As if the personal failure and hurt and self-berating and sleepless nights and embarrassment and financial aspects of foreclosure weren't enough, I'm now facing the fallout of foreclosure in my job hunt.

I received my first official "It's our company policy to not hire candidates with a foreclosure history" rejection notice.

In Illinois there is a state mandate that requires employers to tell candidates a) that they are credit checking, and b) inform rejected candidates if the reason they were rejected is a credit issue, and, further, what specific credit issue caused the rejection.

So, complying with state mandates, a would-be employer sent me a very detailed account of my credit history and cited, specifically, the limbo-foreclosure status of my condo as the reason they are not hiring me.

Credit bureaus don't report details like a 61% drop in property assessment in three years or foreclosure rates in the area causing a glut of empty available homes at low prices rendering it impossible to sell a home for a price higher than the bank auction rates. Credit bureaus just report a financial facts associated with a social security number.

And employers, who have a trove of over-qualified candidates, have to winnow down the candidate pool to one perfect employee candidate. If they have two equally qualified candidates and they like both of them, the credit check provides a convenient deciding factor, "A foreclosure changes everything. We don't want to hire that sort of person. We want don't want that kind of irresponsibility in our employee pool. That settles that, the decision is made."

This recent rejection stings a lot. I wanted that job. I was excited about the company and I have a lot of offer them. I could help them. A lot. And I would enjoy it. I was excited about it. I know better than to get excited about a job prospect, but, this one...well, I couldn't help it. It was a perfect fit for me and my mind was racing with ideas to solve the issues they discussed in the interviews. But, the job requires managing a large budget, and a foreclosure in my background doesn't look good, regardless of the extenuating circumstances.

I knew it would happen eventually. I know employers are checking credit histories and I know they are not hiring people who have any blemish in their credit history. Is it fair? No. But. Who ever said life is fair? It's not. Deal with it.

But. Here's what bugs me and why I'm not just lumping this job rejection in with the hundreds of others and dealing with it: If credit history is a key hiring factor, why not do the credit check first, before putting the candidate through five, count 'em five interviews, and a two hour session of Myers-Briggs-type testing and an IQ test - yes, an IQ test. They called it a skills evaluation but it was a standard IQ test.*  Why invest that kind of time and effort and screening in a candidate before running the credit check?

Further, if a candidate makes it past a) the Myers-Briggs screening and b) the IQ test and, more to the relevant point of the job, c) through five interviews, doesn't it warrant at least a conversation about the credit report? A "Gee, we really like you but we notice a blip on your credit report. Can we discuss this?" conversation? They had no problem discussing my social preferences results from the Myers-Briggs test. They had no problem broaching the topic of their difficult clients and grilling me on how I'd deal with them. There didn't seem to be a problem broaching sensitive topics. But I wasn't given the courtesy of a conversation about my credit report. Nope. Just a rejection letter stating their policy on not hiring candidates with a foreclosure in their credit history.

I'm not sure what the mandate requiring employers to tell candidates they were rejected based on a credit report does for the employers or the candidates. It causes more paperwork and follow-up for the employer, and doesn't tell the candidates anything they didn't already know. I know I have foreclosure in my credit history. I don't need an employer to tell me that. And the reason I have a foreclosure in my credit history is because I'm unemployed. I told the prospective employer I was laid off, they could (I presume) put the two facts together. But nonetheless, they cited foreclosure as the reason they're not hiring me. Kudos to them (I guess) for being honest and following the state mandate in telling me the foreclosure is the reason they didn't hire me. They could have lied and said they went with the other candidate, or, they could have done what the thousands of other employers do: Sent a form rejection email (sent from a do not reply email address), or nothing at all. But nope, this employer took the high road and told me they're not hiring me because of my credit report.

I suppose the thinking behind the mandate to disclose this info is to give the candidate a chance to explain. But. In this case, and I presume in most cases, the case is closed. They hired someone else. I suppose the thinking is that notification of the reason why I didn't get the job would allow me to plea my case, explain my credit issues, explain that I had great credit until I was laid off and even then I maintained good credit until I could no longer pay my mortgage. But why? What would that prove? It wouldn't give me the job - someone else has it, now. And, it's not as if I can repair my credit before the next job application. Unless that job application is seven years from now. Even if there had been an error in my credit report, the company would have moved on to other candidates, probably hired someone else in the interim, and what good would pleading to them about an error in the report do? Knowing that I didn't get the job because of my foreclosure doesn't do anything except depress me. If I had received the usual form rejection email I would have written it off as another disappointment and presumed they had an even better candidate than me, or fixated on that one moment in the interview that I hesitated, or that they went with a better personality fit, or whatever. If I hadn't received any rejection I would have assumed the same things plus written off the company's HR people as unprofessional. But now I know it's my credit report. So what? What can I do about that? The only thing that's going to resolve my credit issue is: A job. A job that pays more than $15/hour. So what's the point of notifying me that the reason I didn't get the one thing I need to help my credit is precisely the thing they're not giving me because of my credit: A job.

