Do all financial services jobs require a credit check?

Tinuel

Morning,
I am on the verge of getting a much, much better paid job and move into the financial services area.
Career wise is also a very good move, away from customer service and call centre work that I have been doing.

Only problem is that I have 3 defaults on my file (no CCJs and no bankruptcy), mostly due to performing low paid jobs, with a young family and not able to "keep up" at times. As a result, my credit rating is poor.

The firm in the City isn't an investment bank, it's a well known market analysis company.
I am aware that pretty much all banks do run credit checks, but is it the norm for all financial services companies in the City and Canary Wharf?

Could you share your personal experience when you got hired?

Tinuel

Or am I better off, with a damaged credit history, looking for jobs in financial services abroad?

absolutereturn

It's customary for financial institutions to perform credit checks, and not just those based in the City and Docklands, neither is it exclusive to investment banking. Their criteria varies from firm to firm, for example, some will employ someone with, say, 2 defaults whilst others won't. It also depends on how old your defaults are, some search just the past 3 years. There's no way to generalise.

hgotsparkle

I think it depends on what the companies policy is.With my job in the financial services, I was only credit checked to see if I have any bankruptcy, CCJs, or very large unpaid loans.My credit rating isn't great becaue of usual things like living in overdraft, but that isn't a huge deal for the company that I work for.

AP007

I could share one where I didn't get hired

Had an interview for TFL and they did a credit check and I have no overdraft, pay all bills on time, no over due debts, never defaulted and never had a county court on my name and still failed!!

scooby088

I had a credit check when I worked for shopacheck, I even passed that with one mortgage default.

Tinuel

AP007 wrote: »

I could share one where I didn't get hired

Had an interview for TFL and they did a credit check and I have no overdraft, pay all bills on time, no over due debts, never defaulted and never had a county court on my name and still failed!!

That was harsh
Did the role involve handling money?

It's ironic that the major supermarkets, with large amounts of cash and goods, don't credit screen employees. And other than the odd incident, major theft by staff has hardly been reported.

So how come a transport and traffic entity like TFL does these sort of checks...

keyser666

AP007 wrote: »

I could share one where I didn't get hired

Had an interview for TFL and they did a credit check and I have no overdraft, pay all bills on time, no over due debts, never defaulted and never had a county court on my name and still failed!!

They also doa baseline check too as a min requirement

AP007

keyser666 wrote: »

They also doa baseline check too as a min requirement

a what????

AP007

Tinuel wrote: »

That was harsh
Did the role involve handling money?

It's ironic that the major supermarkets, with large amounts of cash and goods, don't credit screen employees. And other than the odd incident, major theft by staff has hardly been reported.

So how come a transport and traffic entity like TFL does these sort of checks...

Harsh? No I guess not they said I failed but I couldn't have

Working in accounts has money in it but no cash so to speak.

Tinuel

AP007 wrote: »

Harsh? No I guess not they said I failed but I couldn't have

Working in accounts has money in it but no cash so to speak.

Ok, but I am still to see strong evidence of fraud linked to poor credit scores.
I bet that all of those bankers linked to the Libor scandal and others had top notch credit records...