Have you recently attended a job interview that went well, but you were asked to give permission for the potential employer to search for criminal records? This takes a lot of people off guard, especially if they have not gone to a job interview in the last several years. If you have been out of the work force or have just been with the same employer for a long time you might not have ever experienced this before. Don’t take it personal, this is something that most employers now do with all of their potential employees. This is sort of a security feature that businesses now use to be sure that they know who they are hiring.
Why would a business need to know about your criminal past? The best answer to this question is that the best indicator of future behaviors is past behavior. If you have stolen from an employer in the past, indications are pretty strong that you will steal from an employer in the future. An employer wants to know the risks associated with each person that they hire and the best way to do this is through a search for criminal records. It may feel a bit odd to you if you have never been victimized by another person or if you don’t have a criminal history.
If you do have a criminal history, you should just be upfront about it when you are asked to sign the consent form to have your background searched. This will save you both time, because many companies simply will not hire if someone has a criminal record. You may find that, depending on what the offense is, that the employer is willing to look the other way and still hire you, they just need to have that background check on file to be able to hire you. If you cannot be hired, at least you were honest about it and didn’t allow for the person to conduct the background check and find out after they wasted their time and resources on a background search.
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