Credit Check for Jobs, Check them out first.

During one of my job searches, I got a response from a potential employer (TBQ Consulting) who informed me that I passed their screening requirements and needed me to provide them with my credit report so they could "verify" my past employment.


They provided a link to their web site and they recommended me to another link to actually retrieve my credit report.

Of course, I did my due diligence and followed the link to their main website (which was basically a splash page, with all links directed back to their main page). I also followed the recommended credit reporting link they sent me.

My initial investigations suggested that this was a scam and more importantly brought up a very important point. Is it wise to even give out this data to prospective (but unknown) employers?

Even assuming that these employers where on the up and up, and legit. Even if they were required by law to do a criminal/credit/background check before hiring and a new employee being exposed to the companies client's sensitive financial and/or legal data. Is there a better way of providing a criminal/credit/background check without actually releasing personal and sensitive data to an unknown company?

This is a tricky situation for a job seeker.

On the one hand, the company one is applying for my have a legitimate and a legal reason for doing this. Especially in the financial and legal sector of the job market.

On the other hand, while the company may be legitimate (or not), one is still providing personal data to a largely unknown entity and unknown employees of that entity.

This is difficult for me to really assess, my only thoughts on this is for a prospective employee to find a trusted 3rd party (unbiased) source to do a criminal/credit/background check on their behalf and allow the employer to review the specific selected information that is absolutely required to legally authenticate oneself for the job in question. Just a criminal check in the case of a legal job. Just a selected credit check, a FICO score, bankruptcies, but not a list of residences in the case of a banking or financial job.

To me its not really about being "deceptive" just "selective" on how personal information is allocated to the world. In these high-tech times, information is very fluid. Restricting some information that is not relevant to the legal requirements of that job is just being prudent, especially when Identity Theft can be implemented so easily by a perpetrator but takes many years and many more dollars to correct.

Of course the best advise is not to release any personal data. The next best advise is to be extremely selective of the personal data one releases and the time one releases such data. For example, never give out your Social Security Number to anyone other than the IRS and the HR department of a employer only after you have been hired and not before.