I am currently undergoing a security clearance investigation and have completed eQIP. I had an investigator call me to discuss some things on my form. One thing that she asked was if I was ever terminated for misconduct or fired from any job. I told her no–she proceeds to tell me that the serving job I listed the employer said something along the lines of misconduct and not eligible for rehire which went against what I put on my form. I told her that I part-timed at this place for 3 months 5 yrs ago and resigned and had no sort of disciplinary actions and left because I worked two jobs at the time and I was tired. To put in context, I full time as an HR Business Partner for over 7 years now so to me this didn’t make any sense and when I record terminations in the systems I’ve used, there is a drop down selection with many options to include voluntary and involuntary terminations. I am curious to know, what can I do against this former employer for “lying”? I’ve given the phone number of a former colleague to verify my claim. I know the process and definition of misconduct and an employee resigning w/o two weeks notice does not follow that definition.
If I’m understanding correctly, you quit without giving any notice? That makes you ineligible for rehire 99.9% of the time. Not sure what “lie” there is about that.
This is such a common thing with rinky dink unprofessional employers who don’t have proper human resources procedures. Very few professional HR departments will classify an employee as “ineligible for rehire”. It takes a lot of serious disciplinary issues/misconduct for them to categorize in that manner. Small time mom and pop places that often answer the forms sent to them as part of the investigation, often put things down on these forms that are soley based on their personal opinions and feelings about a former employee and are usually undocumented and unable to be properly verified. Don’t sweat it. Many years of solid work performance makes up for one vindictive, forgetful, or unprofessional former employer.
I would definitely argue your percentages. 10 years in the field and I’ve seen VERY few “ineligible for rehire”. Most professional HR departments don’t comment on eligibility.
Amazing how different experiences can be. I’ve had maybe 5 out of every 100 refuse to comment on eligibility. Everyone else cooperates. I get at least one ineligible result a week.
Hi - I am not concerned about the rehire piece, I work in corporate F500 HR and knew this when I resigned 5 years ago from a part time serving job in an industry where turnover is extremely high with no plans on returning. My concern was simply the misconduct piece, as I had NEVER had any sort of misconduct in any job whether part time or full, so was wondering how to counteract false information that I’d received. Misconduct is not someone resigning w/o two weeks notice. Misconduct is usually behavioral issues and documentations goes along with this and so that was my concern with this, I did not have any misconduct and did not resign because of anything of such nature.
Thanks Weeble. To your point I did reach out to the HR Department of the restaurant I referred to today and spoke to a senior individual; he said the same thing along the lines of what you said and says that they do not give out reasons for terminations nor comment or rehire eligibility. He said only he and one other person has access to this info and because it is the restaurant industry they don’t even comment on part time or full time or something along those lines. He was very perplexed about what I told him the investigator said.
Is this acceptable to the investigators–HR not filling out the entire form, which has about ten questions on it? What about the supervisor form?
From my understanding, two forms are sent out–one to HR to confirm actual supervisor, and one to the supervisor submitted…
Investigator’s don’t have any input onto who gets mailed those forms or who fills them out. When they show up in the mail to a business it’s the business choice as to who fills them out. I’m sure when an individual manager/supervisor is given a form addressed to them and asked to fill it out they probably interpret that to mean they can give their personal opinions to every question. If they don’t want to hire that person or have that person work for them again…I"m sure they would put that information down. It’s that supervisor’s opinion and people have their own personal opinions about everyone they work with. And again many many supervisors and managers are very unfamiliar with HR/labor laws, procedures, guidelines, and best practices.
HR should be responding honestly but objectively as the business with no personal “feelings” or biases. HR needs to protect the business entity from lawsuits. Human being have lots of feelings and biases that may or may not be “honest”.
It’s part of the balanced whole person concept. Multiple opinions (subjective and objective) of one person, one event, one employment to give the adjudicator a whole person perspective.
I’ve talked to several HR reps today in regards to forms. The very large corps. use third party verifiers and restrict themselves to directory information.
The medium outfits tend to, but not universerally, stick to directory information.
I believe in many states, it is illegal to answer anything other than if they worked there or not. I wouldn’t worry much about it. If you had no disciplinary actions, then there is no paper trail for the employer to back up his claim.
Urban myth arena. First of all, a Subject signs a release of information, next - most states give employers qualified immunity as long as the information is factual, third - while some employers don’t play, most I have seen do, finally, most companies that have dealings with the federal security worlds are obligated by law to participate.
Don’t depend on a past employer hiding misdeeds. Report what you are supposed to report and sleep easy at night.