Credit and job background checks

[wsucoug06]

I have a final interview for a job with a univeristy tomorrow and they do a background check, including credit. My credit is at very low number of 436, due to my daughter being in the hospital for 3+ years and caring for my mother when she was terminally ill, quitting my teaching job to care for both people and getting divorced in the process.  A lot of my debt is medical bills and the rest are deferrements on student loans. My quesion is, how negatively will this effect me with the current job that I am interviewing for, and is there any short, quick fixes to raise my credit score? If anyone has any ideas or suggestions so as to not have this negatively impact me when being considered for the position, I would greatly appreciate all feedback.  Thank you!

[Roarmeister]

I don't think there is anything that you can do quickly enough to raise your score in time.  You will just have to cross your fingers.  If the subject comes up in the interview, you may offer an general explanation but I wouldn't go into to many details.  Best of luck!

[takeshi74]

There are no quick fixes in general.  They may not pull your credit today but if they do there's certainly nothing you can do about it.  That said, you should still look into addressing the derogs on your reports.

[Brusilov]

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@wsucoug06 wrote:

I have a final interview for a job with a univeristy tomorrow and they do a background check, including credit. My credit is at very low number of 436, due to my daughter being in the hospital for 3+ years and caring for my mother when she was terminally ill, quitting my teaching job to care for both people and getting divorced in the process.  A lot of my debt is medical bills and the rest are deferrements on student loans. My quesion is, how negatively will this effect me with the current job that I am interviewing for, and is there any short, quick fixes to raise my credit score? If anyone has any ideas or suggestions so as to not have this negatively impact me when being considered for the position, I would greatly appreciate all feedback.  Thank you!

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It's important to know that while most background checks have you sign off on a form that says you give them permission to check your credit history 90% of jobs will NOT actually perform the check.  Exceptions include positions that typically warrant a clean history (banker, finance positions, high level manager roles, etc.).  You probably don't need to sweat it unless you've been writing tons of bad checks and things that could be construed as possible fraud.