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For background checks in general... If you have a job, tell an employer that you are willing to start 2 weeks after the background check has been finalized. I

For background checks in general... If you have a job, tell an employer that you are willing to start 2 weeks after the background check has been finalized. It'd be an expensive mistake accept an offer for Job B، quit Job A, and fail Job B's background check for reasons. Quit Job A AFTER passing the background check. If they pressure you to move faster, tell them to (using nicer words) get their act together and move as fast as they need to get what they want.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
This is good advice for anyone, not just OP.
jrockway 6y ago
This is pretty good advice. I have a friend who works in a call center who found another job due to COVID-19 (started looking when they said they were going to lay everyone off, it's an affected industry). She took 3 weeks vacation from that job, then started the new one. The new one was a disaster; training was disorganized, IT can't get them the right access, and the actual job wasn't what was expected. She quit the new job, and will just silently return to the old one after her vacation is up. I've never thought of doing this, but it's genius. (Note to programmer types, though; you might have signed something that says you won't do this. Recommend legal advice or at least a backup plan for if you get caught ;)
- rootsudo 6y ago
  +1 People quit all the time after returning back from "Vacation."
  - guenthert 6y ago
    IANAL, but this seems questionable. The contracts I've seen mandate giving full attention to the job, so no side-jobs (but that's for "exempt" full time positions). It might get tricky with the tax-man too.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - nogabebop23 6y ago
      Your contract may look different than mione, but I can totally work a second job on my own time. Now it seems unlikely you could do that without impacting your current job, but the GP said they were on vacation, so you probably could in this case. ANy non-compete would be the same if they were concurrent or sequential.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        IANAL but it seems like a sticking point would be the intellectual property assignment and patent assignment agreements.
    - pedasmith 6y ago
      Why would the tax people care at all? They are more likely to take your salary from the two jobs, add them up, and charge taxes on the results. Where I work, a side job is legit (with the obvious caveats, of course!)
conductr 6y ago
Good advice. A good way to go about it is tell them you're start date needs to be a 2 weeks after they confirm that all conditional components of their employment offer are satisfied. Don't elaborate on background checks. "all conditional" is broad and doesn't signal that you think something may come up in your BG check. If they ask, tell them it's simple risk mitigation on your part (just like theirs). If they absolutely want you to start early, come up with an egregious cash cost to terminating you within the X length of employment for any and all reasons including conditional background checks (they likely won't do this, but it aligns with your financial risk story)
foxfired 6y ago
That is exactly what happened to my Coworker. She interviewed for a public job and they gave her the thumbs up. She passed the background check, and gave her two weeks notice. Then, some inconsistency came up. Apparently, on her application she checked the box for never having smoked weed. But on a second document she checked the "Yes" box. This is California 2015, they asked her to do a polygraph test. She failed. Couple days later, she called the first job to see if she can come back. They were bitter that she left, but because of an extremely high turnover rate, they let her back in. It was never the same for her. So yeah, have a guarantee at the new job before you quit the first one.
- teen 6y ago
  bizarre they use a polygraph test when it's known to be psudeoscientific
  - VLM 6y ago
    The pseudoscience issue doesn't matter; pragmatically it works. Its intentionally designed to be intimidating for three very non psudeoscientific reasons. Will you break under pressure? Some fraction truly believe and will confess in terror and can be filtered out. A weak effect is its an intelligence test, obviously it is not magickal and if you're smart enough you'll see thru it. It hasn't been gotten rid of because there really is no downside. It is cheaper than the expensive labor intensive alternatives like interviewing more people or trying to find more records. Much like astrology or prayer or swearing on a bible in a court of law, it is cheap and effective enough with minimal cost.
    - whoisjuan 6y ago
      > Will you break under pressure? Break? Break what? This makes no sense. It’s not like they have verifiable information to see if you break too easily. You’re making it sound like they were hiring a spy. Polygraph test are common in the public sector. They simply do this for bureaucracy reasons. Government agencies need to comply with a bunch of old standards so they can demonstrate they performed all possible verifications in case they go under investigation. Agencies don’t want to be in the position where a security clearance they granted is scrutinized only to find that they didn’t do a polygraph test while all the other agencies still perform polygraph tests. Everyone knows polygraph tests are bullshit. They do them because they have too, not because they find them useful.
gregkerzhner 6y ago
In these coronavirus times especially, this is prudent advice. I would say now its a good time not to quit your old job until even your first day in your new job. It's not a nice move, but given all the uncertainty in the world, I am not sure I would fully trust a job offer until I have my laptop and I am actively working.
dilyevsky 6y ago
Someone i knew at goog got let go for not passing background check like months after start date. Just had empty desk one day with no explanation from management. Kinda bullshit if you ask me...
- harrisonjackson 6y ago
  Without any knowledge of this person - might have been a case of hiring regret followed by a second look at everything that would allow the company to let them go. Either way, I agree with you - pretty BS.
  - dilyevsky 6y ago
    It’s possible but kinda makes it even worse
- akamia 6y ago
  Sometimes this happens if the employee falsified information on their background check form to avoid being caught in the background check. Some companies run a quick high level background check but also have longer term processes for in depth checks. I once had a similar situation happen at a very large (150k+ employees) company. Security showed up and escorted one of our contractors out the door. It turned out he had worked for the company previously and stolen documents that he used to try to extort money from the company. When he was being brought in for this contract position he had changed the spelling of his name on the form and used a social security number for someone with that spelling. During the quick background check everything looked good but the discrepancies were discovered during the more in depth check a couple months later.
- mleonhard 6y ago
  When I got hired at Google in 2013, they let me start before performing the background check. The background check company called all of my previous employers. One former employer gave them incorrect dates for my employment, contradicting what I put on the form. I never heard anything about it from Google.
tschwimmer 6y ago
This is not possible at at least a few FAANG companies. Your background check has to clear before your first day and they will flag if it has not done so.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

