Yarster, by the way, your explanation does make some sense. It’s all about CYA!!!
I don’t think this is overly cynical, and is closer to the truth than most employers would admit. Personally, I would submit to the checks, then when they saw how exemplary my records are and offered me the job, I would turn them down, and tell them exactly why. No job is worth putting up with that kind of intrusiveness, and you can bet it wouldn’t end with the employment screening. That employer is a bad risk.
Fear that employer is a ‘bad risk’? Not necessarily. As I pointed out in some cases there’s a very good reason to require the driving background;
and the carrier of their employee bond insurance may require checking criminal background and credit reports. For some businesses, employee bond insurance is also crucial (moving companies, janitorial services where the people come in after hours are two examples).
And I’ll also echo the comments made re: Federal background check. A woman I knew was screened for employment by the FBI - she worked for me part time for about a year. I got a questionairre and personal phone call follow up, many questions about what I knew about her personal habits, drug/alcohol use, honesty etc.
So, while I agree that it shouldn’t be necessary for all jobs, even most jobs, I’d stop way short of ‘never ok’.
Human resources professional piping up. (HR director, in fact.)
Checking a driving record on an employee who isn’t going to drive a corporate vehicle makes no sense. I would like to believe that it was only on the form because they couldn’t be bothered to have different forms which only listed checks that applied. Bad HR practice.
Checking a credit record has become de rigeur in just about every industry, which is really funny, considering that a large number of Americans, particularly those under thirty, don’t have great credit. I have spoken to my peers in HR to ask what on a credit rating would disqualify someone from holding a job in their organizations, particularly when the employee isn’t going to be a position of handling cash or funds. Every time I’ve asked, the answer I get is a mumbled “Well, we just really want to know, well, you know, what kind of person they are…”
It’s troubling to me, because there are, of course, things that can look highly suspect on your credit rating that can be easily explained by the circumstances in your life – divorce, health crises and the like. But the catch-22 is that there are laws which prevent applicants from being asked about those sorts of things. And even if someone doesn’t have those sorts of extenuating circumstances, their bad credit doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re irresponsible, or spendthrifts, or unwise. It could just be that they ran into unexpected trouble, that they were overly optimistic, that they overcommitted themselves expecting a positive change in their circumstance that didn’t come through, or expecting to maintain a financial position that they weren’t able to hold onto. It could be that they had a deprived childhood and as adults, they tried to buy themselves into happiness and things got away from them. You never know. But none of that necessarily indicates rampant irresponsibility, or a tendency toward traits which should disqualify them for employment.
Criminal screenings make sense. You want to know if you have a criminal working for you. But I don’t like the suppositions and presumptions that go into credit rating checks at all.
For the record, the conglomerate I work for (in the tech sector) does not do credit checks on potential employees unless they’re working in finance and have the capacity to embezzle.
I don’t know the answers, but want to add that some credit reports have aliases, other Social Security Numbers, other addresses, and a bunch of erroneous information at times. On mine, I was shown living and working in a state in which I have never been. I wrote to the company to change that.
<minor hijack> I worked at a youth camp where many of the couselors were minors and we were prohibited by law from hiring anyone under 14 years of age. Odd thing is were were also prohibited from asking how old someone was because of age discrimination laws. This put us in the odd position of having to ask unrelated questions like “do you have a drivers license?” to help us determine a persons age.</minor hijack>
Opengrave: you can just ask them if they are of the legal minimum working age required by the state. It’s perfectly legal to ask this question. You don’t have to ask their actual age, which you legally cannot do.
This is the situation with regards to asking someone’s citizenship or visa status. It is illegal to ask that, but you are free to ask if someone is able to legally work in the U.S. Then once they are hired, you get the proper documents required for the I-9.
You are not allowed to ask someone’s age, but you are allowed to ask if they meet the legal requirements for a job. For example, you are not allowed to ask someone’s country of origin, but you can ask if they are legal to work.
You could ask if someone is over age 14, but you cannot ask their age.
Not disagreeing with you, TLW, just to note that I consult on HR issues.
It is true that it’s silly to ask about driving record for a job applicant where the job doesn’t require driving, and it’s probably just the desire to simplify with one form for all candidates. However, I’ve seen way too many companies where the opposite happens – NO background checks are done, and then the company gets burned, perhaps badly, and goes to the other extreme.
Got one company hired a secretary, and six months and one day later (right after the eligibility date for their disability program) she suddenly developed migraines that were so terrible that she couldn’t work. She regularly went to a doctor who didn’t find anything on MRIs etc, but she collected disability payments for about six months without working.
Turns out that she pulled this same stunt with a prior employer. Company would have learned that with a routine background check.
Dexter,
I am not sure that they would have found out that she was scamming the disability by running a background check. Most employers especially large ones will only verify that the person worked there but not give out much beyond that.