Should Potential Employers be Allowed to Run Background and Credit Checks – No
Anyone that is hiring someone for a job should have the right to check their background, to make sure they are hiring the person that is applying for the job and make sure they are not hiring someone that would cause harm to the other staff or anyone else that the company deals with. I don't believe that anyone would want to hire someone that has a criminal record for robbery to handle money or someone that has serve time for rape to be left alone with women or children.
I don't really have a problem with the background check, however if there is something in the record that has not been removed due to court backup and say it was do to idenity theft, a person has the right to explain this and in most cases employers don't give them this right. Not everything in someone's record could be correct or updated. As an employer it is up to them to notify the court to make sure the information is correct and up to date.
There has been some reports in the news where employees were hired to work with children and then later find out that this person has a background of hurting children and are not qualified to handle children. Whatever is in a person's background that is criminal is always public knowledge and it is up to the employer to do their part and make sure who they hire is in fact that person and don't have something in their background that could come out and become a problem in the long run. I believe that anyone can make a bad decision and once they serve their time they need to prove that they are able to do what is right, however we all know that there are some people that are looking for the next step to make the same mistake and do whatever they want.
A criminal background check is great, but somethings it can be clean and you still end up with someone who is not the best person for the job and have a low key criminal on hand. We have to go with our feelings and be mindful of what a person does and how they act. What's in a person's background is not always a tell all of the kind of person that you are hiring and should not be the biggest thing that is used to determine if this person is right for the job.
Now, doing a background check to see if there is any type of criminal charges pending or other wise is find, however doing a background check to see if someones check score is high of low and what type of bills they have is a bit much. I never could understand how doing a good job for an employer and ones credit score makes a difference. Just because someone has a low credit score doesn't mean that they can't handle their job. A person could have lost their job; lost their spouse, illness, or anything to set them behind in paying their bills on time and now the law allows for employers to hold it against them and how many of them have high credit scores.
The last thing anyone wants is bad credit and being turn down for a job that could change that score is a bigger problem than we think. If we are to help in turning this country around, I don't believe this is the way to do it. In the times we live in now, there are going to be a lot of job openings and now one will be able to fill the positions because they have low credit scores and that would be a big number of us that do. It doesn't matter if a person has the education or the experiences to do the job, but they need to have education and good credit to be able to handle a job.
I can say for myself I have been turn down for a job that I was more that capable of doing and was turn down because I had a medical bill that was on my credit, no questions as to why. I never knew it was on there and was paying the bill to the hospital. There was a mix up and still I was turn down cold. The only way I found out about the bills was I thought about what the employer ask me and that was do I have any unpaid medical bills. I pulled my credit to find there was and I never heard from the two different employers as to why they didn't want to hire me. I wish I had the chance to explain why this was. By allowing employers to check credit as if they are trading goods or service for payment is wrong and hurting us as a nation more than helping. The way it works is, job equal payments and that comes out as high credit scores. If we don't have a job we can never clear up our credit.
