Interview went great, HR flagged me for my credit report

AltxanderHamilton

[Background]
So my bills have gone up, and after a couple emergencies this past year, I’ve found myself barely making ends meet with my current job. So, I applied for a new job with a higher salary at a financial institution and I hear back that they’re going to make me an offer! Hooray!

Not quite.

Turns out that in the process HR did a credit check and I got flagged for a couple accounts in collections. I got an e-mail from them about a “Pre Adverse Action Notice,” and a phone call from their HR person. The guy I talked to was nice enough and didn't seem super serious, but they would like some details around the collections. They’ve requested that I give written explanation of the circumstances surrounding the negative credit factors and describe how I have corrected or attempted to correct any inaccurate or negative info.


[The Deets]
My credit’s mostly good (average score, multiple accounts that have been with me for a long time where I've paid the bills), with the following exceptions:

Account 1 – A medical bill for little over a grand from a long time ago when I was a dumb college student.

Account 2 – A medical bill for less than $100 from a couple years ago that no one ever contacted me about.

So obviously I’m amped up and nervous about seeing this new job and its financial security and health insurance possibly slipping away, so I call up the collection agency and decide to pay both off right there over the phone. Sucks, because there goes the buffer.


[Questions]
Anyway, I don’t think I’m completely screwed, but my prospects probably aren’t as great as they were, and I don’t want to make them any worse, sooooo

1. What the hell do I write explaining all of this to the HR person?
2. What's the right way/how do I say it? Anyone in HR know what to shoot for or what to avoid?
3. Am I actually completely screwed?
4. Anyone have any experience going through something similar?

Any advice at all would be appreciated and thanks a bunch in advance.

Darkewolfe

The two things you need to convince them of are:

You are not a bad person who defaults on debts, you were in a temporary situation. They will be concerned about your morals: do you default on debts?

You have the situation under control and are no longer in a bad way financially. If it's a financial institution, the opportunity to steal, be bribed, or otherwise be vulnerable to being motivated by money more than the average person are higher if you're in debt. They'll be placing you in a situation of trust, so they need to be confident you're not more susceptible to the desire for money than an average person.

This is very common in positions of trust. If you can address those two completely you will have a better chance and may not be hosed by this.

"I was not really aware of these and have paid both of them off after you notified me of it" is a really good start.

japan

I am not in HR but have worked in financial services, background checks and all.

They are probably looking at this from the perspective of determining if you're either a fraud risk because of past dishonesty, or in a situation where you might be incentivised/coerced to exploit the access you'll gain as part of the job to resolve personal financial difficulty. Neither of the outstanding bills you describe suggest those things.

Paying off the outstanding amounts (and the fact that you were able to) probably goes most of the way to allaying their concerns. The best approach is probably to tell them what you posted here, especially if neither bill was being actively pursued.

Fiendishrabbit

Honestly. It's not that concerning. You're not in crippling debt (which could be a security risk!), it's not a debt due to gambling, otherwise risky behavior (such as buying unnecessary luxuries) etc. It's medical bills which points to a slightly strained economy (which if you were honest in the work interview shouldn't be a problem). It's not unusual.

1. Explain it as it is. No.1 Bill was at the bottom of the list, and since they collection agency werent that insistent on it you put it off in favor of keeping your nose above the water. You've never accumulated a sufficient buffer to be able to pay off the old bill without the risk of further compromising your economy. No.2 bill hadn't even come to your notice, since apparently the collection agency didn't think it was even worth doing more than sending a letter to your old adress. Since they (HR) were concerned about these debts you've dived into your buffer and paid them off, you thank them for notifying you of the second debt.
2. Be honest. Also, see 1.
3. No.
4. I've had friends who have been in far worse pickles, but it depends entirely on the job and how easy it would be for you to stash away company assets or otherwise engage in hard-to-detect illegal financial behavior. If you're not handling huge amounts of extremely liquid assets without supervision and if your new wage would render payments of that size easily avoidable (or perhaps even trivial) I don't expect HR to put up a fuzz as long as you've explained to them what the debts were.

Note: If this had been an unpaid trainee position you would have been SO FUCKED.

AltxanderHamilton

UPDATE: I took your advice, basically repeated what I said here, and after waiting for what felt like forever,

the HR person said "no problem at all."

...and I got the job :biggrin:

Thanks again to everyone!

MichaelLC

A red panda - Wyatt - made its highly anticipated debut at John Ball Zoo by showing off his red fur-coat and striped tail.

Fiendishrabbit

AltxanderHamilton wrote: »

UPDATE: I took your advice, basically repeated what I said here, and after waiting for what felt like forever,

the HR person said "no problem at all."

...and I got the job :biggrin:

Thanks again to everyone!

Now that you've got a higher paying job, do the sane thing and build up a buffer