Background checks for jobs have gotten increasingly onerous in the last twenty years to the point of complete absurd ridiculousness. The comment below made me think how they are going to only get worse in the future.

That’s a world with a lot less practical freedom for most people, especially younger people who don’t know if they’ll be able to get a job with some vaguely disturbing Twitter scandal showing up in their Google search, or embarrassingly naive political writings from when they were 22 showing up online when they’re applying for job.

When I first applied for a civilian job more than fifteen years ago now the background check was basically:

1) Is this person breathing.

2) And they might have called my old commander to make sure I hadn’t shanked anyone at work.

That was about all.

I’ve looked for a variety of jobs lately and received offers for 4 of the 5 positions for which I interviewed (what was wrong with the fifth company we’ll never know 😉 ), so I’ve gone through a number of background checks lately.

First, some more history. Years ago I worked for a casino. The background check process I thought for that position was excessive. It involved contacting former colleagues, friends and all manner of other various character assessments and credit checks.

Now that process — which was considered at the time by everyone to be a really intensive background check — is the norm for any job at all whether or not it deals with any sensitive data or large amounts of cash.

In fact the background checks for regular old jobs are now only a little less strenuous than was done in the army 20 years ago for my secret clearance.

This is modern phrenology. It doesn’t lead to better employees. The evidence demonstrates this pretty clearly. In the future I plan to ask during interviews how strenuous the background checking is and unless it’s a job I really really want, I’ll opt out early.

Not because there’s anything negative in my official background. There’s not. I pass those fuckers with flying colors. But because I don’t need my time wasted and background checking consumes too much of my time for a job I don’t need to survive.

Also it’s good to note that these oppressive background checks are far worse than even six years ago when I got my last full-time job. That background check involved contacting a few references and a really cursory examination of work history.

Partially companies do this because they can, because the technology allows it and it’s now cheap. But there are a few other factors at work. One is that it’s to hire the “right kind of people,” i.e. people just like them, no deviation allowed.

Another is that the background checking companies are really powerful and most executives being MBAs etc. are very dumb so it’s sold heavily and seen by those executives as some sort of voodoo powder you can sprinkle around to make good employees magically happen.

When in reality you are probably eliminating your worst employees (sometimes) from getting a job, but also almost assuredly eliminating your best hires like me who will no longer work for you in the future.

Also I think it’s a way of dehumanizing and devaluing people as the sort of treatment once reserved — undeservedly — for janitors and such has now climbed up to affect white collar and front office employees.

All of these are factors.

But if you haven’t looked for a job in a while, I think you will be extremely surprised by how intrusive and outright abusive and inconsiderate of your time and experience background checking has become.

There’s no real scientifically demonstrable reason for it, but nevertheless it’s only going to get worse.