Pre-employment Credit Checks

Are pre-employment credit checks common these days for IT positions? I currently have terrible credit due to some stupid financial decisions I made a couple years ago and I applied for a position at a local bank. They did a pre-employment credit screen and I was pretty much instantly eliminated from consideration.

Has this happened to anyone else? Should I be worried about ever finding a different job because of my financial situation? Can anyone share any advice (besides getting all my bills paid

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Comments

ptilsen

I've not had to do one that I can recall. It is common with financial institutions for all positions, but pretty rare outside of that.

nosoup4u

I'll tell you my experience. My employer needed to check mine for a few company credit cards we use. I made some terrible choices very early on and had a credit score of 520 when I applied. I was honest with them ahead of time and they said it made a difference. They had to cosign for me and ran random checks which I verified on my annual credit report.

I know it's not the same situation, but I'd be honest with them and that you've hopefully taken care of everything and learned from it.

taternuts666

Well that is all a little comforting to hear. I'll just have to stay away from the financial industry for a while until I get my finances back on track.

@nosoup4u - Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately my credit is worse than that and I'm still trying to figure out a way to get it all taken care of. If the question does come up at all I'll just be completely honest with any future employers.

Bundiman

Myfico is a good place to start with lots of people trying to get there credit fixed.

SteveLord

The credit system is broken beyond belief. Hopefully you can find good work without it screwing you.

Iristheangel

I used to work at Bank of America (Position: Credit Card Services Rep and Phone banker), Wells Fargo (Position: Phone Banker) and Burbank Community Credit Union (Position: Member Services Representative. Didn't have to be credit checked to become federally bonded. The general rule was that as long as you weren't making credit approval decisions, you did not need to be credit checked. Other institutions may be different though. I've never been credit checked at this point in my career. Usually I see it listed in the job posting so you know what you're getting into before you waste their time or they waste yours

nestech

These days all banks or financial farm do credit checks… All I can tell you is for the next job. You will have to go online and dispute all the negative collection accounts you have.
Here are the three major credit agencies: Transunion.com, Equifax.com and Experian.com. You are entitle to one free credit report every year or every time some pull your credit

Good luck!!!

Balantine

Rare outside of security-oriented organizations. Obviously banks are biased.

J_86

It all depends on the company and type of position you're applying for. If you're going to potentially have access to financial information or some other type of sensitive account type information, many companies require a credit check as part of their background checks.

It's definitely not the end of the world if you have bad credit. Try smaller to mid-sized places, they are usually more forgiving then big cooperation that have policy about credit checks and don't make exceptions what so ever.

danny069

Some jobs may require a credit check none that I have ever applied for, they are mostly concerned about a criminal background check and may check past employer references. And if they do require a credit check i'm sure they would notify you first.

Xyro

I'm starting to see this more & more often. Companies are using it for character-assessment. I'm certain it will eventually be standard procedure.

fivedollarcouch

you guys are lucky, i cant think of a single job i've had or applied to in the last 8-10 years that didnt do a credit check. obviously all the casinos do them, but i even had one done for doing IT at a construction company. seems to be pretty standard in IT, since you have pretty open access to almost anything. everyone these days is associating credit with your character

Xyro

fivedollarcouch wrote: »

you guys are lucky...

They are lol.

Most jobs (IT/non-related) I see require background checks, drug checks, & credit checks. A minority also require a driving record check.