The Prying Game – Background checks for job seekers are becoming more common – and more intensive

By NIKHIL SWAMINATHAN

By his own estimate, David Seda should be six months into a job as a route sales representative for Frito-Lay, on the brink of receiving a raise and recently installed in his own apartment.

Instead, the 22-year-old is unemployed and living in his father’s Bronx home – a victim of what he calls an unfair background check.

On his application to work at Frito-Lay’s facility in Hunts Point in March, in a position that would involve driving a company truck and stocking grocery stores and bodegas with chips, Seda says he disclosed a violation he received in 2003 for marijuana possession. Such noncriminal convictions are typically sealed and don’t show up in searches of criminal databases, but he figured he’d err on the side of caution.

When ChoicePoint, one of the country’s largest pre-employment screening firms, returned its report on Seda, it contained not only the previously disclosed drug violation, but also a second infraction for “unlawful conduct.” Seda says it was for riding a bike on a sidewalk – and says it also was supposed to be sealed.

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