Why Should You Care About Your Debt & Credit Report?

I’ve recently been hearing a lot of clients and individuals that I come into contract with saying that potential employers are starting to check their credit reports to see if they are in debt and/or have bad credit.

This use to be illegal years ago, but now the rules have changed.  So why would a potential employer want to see how much debt you are in and your credit report?

First let’s talk about debt.  A potential employer is going to look at your debt load because statistically people with debt have:

• Family problems – the number one reason for divorce is money.
• Health problems – because of they worry about debt their job performance will be low and they usually suffer from weight and depression.
• Potential theft – we’ve seen a lot of employee’s embezzling money to pay their mortgage, credit card payments and gambling.

A potential employer would like to check your credit report because:

• They will have an understanding of how you handle your own money.  If you handle your money poorly they might think you’ll handle their the same way.
• They can see if you’re potentially headed for personal problems due to your debt.
• They can illegally see if you have medical bills and they might disqualify you because they don’t want an employee with health issues.

If you find yourself in this type of situation you should start working on eliminating your debt.