You finally get approval to fill that long-vacant position – the opening that has taken your team to the brink of burnout. You spend nights and weekends reviewing the pile of applicants, and narrow it down to someone who looks like a superstar. They’ve got the experience, the education, the specialized certifications, terrific references, and, most important of all – they’re an exceptionally good fit for your company and your team.

But, and this is a big but – they’ve got a bad credit score. So HR tells you no. You can’t hire them.

There are lots of good reasons not to hire someone. Usually – bad credit alone isn’t one of them. And yet, it’s become the reason du jour, in the eyes of many, to disqualify an otherwise highly qualified person to do a job they’re particularly well suited for. And it makes us wonder (although not for very long, really) if some employers might be taking undue advantage of the current imbalance in the labor supply/demand ratio.

A March 2 Associated Press article by Kathleen Miller says, “Sixty percent of employers recently surveyed by the Society for Human Resources Management [SHRM] said they run credit checks on at least some job applicants, compared with 42 percent in a somewhat similar survey in 2006.”

I get the arguments: People with money woes are more tempted to steal from their employer. Bad financial decisions mean bad judgment at work. (Try telling someone “You’ve made too many bad spouse choices, so we’re not hiring you.” See how far that gets you with the judge.) SHRM likes to point to a study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners that found that the two most common red flags for employees who commit workplace fraud are 1. living beyond their means, and 2. having difficulty meeting financial obligations. Well, no duh. They needed a study to figure that out?

And the counter from the social humanitarian everybody-deserves-a-job bunch is “how can you get out of debt if no one will give you a job?” It’s as if they think employers are somehow obligated to put people on their payrolls to pay some social duty.

And employers who use the practice will point out that it’s perfectly legal (which it is, in most US states), and besides, you can’t run a credit check without the applicant’s permission. Yeah, right. Like the applicant who refuses permission has any hope of being hired.

The real problem with giving too much weight to a job applicant’s credit score is that, in too many cases, it’s simply a faulty filter. OK – I’m not a complete idiot. For most bank jobs, jobs in accounting and finance, those who handle money, C-level positions, and those with greater opportunity to commit fraud – employers have an obligation to be duly diligent in bettering their odds against would-be miscreants. But for the vast majority of jobs that fall outside that realm, credit score is no better a predictor of (honest) job success than are race, gender, marital status, religion, or national origin. And didn’t we outlaw that a long time ago?

Did somebody say outlaw?

Yep. As in so many cases, when organizations (or individuals) can’t be relied upon to behave like grown-ups on their own, the law steps in. Wisconsin, South Carolina, Oregon, and thirteen other states are currently considering bans on most pre-employment credit checks.

What to do?

Employers:

• Beware of using faulty filters…like credit checks, and other sieves that let can let bad hires in, and keep good ones out.
• Start looking at hiring quality for what it is: a competitive issue. These days, the company with the best talent wins. So what if the best talent went through a messy divorce that trashed her credit, or was eaten alive by medical bills from his child’s serious chronic illness? The one with the best talent still wins. This stuff’s too important to rely on arbitrary standards.
• Realize that hiring is one of the most important jobs any manager does. And one of the hardest. It may sound attractive to relegate the hard work of hiring to automated resume scanners, exams and assessments, and credit checks, but in the end, there’s no substitute for taking a hard look at the things that really matter, going eyeball-to-eyeball with the prospect, using judgment and your powers of discernment, and making a well-informed decision.
• If you do check credit, and find something of concern, on someone you think would be good in the job, give them a chance to explain. And then listen.

Applicants:

• As if you needed one more reason to maintain a clean credit record, this is one.
• Unless pre-employment credit checks are prohibited where you live, be prepared for the scrutiny. Just as you would if showing your home to a prospective buyer, tidy up your credit record before you put your career on the market.
• Know your credit score, and examine your credit record. If there’s an error, U.S. residents can visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website to learn step-by-step how to dispute and correct the error.
• This issue underscores the value of investing in networking, long before you may need it. Chances are, if the prospective employer has some history with you, or valued connection to you, your credit score may matter a whole lot less.

Happy hunting…on both sides.

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Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows) is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and the followup Contented Cows MOOve Faster.