Job Fair Atlanta

Do you think that bad credit should prevent people from getting a job?

In many cases bad credit and how well you do your job are two different things. I can understand if they are just looking for check fraud or something like that but it seems to me that bad credit (alone)m should be criteria for denying employment. Besides that's give the credit agencies too much power that they should not have. its understandable that it should prevent you from getting a loan but not a job. Denying jobs based on credit also increases the unemployment rate and slows the economy. in my opinion denial of employmen should be solely based on your past employment record. I myself have had great credit, bad credit, moderate credit and the whole spectrum but currently its bad, yet my employment record is impecable as far as dependability and being and excellent emoployee. my bad credit has to more to do with the economy and my own personal issues and not how well I perform on a job. Many people have personal problems that affect their credit. What do you think? Do you agree that this slows down the economy? what are your thoughts and what do you think should be done or not done about the credit agencies having this kind of power? A criminal record is far different from bad credit. I meant to include that a criminal record would be a good reason. Well I guess we all can be judgemental when we're not in that position. A year agon I had impecable credit and would have most likely agreed with you that bad credit should be criteria for denial of a job. Not only that I was a self made credit advisor. But life threw me a curb and now I see it from a different side which I will incorporate once I'm back on top again. I believe in having good credit but no longer believe that that alone is criteria for denial of a job because there must be lots of people out there who are in the same situation. besides in a bad economy we need people working to lower the unemployment rate and reinvorate the economy. Just one mans opinion. The last thing we need is for the credit agencies controlling the unemployment rate. Yes the theory of why they do it makes sense but the reality is that people need jobs and the economy needs people working.

Public Comments

1. Bad credit doesn't normally prevent you from getting a job, that's all BS.
2. Yes, I do. And its legal. I do HR consulting and every firm I work for does this. If you have a bankruptcy or a bad score, you can forget about working for any of them. Companies want to hire ethical, dependable people. They argue that poor credit reflects an inability to manage your finances and, perhaps, that you are not that dependable. Also, a poor credit could also reflect the fact that you may have made some unethical credit decisions in the past. People who honor credit contracts and effectively manage their finances tend to have higher credit scores. I would imagine these people would also make better employees.
3. It's kind of like saying that employers should not discriminate against people who get out of jail. Your bad credit shows that you may be a high security risk if you are involved in handling money or valuable assets for the employer. It is a well known fact that difficult economic circumstances cause SOME otherwise honest people to breach their integrity. There are a lot of jobs that don't put you in a position to take money or merchandise, or put you in a position where you might be tempted to take bribes to influence a decision. For those jobs I don't see where bad credit history should play a role. But I do understand a breach of integrity could benefit one financially. There was a man in our town where I grew up who was a pillar of the community. Very active in church, had kids and supported the school through the PTA. He had lived in our town all his life and everyone liked him. Then he had some very high medical bills and fell behind on his house payments. He started "borrowing" money from accounts at the bank where he worked, intending to pay them back. The bank auditor showed up one day and that night the man committed suicide. So you never know what you will do when your back is against the wall; things you never thought you would even consider. We declared bankruptcy a couple of years ago and my wife found herself the victim of a layoff last year. She is very qualified to do a lot of jobs, but when they pull her credit report it was always the same answer, "Sorry, we've decided to go with a more qualified candidate." I don't feel that is fair because we chose the legal way to deal with our financial situation. We didn't steal money from the places where we worked and we both had plenty of access to do that if we had decided to do so. So I don't think that a bankruptcy should prohibit you from getting a job but unfortunately it usually does. Same reasoning I guess, they think you will steal from them if you've had to file bankruptcy.
4. No, they shouldn't be able to. And Oregon recently made it illegal for employers to even do credit checks. Other states already have bills going up for votes on it. I hope it spreads fast. It's become a new hot topic with so many job losses over the past 5 years or so affecting people's credit. MOST people who have very bad credit have also had some life altering situation such as sky-high medical bills or a job loss that left them unable to pay their bills for a period of time. Obviously the solution to get these people paying their bills again isn't to keep them from a job. Like I said, hopefully this will become illegal soon in many more states. With so many people losing their jobs in the past 5 years, credit checks are becoming an even less reliable factor... since many of the people with "bad credit" are just people who lost their jobs.
5. I was in the exact same place a few weeks back. I was able to find help here; www.loanstalk.tk