Could Your Credit Report Keep You From a New Job?

So you've went through the different levels of interviews and now you're one of the final candidates for that new position. One of the last steps of the interview process is running a credit check on you. Could it be a deal breaker?

Back in the day...20 or 30 years ago, who would have that that such a thing as a credit check would make a difference on whether you did or didn't get a job? Well, it's a reality and the new norm of the employment interview process.

Now, there's good news and bad news with this process. The good news is that your potential employer cannot see your credit score when they run the report. The bad news...they can see your open accounts, your payment history, your outstanding balances and the amount of open credit you have. If the numbers aren't that great, it could have an impact on the possibility of your hiring.

In fact, according to an article on pennyhoarder.com, there are two components that employers usually seek out from a credit report-negative payment history and credit utilization ratios. This could be the bad news.

Now don't go scrambling for the latest version of your credit check. According to the article on pennyhoarder.com:

More than 2,000 human resources professionals found that just 16% of companies ran credit checks on all employees.

Now as a reminder the potential employer can't run your credit check without having consent in writing for them to do so.

So if your job seeking and you've made it to the interview process, take a deep breath and good luck!