by Nick Fishman

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, it is just when opinion turns into advice that might harm someone that exception should be taken. Case in point, I just read an article that was published in a state of Washington newspaper: Employers Getting Nosier About Your Background. The writer gave a decent enough 10,000 ft. description of background checks and the FCRA, etc.

Where I think she might be doing harm to her readers is where she encourages job applicants to decline consent when an employer asks to conduct a background check. Sorry but for most employers, declining to do so immediately makes you ineligible for the job.

The author is concerned about the depth of information sought as if employers aren’t entitled to decide their own criteria for each job. She says “These standards {background checking standards} don’t address the fact that some businesses investigate candidates when they simply don’t need to. Far too many companies perform background checks on all job candidates, regardless of position. This means that some of you will be asked for immediate access to your private information, even if you don’t work with money, classified files or even other people.” Again, it is the prerogative of the private employers to decide what is important in their hiring decision and what is not.

She is also rightfully concerned about the prevalence of identity theft. However, information such Social Security Numbers and home addresses would be sought anyway at the time of employment. Lastly, she encourages those with concerns about background checks to find organizations that do not currently mandate them as part of the hiring process. What she forgets to mention is that those companies are the ones that are targeted by those with information they don’t want others to know. Background checks not only protect employers, they protect the employees who work for them. Weeding out violent offenders, for example, benefits not only the business owners, but also employees and customers alike.

I think she probably could have still gotten her point across and acted more responsibly by specifically stating that failure to consent would automatically terminate the chances of employment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Articles, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.