25 years old and deep in debt

[Berkut]

My credit rating is in the "ZOMG THIS GUY PROBABLY HACKED THE SYSTEM THAT NUMBER IS SO HIGH" category.

But to be honest, that is 100% because of my wife. I am...poor when it comes to handling debt. I tend to forget to pay things. Consistently.

The wife on the other hand...it is fucking DEFCON 1 if a credit card payment is made a day late or a dollar short. The thought of paying any interest to her is like suggesting we sell a kid or something.

[MadImmortalMan]

Me too but it's because of that gaming the system thing HVC mentioned.

[DGuller]

The problem with all these automatic disqualifiers is that it creates a situation where employers have no qualified candidates to hire, while many unemployed are unemployable for no good reason.  It's one of those paradoxes where a sum total of rational decisions is decidedly irrational.  I think this is a huge problem for our society, given that pretty much everyone has to depend on another person to hire them to make a living.

[Caliga]

My credit rating is in the "ZOMG THIS GUY PROBABLY HACKED THE SYSTEM THAT NUMBER IS SO HIGH" category.

But to be honest, that is 100% because of my wife. I am...poor when it comes to handling debt. I tend to forget to pay things. Consistently.

The wife on the other hand...it is fucking DEFCON 1 if a credit card payment is made a day late or a dollar short. The thought of paying any interest to her is like suggesting we sell a kid or something.

My wife is the same.

Did yours grow up poor too?

[crazy canuck]

My wife has an excellent credit rating.  I dont actually exist anywhere. 

[MadImmortalMan]

The problem with all these automatic disqualifiers is that it creates a situation where employers have no qualified candidates to hire, while many unemployed are unemployable for no good reason.  It's one of those paradoxes where a sum total of rational decisions is decidedly irrational.  I think this is a huge problem for our society, given that pretty much everyone has to depend on another person to hire them to make a living.

Yes. There was a lot of nonsense going around the HR world in the middle of the recession about a lack of qualified candidates.

The problem is, you can make sure there are no qualified candidates just by adding more qualifications. We're drowning ourselves in them.

[merithyn]

What are the chances that these are all just growing pains while companies (and people) get used to computers being the first to sort through applications? I mean, there's got to be some tweaking that takes place, and the past few years has really seen a huge influx in this in hiring practices. One can only guess that things will get ironed out in the next year or so, and it won't be so ridiculous.

Or am I just being overly optimistic?

[Razgovory]

My credit rating is in the "ZOMG THIS GUY PROBABLY HACKED THE SYSTEM THAT NUMBER IS SO HIGH" category.

But to be honest, that is 100% because of my wife. I am...poor when it comes to handling debt. I tend to forget to pay things. Consistently.

The wife on the other hand...it is fucking DEFCON 1 if a credit card payment is made a day late or a dollar short. The thought of paying any interest to her is like suggesting we sell a kid or something.

My wife is the same.

Did yours grow up poor too?

Berkut grew up poor.

[DGuller]

What are the chances that these are all just growing pains while companies (and people) get used to computers being the first to sort through applications? I mean, there's got to be some tweaking that takes place, and the past few years has really seen a huge influx in this in hiring practices. One can only guess that things will get ironed out in the next year or so, and it won't be so ridiculous.

Or am I just being overly optimistic?

I don't think it's going to stay as bad.  However, part of the problem is that these kinds of system to make sense on an individual company level.  It's just that on a combined level, that amounts to an economic embargo on certain classes of people, and results in erosion of economic capital.

[Jacob]

Personally, I could imagine using someone's credit score as a data point in how they manage their finances and such. Not really definitive, of course, and it would depend on the job.

But there isn't anything especially egregious about this "soft" variable in the hiring process compared to many others.

Yeah, I agree. I just think credit scores should be private information.

I believe in Canada you have to explicitly consent to your credit score being checked, and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone's score being checked for a job.

[DGuller]

Personally, I could imagine using someone's credit score as a data point in how they manage their finances and such. Not really definitive, of course, and it would depend on the job.

But there isn't anything especially egregious about this "soft" variable in the hiring process compared to many others.

Yeah, I agree. I just think credit scores should be private information.

I believe in Canada you have to explicitly consent to your credit score being checked, and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone's score being checked for a job.

That's not really much of a protection.  Any right that can be waived to a much more powerful agent is not a right at all.

[Valmy]

So...what if you only pay for things in cash and thus have no credit score?  I guess nobody will ever give you a job then?  'Get out there and go into debt so we can see how responsible you are!'

[garbon]

Personally, I could imagine using someone's credit score as a data point in how they manage their finances and such. Not really definitive, of course, and it would depend on the job.

But there isn't anything especially egregious about this "soft" variable in the hiring process compared to many others.

Yeah, I agree. I just think credit scores should be private information.

I believe in Canada you have to explicitly consent to your credit score being checked, and I don't think I've ever heard of anyone's score being checked for a job.

That's not really much of a protection.  Any right that can be waived to a much more powerful agent is not a right at all.

Indeed. If I hadn't consented to a credit check, I wouldn't have been able to get any of my apartments.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Yes. There was a lot of nonsense going around the HR world in the middle of the recession about a lack of qualified candidates.

The problem is, you can make sure there are no qualified candidates just by adding more qualifications. We're drowning ourselves in them.

That is still going around, and with a whole lot of seriousness, in the tech world.  Read Hacker News or /r/cscareerquestions long enough and you hit the contradiction of there being craploads of unemployed programmers and no "qualified" candidates.

[garbon]

So...what if you only pay for things in cash and thus have no credit score?  I guess nobody will ever give you a job then?  'Get out there and go into debt so we can see how responsible you are!'

I guess it depends on the position. If some sort of white collar/office job - I think it'd be a flag if you only ever pay for things in cash.