What is wrong with me?

@dadpad,

A Financial COUNSELLOR might be of greater use.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

Do you hire someone to do the background checks? How do they check? Do they get access to the candidate's bank?? How do they know?

As I indicated in my other post (this is for max's benefit, not yours mame) AND as it says on the website I linked to, potential employers are NOT going to check every single thing on that long list. That list I believe (without looking at it again) are the things you CAN check on.
Yes, we contract with a company whose business is doing background checks.
We have an internal department whose main purpose is coordinating with the company doing the background checks. They make sure the candidate is providing all the information needed to expedite the process, receive the information back from the b/g check provider and provide it to the hiring contact for that particular candidate.
Keep in mind mame, that the company I work for is very large, with over 12,000 employees. You can see how we would need a separate department to handle this for new hires, and coordinate with the background check people.

The candidate is fully aware of what is going to be checked give their permission, and what they need to provide to do so.
The only other thing WE really want, besides verification of work history, is a criminal background check. This not only covers big things like felonies, but will also come back with things like bounced checks.
My company does not requrie a credit check, at least on most levels. Perhaps on very high levels, they do. I don't know.
We also do NOT ask them to provide any bank information.
Separate from that, the candidate also goes for a drug test.
If the position involves driving, only then do we need verification that their drivers license is in good order.

In the U.S. Mame, everyone must also prove they are eligible to work in this country, and have to fill out an I-9 form. There is a list of documents the candidate can choose from to prove this eligibility (one from column "a", one from column "b") and the 2 most common ones they pick are their social security card and drivers license.

http://assets.gcflearnfree.org/topics/170/i9form.png

2 Replies

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Mame wrote:

Do you hire someone to do the background checks? How do they check? Do they get access to the candidate's bank?? How do they know?

When you apply for a mortgage, a credit card, a car loan, how do they know?

The applicant gives us the information we need to get verification of what they have said.
If they don't want to give us the information, they would have to look elsewhere for employment.
If they give us information, and it's found to be inaccurate, we will ask them to explain. Many times their explanations make perfect sense, sometimes they don't.
Ususally, the information they provide is quite accurate.

Again, just speaking of the region I work in, by the time we get to the background check portion, the candidate has been through multiple interviews, the field getting smaller after each one. They want to work for us, and we want them, so there's little to no hesitation going into this last area.

1 Reply

@chai2,

Hmmm, wow... I find that very invasive. And I understand that not everything on that list will be checked (I did read what you said) but I am just stunned that some of those things are on there. What difference should it make if someone bounced a check? There is no way I would give anyone access to my credit history and I have nothing to hide and owe no $. It's just nobody's business but mine.

We have to provide our social insurance number, of course, so taxes and cpp, etc can be deducted, but as far as I know, they don't use it for anything else. In Alberta now, most companies want to see it (I had lost mine years and years ago and had to go get a new one) because of identity theft, but in BC, you still only have to provide the number, which I had memorized.

What goes on in your company sounds so Big Brother to me. I'd be interested in other Canadians' comments about this - if their companies do what yours does. I've never heard of background check outfits up here.

1 Reply

@Mame,

Mame, what chai describes is pretty standard here.

Has been that way for a good 10 - 15 years. I've had to sign releases to provide all kinds of information. Criminal record checks, background checks, financial checks - the whole whack. It may have something to do with the industry I'm in, but no one I talk to about it here seems surprised.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

I've never had that requested of me, but I think you might be right - it could be the business you're in. I've never, ever heard of that. And I would not work for a company that wanted to know that much of my personal information. But thanks for responding - you were one I was thinking of given the industry you're in.

1 Reply

@Mame,

Question mame, where do you draw the line?

A criminal background check?

If you were going to be a health care provider, do you think it's important for the employer to know you have a felony?

Length of previous employment?

What's to keep you from saying you worked for 10 years at a company, and giving the name of a friend, who could work there or not, as your supervisor, and when I call them they give a glowing report?
In reality, you've held multiple jobs, all lasting no more than 9 months?
I'd bet you a paycheck you'll quit your next job at less than 9 months too. I just spent a ton of money training you, for nothing.

