What’s in a Credit Check for Employment?

Some employers order credit checks on their candidates – particularly for positions that include financial or cash handling responsibilities or access to an employer’s sensitive information and trade secrets – to among other things, evaluate whether the candidate would present an unacceptable risk of theft or other dishonest behavior in the job for which they are being evaluated.

Employment credit reports generally will list credit accounts, balances, payment patterns, delinquent accounts, and accounts that have gone into collections, and certain other information maintained by the national credit bureaus. However, employment-purposed credit reports provided by the national credit bureaus do not contain your credit score.

Also, the ordering of an employment credit report does not adversely impact your credit score, and other authorized third parties that may obtain your credit report should not be able to see when an employer has requested your employment credit report.