Not sure why you would even take the risk of keeping on someone who was previously indicted by the Department of Justice if trust is of high value to your company.
Indeed, they have no economical reason to extend this trust and shoulder the risk, however small it might be. But this dynamic creates a problem for the society, therefore it needs to be worked around. Sealing criminal records is one way of doing it (not sure how effective it is though, given that jail time still leaves a gap in your CV).
I mean, it makes sense, there's a certain amount of trust involved in finance so you'd like to know if a prospective employee had been fired in the past on suspicion of fraud/salami slicing/whatever
Thank you to share your anecdata. If I might speculate... perhaps the person's background check showed a previous trust issue. Example: Recently (last 3-5 years) convicted of theft. Or dismissed from a job for theft. If the person was convicted of something unrelated to trust -- had a fight at a bar or drink driving -- it could be overlooked. (Or more charitably, if the trust issue [theft] was related to a drug addiction many years ago, and the person had received treatment, it could be overlooked.)
I agree: Many items in the background check are ridiculous. Many years ago, I worked at a company where many of the Big Shots were regular, recreational cocaine users (confirmed by juniors who went bar hopping with them once a week). All new employees were required to pass drug tests. It was absurd. In that era, even marijuana was enough to have a job offer withdrawn.
Because the employer deserves to know so they can weigh the risk adequately. It's up to them whether or not they want to bet on Convict A not committing another crime. And it a decent risk.
In addition to your career perhaps being over. Most companies do strong background checks for executive positions. Plus your reputation in the local community. I'm sure if Martha Stewart had to chance to choose again, she'd skip the insider trading and the jail sentence.
One of the reasons I doubt any sane HR department would hand a hiring manager the results of something like a criminal background check is precisely to protect the organization.
My wife's company unknowingly hired someone with a criminal record(he used his brother identity to get the job). He attempted to rape another employee and killed the person who stopped him. The company paid rather large settlement to the victims of these crimes. Incidents like this reinforce the notion that it isn't worth the risk to hire people with a criminal record.
There's the elevated risk of re-offending, or being less trustworthy. For example, if they did a stretch for embezzling, they'd be placed in a position where trust is less of an issue, which would likely pay less. I wouldn't want to hire someone to operate heavy machinery if he did a stretch for drunk driving. Would you?
If I'm hiring, say, a developer or sysadmin who will have access to private data (financial, health, etc.) for millions of people it would be irresponsible of me not to check to see if the applicant had been convicted of any financial or data-related crime.
Being good at something does not automatically make you a trustworthy person just as having been convicted of something in the past doesn't automatically make you untrustworthy.
However, failing to disclose that you've been convicted of a crime that may be perceived as a possible red-flag or risk for a job you're interviewing for does, in my opinion demonstrate a lack of trustworthiness.
Note that I'm not saying the parent poster is untrustworthy. For all I know the crime he'd been convicted of had absolutely no relation to his job and he was young and perhaps not as wise at that point. I'm speaking only about my own views when interviewing and hiring technical people.
I mean, at some point, the folks who do background checks during hiring would have flagged this as a risk, and I can't see the company proceeding to the offer stage once they were aware. I mean this purely from a corporate risk-avoidance perspective. But, I guess reddit might not adhere to this approach.
I get the sentiment, and there is due diligence such as background checks required for many public trust positions for that reason, but is there really legal liability created immediately at the time of hiring someone because of their record- or does it just satisfy the models more when you hire someone that got convicted versus someone that has not?
> typically background check companies are free to hold on to older records if they were at one time public.
That is true, but it is however often illegal for employers to base a hiring or firing decision on expunged records. So background check companies do generally try to comply with record expungement as it protects their customers from liability. However due to the complexity and variety of laws on expungement and lack of direct consequences for them they frequently fail at it.
Very likely the offer is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. A thorough background check (criminal, education, credit) can cost a few hundred dollars, so firms won't proceed until an offer has been accepted.
Even though he was exonerated, his prison stay and other convictions may show up. He can explain, but a firm can rescind an offer for whatever reason they want (outside of protected statuses, which does not include criminal background). For a security position firms may want perfectly clean backgrounds.
I bet it has to do with liability and someone is covering their ass. If they did proper background check on you then you probably signed some papers saying that what you said is true to the court of law etc etc etc and if they let it slide now and they find out something else about you later, person who let it slide will get in trouble and obviously for them it's safer to just fire you.
Also, industry reputation. You have to check that box about criminal convictions in most states, not to mention the media and background check associations.
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