- A background check may not be exhaustive. In some cases, it may be nothing but a call to your previous employer or your former landlord. More in-depth checks may include your education history, property ownership records, military records, personal references, credit reports and criminal history. Michael Eastman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says online that most businesses reserve in-depth checks for people who have access to company accounts or classified information; if you're applying as a sales clerk or a waiter, the company is unlikely to dig deeply.
- If your bankruptcy was less than 10 years ago, any background check that includes a credit report will turn it up. If it's been more than 10 years and your prospective employer hires a company to check on you, that company cannot, by federal law, include your bankruptcy in its report. This doesn't apply if the employer uses in-house resources to make the background check. The employer has to get your written consent before getting a credit report; the permission form is usually part of the job application.
- If an employer decides not to hire, promote or keep you because of information in your credit report, she must tell you so and provide you with a copy of the report. If the information is incorrect -- it reports a bankruptcy that you never filed or a debt you paid off -- you have a right to contact the credit bureaus and challenge the information.
- Judges have interpreted federal law on background checks to say that an employer can't discriminate against you because of bankruptcy on your credit report. In 2010, Pittsburgh's 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The court ruled that while employers cannot fire someone for a bankruptcy and government employers can't discriminate in hiring, private employers are free to refuse to hire someone who previously filed for bankruptcy. This precedent isn't binding outside the district, however.
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