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Comment by jpeg_hero | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely would not bring it up.

California has "ban the box" and as a practical matter:

1. most "boxes" on employment application ask about Felonies not misdemeanors.

2. I'm not an expert but the few times i've looked into it "criminal background check" is nowhere near as comprehensive as people think. it involves going to each county where you think the person resided and looking up records there. so according to you even if they thought to look in the county where your record is, they wouldn't find anything.

https://www.shouselaw.com/california-ban-the-box-laws

California law still prohibits employers from asking about, or considering, criminal convictions that have been expunged. AB 1008 takes the law a step further. It bars employers from considering any criminal conviction, expunged or not, prior to making a conditional job offer. The law applies to both felony charges and misdemeanor charges in California.

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I wouldn't be too sure on the second point. I recently went through a background verification check initiated by one of the FAANG company. It was all clear for me but the criminal check report kind of hinted the sources they were hitting up. It seems they were looking up:

- Media reports

- Court records(they had called the search global, I am not sure if that's just a namesake or if they are hitting up systems of even multiple countries)

Additionally, there was identification number of human verifiers on the reports.

Yep, same, though not in CA.

I had a record but no convictions. It didn't prevent me from getting the job but they did try to use it as a negotiating tactic to lower salary (didn't happen, I also forced them to increase it by 10% at the 3 month mark)

I really curious what was their tact with that? "We see based on your record that you're not worth as much as we thought..."

Real reason: "oh, look, we might be able to spend less for this person's work"

Tactic: "well, we'd be taking a risk by hiring you, what if you do something bad again? or if this turns in to a PR problem?"

If they refused to hire you I’d be fine with it, but lowballing 10% means they’re not seriously concerned about the risk.

They didn't low ball 10%, it was more like 25%.

If you are an insurance company and you raise someone's rates 25% it's just business -- risk management in large pools. As a hiring decision, though, any percentage discount makes it clear that you're not seriously worried about the risk -- if you were, you just wouldn't hire the person. On the individual hiring decision the risk calculus doesn't work like that -- "they're a greater risk so they'll need to provide more of a profit compared to their salary."

That was almost verbatim lol

I loved my boss. He was openly himself and the circumstance was one such that any money he didn't pay me went to his pocket.

I understood this and had absolutely no hard feelings towards him and his honesty was one reason why I continue to respect him and vice versa.

So he tried many times to find reason to pay me less than I wanted, this was one.

That’s sounds like an epically dick move. Was it localized to the hiring department trying to “win” a negotiation or systemic to the company?

Just the boss negotiating with me. No hard feelings about it.

I think that "Absolutely do not bring it up" may not be the right policy. OP really should talk to an employment lawyer.

Note our cheap goodhire background checks scan an approximately 5 page list of courts. We are required to do this by various certifications such as soc2, etc.

I would carefully think through bringing it up with the hiring manager. First, because if I were the hiring manager, I'd be much happier if a candidate told me. That way I can think through if this matters for the position or not, and be in a better position to handle internal messaging. The second benefit is it allows OP to control the messaging (I was young / I am an animal rights activist and potential future employer doesn't do animal experimentation / I've changed, etc). If OP doesn't proactively bring it up, OP's future is being decided in a discussion between HR and the hiring manager with zero input from OP.

I second this so strongly. As a hiring manager, I'd be more than happy to discuss a person's background. For instance, "just so you know, I got arrested for having an ounce of weed in Mississippi". Thanks for letting me know! If that comes up in our background check (which we _have_ to do for regulatory reasons but generally don't care about unless you're a serious felon), I can ignore it. Who cares - it's weed, and it's legal here now.

OTOH, if you lied to me and I found out you were busted for a tiny amount of weed, I'm going to burn your application. Not because of the arrest - again, I don't even care about that - but because you've lied to me. At that point I'm not going to trust anything else you tell me. Are you also going to cover your mistakes at work and hope no one notices?

Every company is different, so I'm only speaking for myself and not the industry as a whole. But I would infinitely prefer that a candidate tell me this stuff up front than to try and hide it from me. And frankly, if you got arrested for some very cool reason ("I was part of a protest against a white supremacist march!"), it could quite possibly tip the hiring decision in your favor!

I'd be willing to share potentially compromising information if I was willing to risk not getting the job and the hiring manager was convincing me that divulging information was advantageous.