This is good advice for anyone, not just OP.

jrockway 6y ago

This is pretty good advice. I have a friend who works in a call center who found another job due to COVID-19 (started looking when they said they were going to lay everyone off, it's an affected industry). She took 3 weeks vacation from that job, then started the new one. The new one was a disaster; training was disorganized, IT can't get them the right access, and the actual job wasn't what was expected. She quit the new job, and will just silently return to the old one after her vacation is up. I've never thought of doing this, but it's genius. (Note to programmer types, though; you might have signed something that says you won't do this. Recommend legal advice or at least a backup plan for if you get caught ;)

rootsudo 6y ago
+1 People quit all the time after returning back from "Vacation."
- guenthert 6y ago
  IANAL, but this seems questionable. The contracts I've seen mandate giving full attention to the job, so no side-jobs (but that's for "exempt" full time positions). It might get tricky with the tax-man too.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    Your contract may look different than mione, but I can totally work a second job on my own time. Now it seems unlikely you could do that without impacting your current job, but the GP said they were on vacation, so you probably could in this case. ANy non-compete would be the same if they were concurrent or sequential.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      IANAL but it seems like a sticking point would be the intellectual property assignment and patent assignment agreements.
  - pedasmith 6y ago
    Why would the tax people care at all? They are more likely to take your salary from the two jobs, add them up, and charge taxes on the results. Where I work, a side job is legit (with the obvious caveats, of course!)

conductr 6y ago

Good advice. A good way to go about it is tell them you're start date needs to be a 2 weeks after they confirm that all conditional components of their employment offer are satisfied. Don't elaborate on background checks. "all conditional" is broad and doesn't signal that you think something may come up in your BG check. If they ask, tell them it's simple risk mitigation on your part (just like theirs). If they absolutely want you to start early, come up with an egregious cash cost to terminating you within the X length of employment for any and all reasons including conditional background checks (they likely won't do this, but it aligns with your financial risk story)

foxfired 6y ago

That is exactly what happened to my Coworker. She interviewed for a public job and they gave her the thumbs up. She passed the background check, and gave her two weeks notice. Then, some inconsistency came up. Apparently, on her application she checked the box for never having smoked weed. But on a second document she checked the "Yes" box. This is California 2015, they asked her to do a polygraph test. She failed. Couple days later, she called the first job to see if she can come back. They were bitter that she left, but because of an extremely high turnover rate, they let her back in. It was never the same for her. So yeah, have a guarantee at the new job before you quit the first one.

teen 6y ago
bizarre they use a polygraph test when it's known to be psudeoscientific
- VLM 6y ago
  The pseudoscience issue doesn't matter; pragmatically it works. Its intentionally designed to be intimidating for three very non psudeoscientific reasons. Will you break under pressure? Some fraction truly believe and will confess in terror and can be filtered out. A weak effect is its an intelligence test, obviously it is not magickal and if you're smart enough you'll see thru it. It hasn't been gotten rid of because there really is no downside. It is cheaper than the expensive labor intensive alternatives like interviewing more people or trying to find more records. Much like astrology or prayer or swearing on a bible in a court of law, it is cheap and effective enough with minimal cost.
  - whoisjuan 6y ago
    > Will you break under pressure? Break? Break what? This makes no sense. It’s not like they have verifiable information to see if you break too easily. You’re making it sound like they were hiring a spy. Polygraph test are common in the public sector. They simply do this for bureaucracy reasons. Government agencies need to comply with a bunch of old standards so they can demonstrate they performed all possible verifications in case they go under investigation. Agencies don’t want to be in the position where a security clearance they granted is scrutinized only to find that they didn’t do a polygraph test while all the other agencies still perform polygraph tests. Everyone knows polygraph tests are bullshit. They do them because they have too, not because they find them useful.

gregkerzhner 6y ago

In these coronavirus times especially, this is prudent advice. I would say now its a good time not to quit your old job until even your first day in your new job. It's not a nice move, but given all the uncertainty in the world, I am not sure I would fully trust a job offer until I have my laptop and I am actively working.

dilyevsky 6y ago

Someone i knew at goog got let go for not passing background check like months after start date. Just had empty desk one day with no explanation from management. Kinda bullshit if you ask me...

harrisonjackson 6y ago
Without any knowledge of this person - might have been a case of hiring regret followed by a second look at everything that would allow the company to let them go. Either way, I agree with you - pretty BS.
- dilyevsky 6y ago
  It’s possible but kinda makes it even worse
akamia 6y ago
Sometimes this happens if the employee falsified information on their background check form to avoid being caught in the background check. Some companies run a quick high level background check but also have longer term processes for in depth checks. I once had a similar situation happen at a very large (150k+ employees) company. Security showed up and escorted one of our contractors out the door. It turned out he had worked for the company previously and stolen documents that he used to try to extort money from the company. When he was being brought in for this contract position he had changed the spelling of his name on the form and used a social security number for someone with that spelling. During the quick background check everything looked good but the discrepancies were discovered during the more in depth check a couple months later.
mleonhard 6y ago
When I got hired at Google in 2013, they let me start before performing the background check. The background check company called all of my previous employers. One former employer gave them incorrect dates for my employment, contradicting what I put on the form. I never heard anything about it from Google.

tschwimmer 6y ago

This is not possible at at least a few FAANG companies. Your background check has to clear before your first day and they will flag if it has not done so.