Do I want to know if you're in the habit of bouncing checks? If you're going to be in an environment where you feel you have easy marks to borrow money from, you bet I do. Does that automatically disqualify the person? It depends.

I don't believe employers want to pay the background check company for information that doesn't matter to their business.

Seriously, the potential employer is not sitting around wanting to know about your private life because they are curious, and love juicy info. They only pick the things they know their business would need to know.

I see you point mame, I really do. For what you do, what do you feel your next employer would need to know accurately?

Would it be different if you worked in retail? Real estate? Medicine?

1 Reply

@chai2,

Even with such an invasive search, you still haven't said how they would detect an employer for a few weeks that you don't mention. This information simply isn't available. It is pretty safe to leave it off.

That being said, companies that are this asinine go to the bottom of the list of companies I want to work for. In my recent unemployment, a couple of employers asked me to sign forms of consent for these types of invasive background checks either before or as part of an interview.

As I was starting to get hungry, sure I signed the awful things. It left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, and it is a hell of a bad way to start a working relationship. During better times, a form like this would have me walk away pretty quick.

I like to work for a company that treats its employees with decency and respect.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Even with such an invasive search, you still haven't said how they would detect an employer for a few weeks that you don't mention. This information simply isn't available. It is pretty safe to leave it off.

if a pay cheque was issued, the information is available

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Quote:

if a pay cheque was issued, the information is available

I doubt it. If so, please tell me how? (I am talking as someone from the US which may make a difference).

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

There are government forms completed by you and the employer when you are hired.

When pay cheques are issued, there are usually taxes taken off.

There are records with the government, with the company that produces the cheques etc etc

I was a recent forensic accounting seminar - dozens of points where the data can be mined.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Sure EhBeth,

The IRS has this information. The IRS is also bound by law to keep it private. The two banks involved also have the information and they likewise are bound by law to keep it private.

There is no way for another employer (at least in the US) to get this information. Do you really think it is possible for me (or a private company for that matter) to call up the government and inquire about your tax records?

It can't be done (without committing a felony or some sort of magic).

0 Replies

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Question mame, where do you draw the line?

THAT's a good question, chai. I'm not sure.

A criminal background check?

I DON'T mind one if it's needed, say if you're working with money, or children, or the elderly. But if I'm cooking in a restaurant or working with engineers, no, I don't consider it necessary.

If you were going to be a health care provider, do you think it's important for the employer to know you have a felony?

YES, I do.

Length of previous employment?

Yes, I think that's crucial to know, for all the reasons you list below. I don't mind that at all.

What's to keep you from saying you worked for 10 years at a company, and giving the name of a friend, who could work there or not, as your supervisor, and when I call them they give a glowing report?
In reality, you've held multiple jobs, all lasting no more than 9 months?
I'd bet you a paycheck you'll quit your next job at less than 9 months too. I just spent a ton of money training you, for nothing.

I agree, I feel the same way, but...in my previous business of working with mineral exploration companies, all of them either merged with another company or the company folded or the company's assets were moved to another country where we were not entitled to work. I worked for four companies like that and was at each for a year to a year and a half... that gives me a checkered job history for those 6 years, but it wasn't my doing except for choosing that industry. And... most of us in the company were made redundant. But then, I always include the Reason for Leaving on my resume, which explains things.

I agree.

Do I want to know if you're in the habit of bouncing checks? If you're going to be in an environment where you feel you have easy marks to borrow money from, you bet I do. Does that automatically disqualify the person? It depends.

I agree, it depends. It also could just mean someone's bad at accounting, thought they had more in there than they do and their check to a department store bounced. The only thing this says to me is that they're not good with money and if they're not handling it at work, then who cares?

I don't believe employers want to pay the background check company for information that doesn't matter to their business.

