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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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[0]: https://www.demos.org/testimony-and-public-comment/memorandu...
[1]: https://www.demos.org/research/bad-credit-shouldnt-block-emp...
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?
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.
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.