I am from Michigan, am now live in Oregon. In 2006, I had some felonies which were dropped to misdemeanors (in Michigan).
However, there was a point in 2007 when an employer did a background check and I was dismissed because the felonies were viewable on my record. I’m 100% sure they were dropped to misdemeanors — according to the HR for that company, the background check showed the felonies AND misdemeanors as a list of charges, not discerning between what they were originally and what they were dropped to. I tried to get to the bottom of it back then, but it seemed like everyone I talked to at the courthouse and police station in Michigan had conflicting information. Confused and frustrated, I never really got to the bottom of it.
So now I’m looking for work in Oregon, and I’m very curious as to what potential employers see when they run a background check on me.
How does the background check system works and is there a way for me to run a comprehensive one on myself?
The background check “industry” is pretty vague at best. The federal government uses SSBI, but there are many companies out there that will handle your own background check. Each will probably have a different methodology and criteria but the results will probably be very similar.
Many of the background check companies on the Internet mine public records to glean this information. They could potentially turn up your felony charge and your misdemeanors even if those records were sealed or expunged (since they’ll have mined those records back when those charges were open and pending, and simply not have purged the records from their system).
The easiest way to find out is to run your own background check. Chance are you will uncover what you need to know just by doing that.
You can certainly run a background check on yourself. Many people find this useful, particularly in this internet era. It is a matter of reputation management. If there is identity theft or false statements about you in the public record, you’ll want to know about it.