Seriously, the potential employer is not sitting around wanting to know about your private life because they are curious, and love juicy info. They only pick the things they know their business would need to know.

I see you point mame, I really do. For what you do, what do you feel your next employer would need to know accurately?

That I'm reliable, committed, confidential, skilled, honest, get along with people, and will contribute in a positive way. They DON'T need to know how much tax I paid last year or what's in my bank account.

Would it be different if you worked in retail? Real estate? Medicine?

I'm not sure, chai. I think it would matter if you're a felon and want to work with children or disabled or elderly as, depending on the nature of the felony, you are working with vulnerable people, but... if you were convicted of drunk driving, say, 25 years earlier, then that has nothing to do with anything. Or if you were convicted of smoking pot when you were 18... not a big deal to me. How would that affect your ability as a real estate agent or sales clerk or nurse? Would it matter if, as a nurse, you bounced a lot of cheques? Not to me. I just want to know if you can do the job. And I think the interview process is the place and time for finding that out. I think if you're a good interviewer, you'd be able to determine the type of person you're interviewing without the checks.

Interesting discussion, anyway!

1 Reply

I don't think so. I've processed hundreds of I-9s. You provide proof of employment eligibility and photo identification, which usually comes down to social security card and driver license. No listing of previous employers. I have also tried to pry information out of Social Security Administration. Zip, Nada, Zilch. They collect information; they don't disburse it. Of course, you can verify social security number. In fact, you are encouraged to, but the only government form requiring a list of prior employeers used in the business I worked in applies to CDL drivers.

The only information we had of previous employment was what we collected on employment application forms. We could verify what we were given. What we weren't given couldn't be checked. A gap between graduation and present wouldn't have been unusual, though the bulk of hiring in the well servicing business didn't require graduation from anything.

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@Mame,

I agree with 99.2432% of what you said mame. The thing about bouncing checks is one that I see both sides of. Yeah, you could just be bad with accounting, and you're not handling money, you could say "so what?" But if you're still bouncing checks, are you going to be asking people for money? I totally agree one bounced check shouldn't mean much, or anything. Like a lot of things, the information you get is a tool, it depends on what you need it for.

With a registered nurse, as you can imagine, having a DUI or drug charge on your record is HUGE. There is a program (I don't know if it's different in each state) for nurses who admit to a substance abuse problem, among other things, that can assist a nurse, so they don't have to loose their license. However, they put so many restrictions on what the nurse can do, it severly limits them for the period of time they must be in the program.

I bring this up because of a unique situation that came up about a year and a half ago.
I may not have all the facts straight, but it's the best I can remember. All of this happened because of the timing of a few months.

We interviewed this woman who was around 24 or 25, who was going to be finishing up nursing school in about a month. She was really great I really liked her and was going to refer her for a group interview. She worked full time while going to school, was passionate about becoming a nurse, had a great personality, etc. etc. It was then that she said to me. "I have to tell you something" I thought "Oh ****" because I knew what that means.
However, there was a twist. Back in her teen years, she'd been involved with drugs or alcohol, and literally right after her 18th birthday she got arrested with a DUI.
Fortunately, this had been a wake up call for her. She got her act together, got responsible, got a job, etc. After a few years, something got her interested in nursing, she started working in health care, and then started nursing school. What had happened when she turned 18 was, and had been for awhile now, another life to her. However, because of the timing, when she was graduating from nursing school, that old DUI was still going to be on her record for another few months, and so she was required to registered as an impaired nurse, until it was off her record.
Crazy huh?
What impressed me about her was that after telling me this story she said that she totally understood those where the rules about her situation, and there was no use complaining about it, because that was how it had to be. In other words, she showed total accountability for what she had done, and was determined to get past it.

Long story short (too late Wink

) we ended up hiring her, she preformed the duties of a tech, under supervision, but at a pay between what a tech and a nurse makes, until the required amount of time went by, and she was officially no longer "impaired" She was immediately promoted to RN, and will be promoted to charge as soon as she qualifies. Last month, I was looking at some data and said "WOW, it's been a year we hired "Mary"" I called her up to say congrats, and she said she was still so happy we gave her that chance.

