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Although I have personally never run into such questions before-- it would say a lot to me that perhaps if they need this kind of filtering maybe it would not be an environment I would be so keen to work for-- i.e. maybe the jobs offered are more along the entry level where people who even had been in prison for periods of long time are looking at as potential re-entry jobs, etc)
I don't know - for any job I have ever applied for (including white collar, non-entry level) there is almost always a question asking if you have been convicted of a felony. So the question does not seem that odd (although the wording is a bit).
Just came across an interesting chart of what an employer can and cannot ask you about each specific subject: http://www.andersonbottrell.com/php/pages/articles/interviewchart.pdf (broken link)
This following site gives pointers on how to handle inappropriate questions.
The focus of interview questions should be: What does the employer need to know to decide whether you can perform the functions of the job? When an employer strays from job-related questions into areas that relate to protected characteristics, this could raise an inference of discrimination, depending on the circumstances.
If asked an improper question, you have a few options:
They may have a good work ethic and high morals but bad credit sends a message about handling responsibilities and judgment. Granted, there are extreme situations but (I'd bet) most bad credit is due to poor planning, carelessness, and lack of responsibility.
And you'd bet WRONG, on the bad credit issue. It burns the h*ll outta me, that people assume that if your credit is bad, that you're 'irresponsible'. That's a HUGE myth! Many things beyond a person's control, can affect their credit rating. I'm talking about things such as prolonged unemployment, divorce, illness and/or injuries, large medical bills, a lawsuit which results in large legal bills, a car accident, a natural disaster, which can result in damage to a person's residence and personal property, etc., etc.
Potential employers have NO BUSINESS prying into a person's credit background. It has no bearing on a person's ability to do a job. Congress is seriously considering outlawing the practice, of pre-employment credit checks. And I sincerely hope that they do so. Pre-employment credit checks, are just another form of elitism, that excludes the very people from jobs, that need them the most!
And you'd bet WRONG, on the bad credit issue. It burns the h*ll outta me, that people assume that if your credit is bad, that you're 'irresponsible'. That's a HUGE myth! Many things beyond a person's control, can affect their credit rating. I'm talking about things such as prolonged unemployment, divorce, illness and/or injuries, large medical bills, a lawsuit which results in large legal bills, a car accident, a natural disaster, which can result in damage to a person's residence and personal property, etc., etc.
Potential employers have NO BUSINESS prying into a person's credit background. It has no bearing on a person's ability to do a job. Congress is seriously considering outlawing the practice, of pre-employment credit checks. And I sincerely hope that they do so. Pre-employment credit checks, are just another form of elitism, that excludes the very people from jobs, that need them the most!
I AGREE with this totally! It's no one's business! It never used to be. As long as you had experience and a degree-you were a candidate for the job. I got penalized because I shattered my ankle by potential employers. Is it really not possible for someone to be stuck in a cast for 3 1/2 months, a cam boot for 7 weeks and then have to re-learn how to walk? Want to know how I busted my tail to get to that point? And the other assumption is that you milked the system for disability. Nope-wasn't able to have that since I had worked for a public school district in NYS and being a governmental agency-they don't carry it. I used every hard earned cent of my retirement to pay my bills-we never missed ONE in all off this mess. I even paid off my house during it!
But nope-I am just grouped with the rest. Oh and that 11 years I didn't work to raise my kids-yeah they don't like that either. They don't even bother to notice that it took me 5 years ON MY OWN to pay for college to earn that degree as a adult raising kids at the same time! Nope-a woman who stays home with children must be a mindless zombie who eats bon bons. I've have NEVER seen such small minded hiring people in all my days!
They discount all your volunteer work. Doesn't count. Doesn't matter you ran and planned for a Girl Scout troop of 22 girls and ran a budget to all them to participate in activities or trips. Nope-your just a babysitter in their eyes. Clueless wonders.
And yes-women DO get this flack all the time. Men don't want to hear it either. Put on you big girl panties and suck it up buttercup. But do men get questioned about if they are married, have children-what if they are sick-what are your sick day back ups. Etc. When men get asked this same stupid questions as women-maybe they'll actually get a clue about what we've been dealing with for YEARS!
It's the "assumption" and No other OPTIONS available to CHOOSE from so that the employer GETS A Correct impression as to who is applying!!!!!!!!
Why offer "prison" as the ONLY option when someone has been out of work in a long time!???
I have never set foot in a court room in my entire life and have done nothing wrong...never been or even passed by a prison driving...OK! But it sure bothered me that employers think so little of people these days and have just a few short assumptions if the resume or answers don't match up to their software app used to screen ppl!
It IS Insulting.
Just like assuming that if someone has bad credit they are automatically bad people with no work ethic or morals! VERY INSULTING & Presumptuous!
No, there is nothing insulting here. They asked a simple yes or no question. They just want to know if you've ever been in prison. It's on every employment app that I have ever filled out. If they have questions about breaks in employment, they will ask you on the interview.
