7 ms·

Why is he failing background checks if he's never been non-wrongfully convicted? Genuinely curious to hear from anyone with experience on the employer side of t

by zodiac 11y ago

Why is he failing background checks if he's never been non-wrongfully convicted? Genuinely curious to hear from anyone with experience on the employer side of this.

hueving 11y ago
Likely the department of corrections number somehow coming up so it shows that he spent time in prison. Even if it shows he was exonerated, many people will sadly lose interest right then because they get a vibe the applicant is 'in with the wrong people'. The US is terribly cruel to people that have done prison time, regardless of whether or not they were supposed to be there.
- neoeldex 11y ago
  Too bad it's only almost 1% of the total population.
  - sean2 11y ago
    Yes indeed. And that's only the current percent in prison (something like 0.9%) over 3% have been to prison. If you start counting the number of people accused of crimes, but later exonerated, like this guy, it's probably pretty large.
jzwinck 11y ago
There are two kinds of background checks. The official kind done by a dedicated team with access and knowledge to retrieve city, state and federal data. And the HR kind, where someone without an investigative background and education spends ten minutes doing web searches and online "stalking" to see if the candidate has any untoward elements in their past. The first kind costs hundreds dollars per candidate. The second can be done for about twenty bucks worth of time. You can guess which approach most companies use. It's easier on most candidates, too, because a real background check requires them to fill out paperwork. An ad hoc one they may never know about...unless they fail.
- zodiac 11y ago
  The article states that he's gotten job offers before that were he couldn't accept, presumably because he failed the second kind of background check. Would the employers generally tell someone the reason for rescinding an offer?
  - jzwinck 11y ago
    In America they would absolutely not disclose the reason for not hiring someone. Commonly accepted HR wisdom in the US is that it would open the company up to lawsuits.
    - erdojo 11y ago
      They might not tell you the precise reason, but if you had a written offer contingent on passing a background check that was rescinded, they would tell you that you did not pass the background check.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >There are two kinds of background checks. IBM. Wells Fargo. Frontier Airlines. T-Mobile. Experian. Daimler Chrysler. These are some of the companies listed in the article. They are some of the biggest in the world. They don't seem to me to be the type of companies that take the latter approach to recruitment, possibly opening themselves up to discrimination legal issues.
  - alistairSH 11y ago
    They probably do both. The official background check may come back clean. But, as soon as the HR guy or hiring manager put his name through Google, they see "So and so convicted of dealing crack."
    - ensignavenger 11y ago
      Surely one of the first things he does when contacting a company is to warn them that a web search will find these things, but that he has been exonerated, and to provide documentation as to such? I just find it incredibly sad that the people conducting these background checks at such large companies are so utterly incompetent.
jupiter90000 11y ago
Even if you are found not guilty or not convicted of a crime, if you have been arrested or gone to court these things can show up in public records. These records could be expunged with some effort, depending on the laws in the jurisdiction. Such expungement orders should clear someone from public databases. If it hasn't been expunged though, the info will still show up. Even if dismissed or wrongfully convicted, any mention of anything criminal would cause concern. It's that idea of "where there's smoke there's fire" type of thinking that seems to go on around this kind of stuff. When other candidates exist without the 'concerning circumstances,' why take a risk? For better or worse, it makes sense. Seeing that someone was arrested for crack for any reason would raise suspicion. There would be little motivation to look into further details once seeing "arrested for crack" pop up in a search about a candidate.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  Companies' paranoid "where there's smoke there's fire" logic is the major problem here. I've applied for jobs (tech jobs at big-name companies you have heard of) where they require you to list mere arrests, even if there was no conviction or even if no charges were filed.

by zodiac 11y ago

Why is he failing background checks if he's never been non-wrongfully convicted? Genuinely curious to hear from anyone with experience on the employer side of this.

hueving 11y ago

Likely the department of corrections number somehow coming up so it shows that he spent time in prison. Even if it shows he was exonerated, many people will sadly lose interest right then because they get a vibe the applicant is 'in with the wrong people'. The US is terribly cruel to people that have done prison time, regardless of whether or not they were supposed to be there.

neoeldex 11y ago
Too bad it's only almost 1% of the total population.
- sean2 11y ago
  Yes indeed. And that's only the current percent in prison (something like 0.9%) over 3% have been to prison. If you start counting the number of people accused of crimes, but later exonerated, like this guy, it's probably pretty large.

jzwinck 11y ago

There are two kinds of background checks. The official kind done by a dedicated team with access and knowledge to retrieve city, state and federal data. And the HR kind, where someone without an investigative background and education spends ten minutes doing web searches and online "stalking" to see if the candidate has any untoward elements in their past. The first kind costs hundreds dollars per candidate. The second can be done for about twenty bucks worth of time. You can guess which approach most companies use. It's easier on most candidates, too, because a real background check requires them to fill out paperwork. An ad hoc one they may never know about...unless they fail.

zodiac 11y ago
The article states that he's gotten job offers before that were he couldn't accept, presumably because he failed the second kind of background check. Would the employers generally tell someone the reason for rescinding an offer?
- jzwinck 11y ago
  In America they would absolutely not disclose the reason for not hiring someone. Commonly accepted HR wisdom in the US is that it would open the company up to lawsuits.
  - erdojo 11y ago
    They might not tell you the precise reason, but if you had a written offer contingent on passing a background check that was rescinded, they would tell you that you did not pass the background check.
forgetsusername 11y ago
>There are two kinds of background checks. IBM. Wells Fargo. Frontier Airlines. T-Mobile. Experian. Daimler Chrysler. These are some of the companies listed in the article. They are some of the biggest in the world. They don't seem to me to be the type of companies that take the latter approach to recruitment, possibly opening themselves up to discrimination legal issues.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  They probably do both. The official background check may come back clean. But, as soon as the HR guy or hiring manager put his name through Google, they see "So and so convicted of dealing crack."
  - ensignavenger 11y ago
    Surely one of the first things he does when contacting a company is to warn them that a web search will find these things, but that he has been exonerated, and to provide documentation as to such? I just find it incredibly sad that the people conducting these background checks at such large companies are so utterly incompetent.

jupiter90000 11y ago

Even if you are found not guilty or not convicted of a crime, if you have been arrested or gone to court these things can show up in public records. These records could be expunged with some effort, depending on the laws in the jurisdiction. Such expungement orders should clear someone from public databases. If it hasn't been expunged though, the info will still show up. Even if dismissed or wrongfully convicted, any mention of anything criminal would cause concern. It's that idea of "where there's smoke there's fire" type of thinking that seems to go on around this kind of stuff. When other candidates exist without the 'concerning circumstances,' why take a risk? For better or worse, it makes sense. Seeing that someone was arrested for crack for any reason would raise suspicion. There would be little motivation to look into further details once seeing "arrested for crack" pop up in a search about a candidate.

ryandrake 11y ago
Companies' paranoid "where there's smoke there's fire" logic is the major problem here. I've applied for jobs (tech jobs at big-name companies you have heard of) where they require you to list mere arrests, even if there was no conviction or even if no charges were filed.