So, having a background check and something coming up isn't necessarily a death knell.

If "Mary" hadn't fessed up when we first talked, and we offered her a job and did the background and uncovered the DUI, the story could have ended up quite different.
She'd be able to prove that since that happened when she was 18, she'd held positions of increasing responsibility, had not had any further trouble and was not going back.

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@chai2,

I've been reading along on all this.

Obviously, certain companies can have these background checks done via their access to these kind of checking firms. I suppose it is arguable that they should or should not be able to, but as an vintage lab technologist back in the day, I am all for some of those checks. Mistakes can be life serious; they do happen, but caution is well advised in hiring. The last lab I worked in, the one I said no when asked to manage and then changed careers (heh), they had hired a new sweet tech to help. It's a long time ago now so I don't remember the details, but that I caught her falsifying results, and brought the details to the attention of the owner and she was gone. I'd spent years of my own work time trouble shooting any questionable results, and falsifying is a strong no. Actually, back when I worked in research, an odd result turned out to be the discovery of an antigen specific lymphokine. Honesty is an imperative in science. At the same time I say this, I'm sure the tech meant well in her way. She was probably afraid of telling the truth.

I don't know re her records - she would have only been there maybe two days.

But as Max and Roger said, that kind of background checking where you could find out past work history so specifically wasn't usual, in my experience. I would think, as I said, that it would depend on the field of work and the way a business was run. I was about to say that I've never worked in a place with 12,000 employees, but, yes I have, a university. Our bete noir at the time of hiring was a loyalty oath (what do you mean I have to fight the invaders (or some wording like that), but that's another subject.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I agree with 99.2432% of what you said mame. The thing about bouncing checks is one that I see both sides of. Yeah, you could just be bad with accounting, and you're not handling money, you could say "so what?" But if you're still bouncing checks, are you going to be asking people for money? I totally agree one bounced check shouldn't mean much, or anything. Like a lot of things, the information you get is a tool, it depends on what you need it for.

Bouncing the odd cheque certainly doesn't imply to me that they're going to be asking to borrow money; neither does borrowing money imply they bounce cheques. The interview process is where you determine what they're like.

With a registered nurse, as you can imagine, having a DUI or drug charge on your record is HUGE. There is a program (I don't know if it's different in each state) for nurses who admit to a substance abuse problem, among other things, that can assist a nurse, so they don't have to loose their license. However, they put so many restrictions on what the nurse can do, it severly limits them for the period of time they must be in the program.

The example I gave was a DUI 25 years earlier. It's like another lifetime - think back on your own life 25 yrs ago. And just because someone has a clean history doesn't mean they won't start drinking impaired or becoming addicted to prescription drugs. This is the problem I have with history. It's HISTORY and doesn't necessarily mean they're going to continue that record. You hear all the time of people later in life pulling stunts... like that 43 yr old teacher screwing around with the 16 yr old boy - did she do this before? How can anyone predict what someone will do? It's a risk, whether you have the background checks or not and again, this is what the interview process is for.

So, having a background check and something coming up isn't necessarily a death knell.

Maybe not in your world, chai, but then, you're willing to give someone a chance. Other people are not so generous.

If "Mary" hadn't fessed up when we first talked, and we offered her a job and did the background and uncovered the DUI, the story could have ended up quite different.

Yes, I do see that. But with respect to the case in point, of this person who worked 6 weeks - I still think I'd omit that from my resume. We don't know what happened there - was she just not a good personality fit with the company? That happens and is no fault of anyone's save the interviewer, who should have known better. Was she hired inappropriately for the specific job? Again, not her fault - the onus falls on the interviewer here. Did it turn out she was no good at fashion or whatever her job duties were? If so, why didn't the interviewer ensure she was able to do those tasks? We are unclear as to the specifics of her termination. We also don't know if she was given training, supervision, or warnings... So, why should she have a negative reference because the interviewer was less than competent? That is not fair or reasonable to me.

