Often, when an employer is considering hiring a person for a job or is considering promoting an employee, the employer will run a credit check on the person. This credit check may accomplish several things. First, it may give the employer an idea of whether the person is financial responsible. Second, it may let the employer know if the person is deeply in debt. Such checks are usually legal.
Credit Check
A credit report contains a recent history of a person's loans and debts. This is the file that an employer is checking when he runs a credit check. This information is not entirely public. Rather, it is owned by credit reporting bureaus but is only available to people who have a legitimate business interest in learning another person's credit history. This can include a potential employer.
Notification
According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, an employer must usually provide notification to an employee or prospective employee before running a credit check. Often, an employer will ask a person to sign a document in which she provides permission to run the check. Whether an employer is absolutely required to do this depends on the law of the state.
State Laws
Although an employer can check a person's credit, he may not necessarily be allowed to use this information to make hiring decisions. As of April 2011, three states--Oregon, Washington and Hawaii--specifically restrict employers from using a person's credit score or the information in a credit report to make hiring decisions. However, this law that is difficult to enforce, as hiring decisions are seldom transparent.
Considerations
Once an employee agrees to allow an employer to perform a credit check, the employer does not usually need to ask permission again to perform another check. The permission is usually in perpetuity. However, a person is not legally required to allow an employer to look at her credit rating, but this decision may affect whether she gets the job.
0 comments:
Post a Comment