the point where you’re almost ready to break into the CEO’s mansion and tie him to his Eames Chair until he tells you why… or concoct elaborate plans to befriend the guy they hired instead of you (and, in my scenario, he finally breaks down over drinks months later and tells you that he’s actually the love child of his boss and George Wendt’s crack dealer).
My advice? Slip a “let me know what I can do better” phrase in a “I’m still interested in working for you” email… and then take a deep breath and Let It Go…
(yeah, I should talk-- in my imagination, I’m still dressed in SWAT gear with nightvision goggles, tickling an HR guy into a confession, and that was ten years and three jobs ago…).
So I’m not entirely making thins up. Some of what I was thinking is valid, and some of it is kind of fuzzy. I was thinking about rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which might be applicable here depending on if the employer used a report prepared by a consumer reporting agency (which is not necessarily restricted to credit reporting information).
I’ve been on both sides of this fence, and in one case got screwed over by the same company not once but TWICE. The first time, it was when I was in business school and I wanted to work for a big defense company. I interviewed, got a verbal offer and was told the written offer was in the mail. No offer came, and follow up phone calls to the VP who was going to hire me were intercepted by the secretary who insisted she was passing them along. Then years later, while working at another defense company, I get a call from the same company (but a different division). They interview me, like me, and ask me how much I want to leave my current job. I give them a salary, and they offer me $5,000 less a few days later in a written offer. I ask for the salary to be bumped up the $5,000 as we discussed and they withdraw the offer entirely, rather than simply saying that was all they could pay (and I doubt it was). I have since refused to work for big defense contractors.
Now the flip side. I have two job openings right now I am trying to fill at my small defense company. After interviewing with me, they have to talk to my boss, who has to pass it to another company that is priming our contract, who in turn has to pass it to the Navy customer. The customer is a government person who is constantly under pressure to cut costs and consolidate positions, so he keeps changing the job requirements, and can’t make a decision, because he can’t find an engineer that can do everything on every system. As such, the hiring process keeps moving forward and then stalling. Now combine this with every person in the chain having other priorities, travel, etc. and it takes forever to hire someone. Some people get annoyed at this and call me asking for a progress report. I explain the process and where it is stalled. In one case, I had an engineer who was unemployed for a year. She was a perfect fit for a job and everyone in the chain approved her, including the customer. Then the customer added one more thing to the requirements list that would have made the job 5% more complicated, and my candidate flipped out and turned the job down after signing a hire letter, getting pre-planned vacations approved, and filling out benefits information. I was stunned. She said that last 5% was ‘not something she could do because she had never done it before’. I said ‘don’t you at least want to try?’, but she didn’t like the idea the job changed even the slightest. Perhaps it’s not PC of me to tell her, but I said “Umm, you’re unemployed now and have been for a year. You can clearly do 95% of this job and the customer wants you even with this 5% added on you haven’t done. So if the customer believes in you more than you believe in yourself, I don’t know what to say other than you should have more confidence and we’ll find someone else. Thanks for your time.” I don’t think that will get me sued, but that’s what I told her. If she comes back and asks for the job now, I will tell her no because in my opinion that behavior is a huge red flag of a future problem employee. I wonder if she would tell her version of the story differently and claim we withdrew the job from her when she changes her mind after realizing being unemployed does, in fact, suck.
We interviewed a late 20-something guy for a job a few years ago. He looked good enough & we did the background check. It comes back with an outstanding arrest warrant in another state.
We lost budget authority for the postiion at about the same time. No really, we did. So since we weren’t going to hire the guy we called him and told him what the background check said. He was both mystified & a little defensive; gotta be a mistake, never been to that state, etc. Didn’t matter to us we said, but we faxed him a copy of the report.
He called back two weeks later to thank us. Turns out back in college driving cross country he’d gotten a speeding ticket & promptly forgotten it when he got to Spring Break or whatever. But computers never forget. He got the issue cleared up & wondered how many jobs he’d missed out on.
By the time we got hiring budget again he was employed and we ended up grabbing somebody else.
So yes, you can have a surprise in your background.