I'm sure we'll just continue to agree to disagree about this one But since I've no experience with background checks in Canada and what they entail/encompass, I say why muddy the waters?

1 Reply

I've a bias toward the interview process myself, since I was hired from the beginning via interviews and generally old bosses remained friends and our cohorts were most often a team. Maybe a weirdo team, but a team. A different world from what Chai is talking about. Companies have massive liability that they try to curtail, and I think things get squirrelier as possible impact and liability grow; probably rightly so, at least re past job timing/existence. FBI, for example. I can see it re medical corporations.

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@ossobuco,

Just saying..

I have a friend (not that we've talked lately, which is too bad), whose husband shot and killed a male lover in their home. He was a psychiatrist, the husband. That guy must have had some notes on his employee records.. if they were available.

I gather, though, that some people are careful re what they say re giving a reference, for lawsuit reasons.

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@Mame,

Yes, I do see that. But with respect to the case in point, of this person who worked 6 weeks - I still think I'd omit that from my resume. We don't know what happened there - was she just not a good personality fit with the company? That happens and is no fault of anyone's save the interviewer, who should have known better. Was she hired inappropriately for the specific job? Again, not her fault - the onus falls on the interviewer here. Did it turn out she was no good at fashion or whatever her job duties were? If so, why didn't the interviewer ensure she was able to do those tasks? We are unclear as to the specifics of her termination. We also don't know if she was given training, supervision, or warnings... So, why should she have a negative reference because the interviewer was less than competent? That is not fair or reasonable to me.

URL: http://able2know.org/reply/post-4585273

Thankyou guys for all your help, you have really been able to enlighten the situation im in. I just though I would clear some things up, I live in Australia, so im not sure if the background check is applicable for here, when I go for interviews I usally just provide a photo ID, resume, and my tax file number-if it is a paid trial or if they do hire me. Other than that, Im not sure if I get a background check on anything.
And answering Mames questions above:

was she just not a good personality fit with the company?

Possibly, I got along with everyone but the boss as I did not agree with the way he talked to an treated staff, yet I never said or did anything to show this, I remained proffessional all the time, they might have just seen right through me.

Was she hired inappropriately for the specific job? Again, not her fault - the onus falls on the interviewer here. Did it turn out she was no good at fashion or whatever her job duties were?

I do believe they hired me for the wrong position, yes I studied at fashion school but my position was about completing spreadsheets all day and I had not learnt that in my course and I was quite frank about it in my interveiw. They had never completed a course in fashion and assumed I would know everything. Once I knew what was expected of me, I self taught myself of what I had to do using tutorials.

If so, why didn't the interviewer ensure she was able to do those tasks? We are unclear as to the specifics of her termination. We also don't know if she was given training, supervision, or warnings

I did get training, they told me at the start of the first day, that the first 4 weeks would be casual work, abling me to re-locate for it, I had to drive hours everyday until I could move, and they said those 4 weeks (3 days a week) would be training. Then for the first six months It would be me doing the work but still alowing for training as I complete things for myself for the first time. Then after 6 months I will know what I am doing. In reality the first 4 weeks I was getting trained but they were more assuming I knew what they were doing then teaching me, and I would go out on a limb to try to teach my self and if I did something wrong they would tell me to just ask them-thats what theyre there for. Yet when I would ask, I got talked down to like a 2 year old. When the 4 weeks were up I went on to full time employment, and during the last week I was there I was gettig told I was doing a good job, in fact the last day I was there they showed me my new office, only to tell me I was unsuitable for the job a few hours later.

My main dillema is that I was only there for 6 weeks when all my previous employment, I was there for around 5 years or more each, and had never been fired previous to this, I dont want to put this on my resume as I am embarassed by it, yet when I worked there, I gained som much training and skills and know-how in the fashion industry which is impressive for my age and good to put on my resume so I can get work in the fashion industry other than retail. So im not sure what is the best option to do.

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