The main moral debate going on with regard to employment is what it's OK to have happen to someone who's unlucky, and how much regulation we're willing to put i

The main moral debate going on with regard to employment is what it's OK to have happen to someone who's unlucky, and how much regulation we're willing to put in place to protect those who are unlucky. Most people who have bad credit were unlucky. They had unexpected losses of income or medical problems that their insurers wouldn't cover. However, most people would agree that it's OK for someone to be denied a house loan or credit card because of bad luck in the past. Loans aren't rights. They aren't necessities for living. If you can't get a mortgage, rent. It sucks to have your housing choices thus limited, but it's not exactly a life-wrecking catastrophe. Jobs are different. Society has agreed, repeatedly, that bad luck shouldn't make a person unemployable; that everyone has the right to seek appropriate work. We make black-listing illegal and non-compete agreements non-enforceable (if they preclude employment outright as opposed to actual bad-faith competition) for that reason. The problem is that there are a lot of companies that don't want to play by these rules. They really want to be like the comic-strip boss who throws two-thirds of the resumes in the trash and says, "I don't want to work with unlucky people". What I think people should do, personally, if they meet onerous follow-on request is to fake time pressure (or use real time pressure if it exists). "I have a Friday deadline on an offer, and won't be able to turn it down unless I have an offer letter from you." If the offer letter says, "contingent on <X>" where X is something onerous (like a credit check for a non-finance job) then you may want to ask what you get if you don't get the offer, negotiate until it's acceptable (again with the time pressure) and get that in writing.