I AGREE with this totally! It's no one's business! It never used to be. As long as you had experience and a degree-you were a candidate for the job. I got penalized because I shattered my ankle by potential employers. Is it really not possible for someone to be stuck in a cast for 3 1/2 months, a cam boot for 7 weeks and then have to re-learn how to walk? Want to know how I busted my tail to get to that point? And the other assumption is that you milked the system for disability. Nope-wasn't able to have that since I had worked for a public school district in NYS and being a governmental agency-they don't carry it. I used every hard earned cent of my retirement to pay my bills-we never missed ONE in all off this mess. I even paid off my house during it!
But nope-I am just grouped with the rest. Oh and that 11 years I didn't work to raise my kids-yeah they don't like that either. They don't even bother to notice that it took me 5 years ON MY OWN to pay for college to earn that degree as a adult raising kids at the same time! Nope-a woman who stays home with children must be a mindless zombie who eats bon bons. I've have NEVER seen such small minded hiring people in all my days!
They discount all your volunteer work. Doesn't count. Doesn't matter you ran and planned for a Girl Scout troop of 22 girls and ran a budget to all them to participate in activities or trips. Nope-your just a babysitter in their eyes. Clueless wonders.
And yes-women DO get this flack all the time. Men don't want to hear it either. Put on you big girl panties and suck it up buttercup. But do men get questioned about if they are married, have children-what if they are sick-what are your sick day back ups. Etc. When men get asked this same stupid questions as women-maybe they'll actually get a clue about what we've been dealing with for YEARS!
Believe me, I feel your pain. Today's employers, are finding ever more clever ways to discriminate in their hiring practices. I'm in my early 50s, and I've never seen the things going on with hiring, that I do now.
Unfortunately, because of the economy, it will remain an employer's market for years. In fact, I don't think that it's been even remotely an employee's job market, since the mid-90s. And that was only for a brief few years, before the dot-com bust hit in the early 2000's.
Bad credit is usually the result of horrible decision making. All of the scenarios that you list are the result of a decision, sometimes a decision made a while ago. Divorce? Horrible decision on your part to get married to someone who that would happen to. Medical bills? Horrible decision not to have health insurance. Car accident? Again, insurance. Prolonged unemployment? Where is your savings and networking to find another job if vocationally dislocated? Aside from identity theft (which I assumed is easily fixed, correct me if I am wrong) there are no scenarios to which a horrible credit score cannot be attributed to bad decision making. That is a HUGE red flag for employers, and I personally if choosing between two otherwise equal candidates, would always pick the one with the drastically higher credit score.
I AGREE with this totally! It's no one's business! It never used to be. As long as you had experience and a degree-you were a candidate for the job. I got penalized because I shattered my ankle by potential employers. Is it really not possible for someone to be stuck in a cast for 3 1/2 months, a cam boot for 7 weeks and then have to re-learn how to walk? Want to know how I busted my tail to get to that point? And the other assumption is that you milked the system for disability. Nope-wasn't able to have that since I had worked for a public school district in NYS and being a governmental agency-they don't carry it. I used every hard earned cent of my retirement to pay my bills-we never missed ONE in all off this mess. I even paid off my house during it!
But nope-I am just grouped with the rest. Oh and that 11 years I didn't work to raise my kids-yeah they don't like that either. They don't even bother to notice that it took me 5 years ON MY OWN to pay for college to earn that degree as a adult raising kids at the same time! Nope-a woman who stays home with children must be a mindless zombie who eats bon bons. I've have NEVER seen such small minded hiring people in all my days!
They discount all your volunteer work. Doesn't count. Doesn't matter you ran and planned for a Girl Scout troop of 22 girls and ran a budget to all them to participate in activities or trips. Nope-your just a babysitter in their eyes. Clueless wonders.
And yes-women DO get this flack all the time. Men don't want to hear it either. Put on you big girl panties and suck it up buttercup. But do men get questioned about if they are married, have children-what if they are sick-what are your sick day back ups. Etc. When men get asked this same stupid questions as women-maybe they'll actually get a clue about what we've been dealing with for YEARS!
My company has to bond all of its employees due to the type of information we handle. Even entry level customer service reps have access to very very personal data about our customers (social security numbers, salaries, investments, banking information, personal identifying information, and it goes on and on and on). The bonding insurance plans will not allow a bond on an employee who exhibits poor financial decision making-- bad credit is not an immediate refusal to hire or a dismissal (my background/credit is checked once every three-four years I believe). You are allowed to have a certain threshold of bad debt.
It is not perfect but the company does not want people who may have the temptation to commit a crime that does not involve taking money out of a cash register-- (we don't have any access to cash, but you can commit crimes electronically). We used to not do as extensive background checks on temp workers, but after I personally found theft caused by a temp worker in my department-- that changed. She and her partner were dismissed immediately once we were 100% sure of what had happened, both had not been through the background checks that normal employees go through. Who knows if they had bad credit or what have you-- but the company must mitigate any potential red flag in order to have employees bonded.
On another anecdotal experience, I worked as a recruiter over a decade ago and I remember discussing with a client in the telecom/wireless industry that several call centers even with their peers had issues with people who were hired and would work up to six months, long enough to steal credit card numbers to either sell on the internet or use themselves (they had at their own call center in two different states had caught some employees doing this and sending items to their home addresses from the credit card theft). I remember the manager telling me that HR was instituting new background checks that would also include credit. They realized that that was not going to necessarily mitigate the problems they had, but they felt that it would be another tool to try and illuminate any potential issues.
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