For example, for jobs that require a security clearance, it's probably best to just divulge everything that won't get you arrested. At a job fair, I met a recruiter who hired for top secret clearance jobs. I asked him how they could possibly find people who had never had smoked weed, and he said they were primary concerned with recency and frequency.

No I had a clearance required position in the military along with my coworkers and they're actually primarily concerned about two things:

Honesty when filling out your form SF-86. Are you gonna lie about being contacted by a foreign agent in the future just like you lied about smoking a couple puffs in high school? Lie on the SF-86 and get caught and its instant permanent deny.

Blackmail opportunity where if you have a current or likely future addiction a foreign agent could provide you with money or drugs or silence in exchange for info. So a couple puffs in high school, who cares, on the other hand stripping copper to pay for meth last week is instant deny. Same blackmail issue for credit report issues. In the really old days it was the same thing for non-hetrosexual people, if they figure you could get blackmailed then no clearance.

There's a lot of hand wavy but assuming you're functional in the sense of not being high at the interview while also not being the most financially insolvent person in your future department, the only real way to fail a mere S or even a TS is to lie on your SF-86 when you apply. The vetters have a rough subjective job so they really like finding an objective factual falsehood like a misdemeanor possession or similar, because then they can take it easy and stamp deny.

This doesn't seem like an optimal strategy from a candidate's point of view. There may be a multitude of scenarios in which case an employer blanket bans anyone with a criminal history. Not everyone is as forgiving as you. Given that a candidate may make the broadly the right tactical decision in not disclosing - just not the right decision for you - are you so wiling to attribute malice to the candidate? I think you would be penalizing them for simply acting rationally (i.e it pays off more often than not).

On top of that a few of the FAANGs have central hiring committees which might overturn what any single hiring manager would care to do.

Yes but the point of that post is that the hiring manager is looking for a candidate who places honesty first, and that said honesty is also a signal for placing the needs of the team / org first (to a degree, obviously).

"One hand for the ship, one hand for yourself." I.E. one hand to do the ship's work, one to hold on to the railing so you don't fall off. Two hands for the ship, and you're not looking out for yourself. Two hands for yourself, and why would the ship want to keep you?

We have anecdotal evidence that one hiring manager says that they care about honesty. The same person hasn't said that they have actually had this situation happen, so it's still hypothetical. OTOH, there's also tons of vague anecdotal evidence that some hiring managers are actually kind of self-righteous jerks.

So we're not actually any farther ahead. Personally, the advice I'd probably give a person in this situation: ask a lawyer from the area. Compared to a FAANG salary, it's a cheap investment. I might also recommend paying cash, and not giving a real name.

I'm the hiring manager from earlier and I've had that happen, so it's not just hypothetical. I've worked adjacent to infosec for many years; it's not unusual for talented workers in that field to have "interesting" backgrounds.

You're right about plenty of managers being jerks, but on the other hand, do you really want to work for someone who would freak out if they knew you did dumb stuff when you were a kid?

Also, you're probably not going to get a decent lawyer to agree to aliases, and the last thing you want to do is lie to your own lawyer. That's how you get them to quickly stop counseling you. Your lawyer and your doctor are the two people you want to be 100% transparently honest with so that they can accurately advise you.

Why volunteer the information if it isn't asked for, though? I would wager that most companies doing background checks just have you sign a blanket statement that says "our third party checking company may look at these things:...."

Large companies outsource this to another firm and often don't even see the results of the background check (they don't want the added liability).

They give the contracted firm their set of criteria, then the other firm comes back with a pass/fail.

> We are required to do this by various certifications such as soc2

Some other certifications might, but SOC 2 certainly doesn't prescribe the list of courts you need to check. A very superficial check can satisfy the control, SOC 2 mostly just cares that you have a control in place.

> it involves going to each county where you think the person resided and looking up records there

They had an open warrant, which means it hit state databases and shows up in a warrant search.

I have no idea what background check system their employer would use (or what level of investigation the job warrants), but a human investigator would absolutely find these records.

I second this. To OP, background checks are often a lot less comprehensive than you think.

And how long have you been an engineer? And how did you prep? Would be a dream for me to get a job there one day.

