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How to deal with false allegations in employment background check?

  • Just got extended a dream job offer, but I'm afraid a background check will turn up a skeleton in my closet (that I didn't put there) that I don't know how to deal with. How do I prepare to refute it clearly, professionally, and without weaving an unnecessarily epic tale of drama? I just accepted a written job offer from a great organization. The only remaining step in the process is a background check. One of the organizations I worked for a few years ago, as a full-time volunteer, was a small nonprofit run entirely by one man, with all of its projects organized and carried out by a high-turnover group of volunteer staff. This man is the only person left at the organization who would be able to confirm details about people from years ago. While charming, competent, and professional most of the time, this guy had regular bouts of emotional instability, dishonest dealings with both volunteers and community members, and defamatory outbursts against volunteers, stakeholders, and others. I watched several of my good friends go from being his beloved right-hand assistant one day to forcibly removed from the premises the next, for no apparent reason, or an unfathomable accusation. One day, out of the blue, I was told to leave the premises immediately. Only some time later, I discovered that he had been telling people I'd broken into his office to access confidential materials. The utter falsehood of this stunned me, but I let it go, because I had already been planning to leave the organization (and was living off-site). Since working there, I've held a number of respectable and relevant positions, furthered my education, and built up an impressive portfolio in a different field. Nevertheless, I'm terrified that my background check will reveal this can of worms. If they contact him to verify my time with this organization, I fully expect him to be openly slanderous just for the hell of it (he certainly doesn't fear a lawsuit from little old me). The best-case scenario I see here is that I'll get a chance to explain myself to the company that just hired me. But this will be a classic my-word-against-his scenario. My interviews went great, and I have out-of-this-world references and a strong record of achievement since my time at that place. Also, with some effort, I could organize character references & people who were there who could back me up. But I'm worried that the red flag raised by such accusations would be so enormous that it would be impossible to adequately address their concerns. If this history comes up through the background check, what can I do or say to address this issue with my imminent employer? I don't want to badmouth former supervisors and I don't want to have to tell a dramatic and implausible (though true) story. What is the driest and most concise way I can explain how this work ended, assuming he tells them the worst (or simply that I was terminated) without creating a huge mess? Thus far I haven't been asked to volunteer any information about why I left. I'm already hired, but I know a bad background check could derail this, so I'm very anxious. Please give me some reassurance and help me come up with a script to minimize any damage.

  • Answer:

    Unless the "organization" is part of the US intelligence community or otherwise involves Top Secret clearance, the "background check" will be performed mostly by a computer that looks up your name in a bunch of databases for a criminal record. Nobody will contact your former boss.

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"His accusations are false, and I hope that's evident in light of what my other references have said about me. I'm not the first person he's slandered this way."

fatbird

It's not an issue until it's an issue. "He says a lot of things about a lot of people."

ifandonlyif

What kind of background check is this? Unless it's for a level of top secret clearance, it's most unlikely to come up in a run-of-the-mill background check for a run-of-the-mill organisation. Background checks are looking for things like criminal convictions, court cases for or against you, etc, not why you left a job. Think about it logically - this information (about you breaking into the office) would almost certainly never have been put to paper. The only way to get this would be to speak to this guy directly, i.e. to call him. Depending on its place in your resume, if it's several jobs and people ago, no one is going to call him - at least not as part of a background check. It is too expensive to do that for every candidate. If you have the dream job offer, I wouldn't worry about it, frankly, unless the role forms a key plank in your resume, and then I would rustle up a different reference.

smoke

Sounds like there wasn't a police report. Also sounds like you weren't working there, you were volunteering. If you didn't leave Mr. Bad Guy's phone number in your references list then I am lacking understanding in what exactly they would learn about you and how.

oceanjesse

If it was a volunteer position, I highly doubt it would come up anywhere, at all, even if they did verify previous employment. If you didn't list it on your résumé (which, frankly, I wouldn't have, because a resume is essentially a marketing document that shows how qualified you are for a job and not necessarily a complete work history), then I think you're fine. If it does come up, I would follow the advice http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2008/09/22/what-to-do-about-a-bad-reference from Ask a Manager about bad references, especially the second point concerning factually incorrect ones. Congrats on the job offer, by the way!

itsamermaid

The background check won't include getting some guy's opinion of you. It will be a database search to ensure you haven't been arrested in any states, make sure you aren't a registered sex offender, possibly to verify your address information is accurate, etc. Maybe they will call previous employers to verify you worked there, but it would be calls to HR and I doubt they would call a place you volunteered at.

AppleTurnover

Checking your references with previous employers is the sort of diligence they should have done before offering you the job. I'd hope at least that they've gotten all the references they need if they've already offered you the job. A background check would infer that they're searching your legal record for any criminal history.

Devils Rancher

Congratulations on the job offer! You don't say where you are located, but in the UK now you receive the only paper copy of your official background check document (DBS check) and you have the right to formally request information be removed from it. But based on the information you've given here, unless you are seeking really high-level security clearance this won't even come up - but if it does, and if you are in the UK, you have recourse.

goo

If you have a job offer, then I agree with those saying that most likely the background check will primarily be to make sure you don't have criminal convictions, and will often be handed off to a third-party service who will then look you up in a bunch of public databases. It's very unlikely that they'd be calling this guy, especially if you didn't provide him as a reference and didn't list this volunteer position in your work history. (And even then, typically they call up references before offering the position in the first place.) If you have concerns, you could ask your hiring HR department what the background check will entail, though I probably wouldn't bother. Also, as others have mentioned, this assumes a typical position, not one that requires some sort of government clearance. All bets are off in that scenario. If, for some reason, the offer gets rescinded, *that* is when I'd start making calls to the hiring HR department to find out why. If it is because of this guy slandering you, I'd be willing to bet you can find a lawyer willing to work on contingency (that is, the lawyer only gets paid if you win, in which case they would be paid a portion of awarded fines), since he has obviously caused you material harm at that point.

Aleyn

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