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Will a background check show unemployment

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waterdog1

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? GA

I am in the process of interviewing and wonder if a background check will bring up an appeal I've made for unemployment benefits. Naturally I did not list this previous employer on my resume, since I was only there for 2 months. Not sure what to say to new employer if questioned
 


CourtClerk

Senior Member
You won't have to say much. Once your "new employer" finds out that you lied or omitted information on your employment application, they'll fire you.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
It is unlikely, but not impossible, that a background check will show an unemployment claim.

However, if an employer chooses to take the omission of the job as a falsification of your application and not hire you/fire you, he is legally within his rights.

What did you tell him he was doing for that two months? Hopefully you told the truth because you can be not hired/fired for lying, too. And it is much, much easier than you may think for an employer to find information about you outside of a background check, sometimes when they're not even looking for it.

As an example that I have told before, if I had been less than honest with an employer I'd have been in deep trouble the time my newly hired boss turned out to be my father's next door neighbor. Or the time at a different employer that my newly hired boss turned out to be my old boss from two jobs ago.
 

CourtClerk

Senior Member
It is unlikely, but not impossible, that a background check will show an unemployment claim.

However, if an employer chooses to take the omission of the job as a falsification of your application and not hire you/fire you, he is legally within his rights.

What did you tell him he was doing for that two months? Hopefully you told the truth because you can be not hired/fired for lying, too. And it is much, much easier than you may think for an employer to find information about you outside of a background check, sometimes when they're not even looking for it.

As an example that I have told before, if I had been less than honest with an employer I'd have been in deep trouble the time my newly hired boss turned out to be my father's next door neighbor. Or the time at a different employer that my newly hired boss turned out to be my old boss from two jobs ago.
Since we're telling "how we could have gotten caught" stories..

At my job prior to this one, I had a coworker who applied for a promotion within the company we worked for - however, you had to have a degree in order to get the position. She lied on the application, indicated she had a degree from the same university I got mine at, with the same major. Well, it turned out that one of the classes she HAD to have taken in order to get that degree was taught by the wife of the owner of the agency we worked for. Didn't know it was her because she taught under her maiden name - until, that is we were invited to a dinner hosted by my boss and his wife. BUSTED... and fired.
 

Beth3

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? GA

I am in the process of interviewing and wonder if a background check will bring up an appeal I've made for unemployment benefits. Naturally I did not list this previous employer on my resume, since I was only there for 2 months. Not sure what to say to new employer if questioned
Quite unlikely but not impossible. All background checks I'm familiar with don't check unemployment records. But do be advised that there are all sorts of ways that the employment history you've omitted on your resume may come to the attention of your new employer. When that happens, it won't be good.
 

pattytx

Senior Member
CourtClerk, I had to just go through a background check for my latest gig with a large international corporation. The recruiter told me that lying about having a degree is probably the biggest "difference" they find.
 

commentator

Senior Member
commentator

No background check is going to bring up unemployment information because this information is not available to the public for background checks. Information about unemployment claims can only be provided to a third party under the strictest of restrictions, such as submission of a power of attorney. However, I strongly advise that any application you fill out, not necessarily your resume, but a company application that you are signing, contain all the places you have worked. They are not going to have any sort of access to whether you filed for benefits, were approved or denied, or what happened on any unemployment appeal unless YOU give them this information.

Whether you filed for unemployment after your short term job, and were approved or denied is not a source of shame. It certainly should not be a reason why an employer would fail to hire you, as of course in case of a layoff or an unjust work situation or termination, you would exercise your right to file for benefits. In fact, I'd simply say that the new position did not work out, not bother to mention that you filed for benefits, or whether the claim was approved or denied.

I can tell hundreds of "busted" stories. If incorrect information is on the company application, and signed and certified to as factual by the applicant, then you can be terminated at any time the company finds out you falsified the information. Most ordinary way people are busted? Other people tell on them. The work friend you confide in, the jealous ex-girlfriend, if you've got a lie hanging out there, all it takes is one phone call to get you in trouble. I had one jealous "friend" send us print-outs of a person's Facebook pages in which she bragged about working under the table while receiving benefits. We could not provide any information to the jealous friend about what was done or even whether the person was receiving benefits, but you can bet it was checked out.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
I don't think the issue for our poster is the receiving or not receiving of UI benefits. I think he is concerned that any information about having a UI claim will reveal that he was less than honest in his description of his work history.
 

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