Oh, yeah. That reminds me: once, I got to the background check stage with a company that specifically mentioned a credit check would be done. At the time, my credit score was in the toilet (like FICO in the 500's, I think), so I was worried, but decided that since there was nothing I could do about it in time to affect the result, I'd just sign and pray. I got the job, with no mention of my then terrible credit score. I have no idea if they even did the check.

Often that sort of check mostly has to due with checking if you have some type of debt that may impair your integrity.

Say you're for some reason indebted to a Chinese bank and applying for a defense job, they're not going to be very happy of that. Yes that's a bit over the top, but generally what those checks are about.

> TransUnion, a major credit reporting company admitted in public testimony, “we don’t have any research to show any statistical correlation between what’s in somebody’s credit report and their job performance or their likelihood to commit fraud.”[0] As noted earlier in this report, poor credit scores reflect financial distress and racial disparities, not propensity to commit crimes. [1]

---

[0]: https://www.demos.org/testimony-and-public-comment/memorandu...

[1]: https://www.demos.org/research/bad-credit-shouldnt-block-emp...

How does the vetting for debt like that work?

Can a company refuse to hire me unless I divulge my private financial details? If I forge a spreadsheet of my accounts, how would they know it wasn’t real?

They don’t ask you for a list of accounts, typically. They would check a report from one of the major credit reporting agencies, so, if it doesn’t show up there, they’d probably never see it.

US government background checks explicitly ask about foreign financial holdings, and those investigators check.

That's why I said "typically." Security clearance checks are a whole different level from your average pre-employment background check.

It's not a credit check like a car dealership would do.

The background check may query credit reporting agencies or other financial records to confirm data and expand the search (i.e. you had a credit card issued in a state so they will expand criminal searches to that state). These types of queries fall under laws that govern credit checks, so they have to disclose and obtain permission.

While true, that's not a universal. It's not uncommon for companies in, e.g., finance to run a literal credit check for some positions.

A kind-of similar thing, showing the... less than comprehensive nature of the background checks. At my current job, I was applying from another startup, but before that one, had spent over a decade either self-employed or running my own company.

They hired some company (forget who) to check me, and got a call from them. They asked me about my company, which had been dissolved like six years earlier. I said as much, and she asked me if I was sure. I said I was the co-owner, and as such was pretty darn sure. Said OK, and hung up.

About an hour later, I get another call from the same person, asking me about my consulting. She did not seem to notice she had just talked to me. I said, yes, I was previously a consultant. She asked who my manager was, and I said I was a one-man shop. She insisted she speak to may manager, apparently not understanding what I was saying. I finally said I self-managed. She accepted that (!) and we hung up. I'm still working here several years later, so it must have been OK.

I guess one moral of this story is, if you want to get away with something on a commercial background check, there are worse ideas than listing your own phone number.

That sounds so intrusive. It wouldn’t be amiss, once hired and enough trust has been built, to try to get HR to drop that practice.

Companies generally aren’t monsters! They don’t want to break the law, they are risk averse and don’t want to be sued, and want to attract good people. Most worth their salt would be receptive to some constructive criticism about how invasive it is to have unsolicited interrogations from a third party.

They don’t actually do credit checks, but for some reason, they all have boilerplate language to make you sign your rights away and allow them to anyway. It’s frustrating. I always question them on those, and ask what specifically they will be checking.

It usually even has language saying they can contact your neighbors to ask about your character, so I pick that out and say “Waitaminute, you want to talk to my neighbors? That seems a little invasive. What is going on here?” That’s when I get their response in writing about what they are really going to check.

Wow, according to the shouselaw link (and I’m paraphrasing a lot here) you’ll still need to go through the criminal record wringer if you want to be:

- a teacher (or work with children);

- a court worker or police officer; or

- a farm laborer.

I wonder what the story is with that last one? Did a bunch of farmers pay for that to be included in the list, or (less likely) is it there for some reason to protect the laborers?

I'm sure there's lots of inconsistent rules, for various accidental and historical reasons, like any other complex system. I have to get a background check to perform at the my local children's museum, but not at public schools in the same city.

I'm guessing because of the large number of undocumented workers in farm labor, which I think the farm would be liable for if caught. I don't recall off the top of my head, but it seems about a year ago several large places got busted.

Edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/us/mississippi-ice-raids-...

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