Can an Ohio Employer Decline to Interview You Based on Your Consumer Reports?

While we are all focused on the upcoming election in November, the day to day operations of our state government still has to carry on in a business as usual mode. This means that every day they are in session they are hard at work for us taxpayers hammering out new legislation which will be put in place to Help and guide Ohioans for years to come.

What this means to the consumers and voters within Ohio is that the same old issues are being debated and managed by the same old group of people that we voted in last time around. So we are hard at work trying to figure out who to vote for in a few weeks, State of Ohio government offices still have to carry out all of their normal duties, even though there is an upcoming election that may directly affect them.

This includes the state legislature which is still busy working on bills and laws, some of which have been in the works for many years. One of the more interesting bills that they are working on currently is the pending legislative action called House Bill 586. This bill was proposed during the 128th Ohio State Congress, and it is very important to all other Ohioans who are looking for a job right now. I am speaking from a position of authority since my current situation has been directly impacted by the exact issue which this bill addresses.

What they are proposing in our state legislature is that prospective employers would no longer be able to use any consumer reports in their analysis of my acceptability for a position within their organization. This means that if you have a low credit score and the employer sees that in your credit report, they may legally choose to not hire you. Likely it would be that you represent a high risk of some sort to their organization. This seems terribly unfair to me since the fact that I am having a hard time financially should not be held against me when looking for a new job! It makes it even more difficult for me to recover from layoff, foreclosure, and bankruptcy. I have almost hit that exact wall on more than a few occasions, and the only one which has not gone all the way to it's logical conclusion has been the foreclosure, even though I have been desperately close on more than a few occasions over the past few years.

Now there is hope for my job prospects the minute this bill passes, since the fact remains many of the jobs I have applied for where I have been rejected have nothing to do with my work skills. On the agreement of confidentiality I have it on good authority from two different HR professionals that yes indeed you will be dinged for a poor credit rating or bankruptcy when they run a credit check from your job application.

I know a highly competent Administrative Professional who is four classes from a bachelors degree, and she could not get to the second round of interviews at a very large locally based insurance company, because of her bankruptcy and lower than perfect credit rating. This is sad for that company because she would have been a great asset to them, if they would only give her a chance. To me it is a form of discrimination that should have been addressed a long time ago. The employer can not ask me about my race, religion, or sexual preference, but they can do a background check to see if I have a spotty financial record? I can perhaps see this in some cases, such as where the person handles cash, but there are systems and methods which you can employ that would keep everyone honest. So the fact remains some jobs are out of reach for some prospective employees due to our poor financial health.

It is like the old days when we were growing up and had very little or no experience, there were two kinds of employers back then, the one who would take a chance on you and teach you everything you needed to know, and the others who demanded you have some skills and experience. Well if no company will hire you, then how are you going to get this mythical experience they all want? So it goes with poor finances, how can I repair mine if that is exactly what is holding me back from getting the job?

I am all for the quick passage of this bill, and it would be nice to see it happen before this congress is gone. Tonight I have sent a message to my state representatives stating my desire to have this go forward immediately. I have not heard back from any of them just yet, but that does not mean they are not working diligently for me and my interests as a taxpayer.

This is where your vote actually gets used, and it shows up in the way our elected officials actually do the jobs we hired them to do. If we don't like how it is going, we can vote against them in the next election, but meanwhile their efforts on "work in progress" like the house bill 586 will live on long after they are out of office!

Interested residents should research this kind of information more thoroughly, and get involved on that level instead of focusing all our political energy only at election times.

Visit this link for the most recent update on house bill 586

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