So, let's recap. I was laid off with 150 other people in my company. The first call I made was to my real estate agent to put my condo on the market. The numbers he ran for a list price were $30K lower than what I owed on my mortgage. And with four foreclosures in my building at the time, the realistic asking price was more like $49K lower than what I owed. So. I did everything I could to pay my mortgage, drained my savings, my severance and my 401K to pay my mortgage in hopes that a) I'd find a job and/or b) the housing market would improve. Neither of those things happened. The most recent assessment of my condo is $70K less than what I owe on my condo. The bank doesn't want it - they're so certain they can't sell it they're keeping me in foreclosure limbo, offering me all sorts of stalling measures because they don't want to get stuck with it. Which is "nice," I guess, it gives me a chance to find a job, but, I am officially in foreclosure so they're not doing me any favors in my job hunt.

A few states have taken measures to prevent credit checks as a condition of employment, but even in those states there are provisions - if a job requires managing budgets or handling money a credit check is allowed and it's "okay" to reject a candidate based on their credit history.

What really galls me is the ironic circle of finance that's in play. I have to find a job that pays a certain salary in order for me to have enough money to pay my mortgage and affiliated expenses. Minimum wage isn't enough, a low paying job isn't enough. I don't need a lot of money, but I need more than $15/hour to pay my mortgage and affiliated expenses. And so far, I have not been offered a job garnering more than $15/hour. So. I'll lose my home because I can't find a job that pays well enough to afford my mortgage. However. Once the bank takes my condo, they'll be lucky to sell it for the price of a mid-range new car. So whomever buys my foreclosed condo will have a low mortgage payment, a mortgage payment very manageable on a low income.

Banks: Here's a thought: for the myriad people in my situation (there are millions of us), how about taking the hit you're going to take on the price of the foreclosed home, refinance the loan to the price you'll get by selling at auction so that the owner can afford their mortgage on the lower salary they've had to take. My building currently has six foreclosures. Even at ridiculously low prices, three have been vacant almost three years. The likelihood of selling my condo is low. I realize my mortgage is my responsibility and you don't owe me anything. This is not something I take lightly - my mortgage has been the key source of anxiety from the moment I was laid off. My mortgage, how to pay it, what to do about it, has caused me more stress than anything I have ever encountered in life, and let me tell you, I've encountered a lot of stressful situations in my life. The job hunt has been brutal, demoralizing, anguishing and confusing. The main reason I haven't given up, the primary reason I forge ahead, continue the exercise in futility, is because of my condo and its mortgage. This is not something I take lightly, not something I'm irresponsible about.  Normally, the "right" thing to do is sell, but, with the plummeting value, that's not an option - if I had been able to sell when I was first laid off (and that's a big if), at the $49K less than what I owed, I'd still owe the mortgage company $49K and I would have been a) homeless and b) unemployed and c) unable to pay it.

And then, finally, a job appeared and I was a viable candidate and I went through five interviews which all went well...only to be told I didn't pass the credit check because of a foreclosure in my credit history.

Oh the irony. The job I want that will allow me to pay the mortgage in the home I'm trying to keep is the source of rejection for the job.

And this is why there are "discouraged workers." This is why people give up. This is why depression is rampant and heart attack and suicide rates are up.



* This, too, is becoming a normal protocol in hiring, in the past year I've been put through the Myers-Briggs and "skills evaluation" - which is always a standard IQ test - for more job applications than not. A few employers sent me detailed reports, and one thing about these that "helps" me deal with all this is that, in spite of all the crap I've been though in the past few years, I'm testing consistent in terms of personality and IQ. My sociopsychological composition and IQ are almost exactly what they've always been, at least as measured by these standardized tests. I test "socially adept" and "personally creative" on Myers-Briggs tests, and I have a (very) respectable IQ number. A friend tells me this may be a problem, she advised me to dumb down my IQ tests because her company's HR office has decided to hire only average IQ-ed candidates. They're finding higher IQ candidates either don't stay at the company or cause "problems." So now I've been advised to a) dumb down my resume, lie by omission about my education and experience, and b) play dumb on skill assessments. Education, intelligence and experience are liabilities.