Good luck trying to hide your age, degrees, work history. Most of it is available with a quick google search. One suggestion is to say you retired but would like to come back into the workforce at a lower level than when you left. I don’t know if that works.
Google doesn’t capture everything, plus, this isn’t hiding anything as no one really goes out to find if a person has more to their history than what is on the resume.
While I am well aware that some employers will do a “Google” or other such internet searches or use sketchy “free” internet background checks on potential applicants and on applications they receive, but legally they are not supposed to do that and no reputable company operates that way. A “Google” or other internet search is not reliable as one can never be sure if what they find is someone with the same name, living in the same town, being of the same or similar age but a completely different person. You are not legally supposed to be subject to a background check by a prospective employer and denied a job as a result of such a check unless you have signed an authorization for them to do so. But yes, sadly that’s not to say it doesn’t happen.
What should happen; how it works at my present and at most of all my previous employers, is that resumes are received and reviewed by HR and passed on to the hiring manager. Sometimes all the resumes are passed on and sometimes only those that HR and sometimes an outside recruiting firm has pre-screened and determined to be a possible fit are. A lot of them are tossed in the “thanks but no thanks” pile and some are “possible interviews” and a few are “very interested in interviewing”. Depending on the job and the culture of the organization, the typical next step is a telephone interview. That could be with HR alone or with HR and the hiring manager. Only if they pass the initial phone interview are they are called in for an in person, face to face interview, sometimes, depending on the position level, a second or third interview is scheduled although I tend think that anything past a second or third interview is usually overkill.
But only after a candidate is identified as this is “the one we want”, and they are they offered a “conditional” job offer, only at that point are they asked to complete a formal job application and no – “see attached resume” doesn’t cut it. The reason is that the job application has verbiage in it that states the legal requirements that falsification of information on the job application can be a reason for rescinding the offer and the application includes or is accompanied by an authorization to perform a background check, based not on what is on their resume but what they have put on the application which has to be signed and dated by the applicant. A resume is not a legally binding document, (think of it as a bio or “introduction”) where as a signed job application with the proper legal verbiage is.
Only at the point is the prospective employer allowed to ask for things like legal address(es) and former addresses, former employers with employment dates and contact information, former names and aliases (i.e. maiden names) and DOB and SSN, and degrees and or certifications if required, but the DOB and SSN are only used as verification of identity for purposes for the background check (and we only use and can only legally use e-verify on the SSN along with the I-9 document on the first day of employment, not before) – but getting the DOB and SSN hopefully ensures that the background check finds you and not just someone with your same name and we use a reputable national firm to perform these checks for us.
Depending on the company, a background check authorization may also ask the applicant to submit not only to verification of former employment and education, but also to a criminal background and or DMV or a credit check. Where I work we don’t do credit checks and we only do DMV checks for positions that require driving a company vehicle or for outside sales positions where driving a vehicle is an integral part of the job and a hit on a criminal conviction may not necessarily be a barrier to being hired depending on what is was for, the severity of the crime and how long ago it took place. But with that authorization to agree to a background check it also comes with it, certain “consumer protection rights”. And while our background checks don’t include “consumer credit” checks, it still falls under federal “consumer protection rights” laws.
And at my present company, all persons who have been conditionally offered a job must also submit to a basic physical and a drug screening and a separate signed authorization is required for that. We do not drug screen all potential applicants, but only those to whom we have conditionally offered a job to. And that make sense. Why incur the cost and hassle of a drug screen unless you are really interested in offering them the position. Interestingly, most of those who have passed the interview process pass the drug screen, only a very few fail and the job is rescinded because of it.
But with both the employment and educational background check, a criminal background check and the drug screening, should any negative, i.e. an offer disqualifying result come out, the applicant has the right to dispute it with the 3rd party background check company or reporting agency or drug screening company and remedy it if it is proven to be inaccurate. It is similar to the protections you have when applying for a credit card or mortgage. If you are denied, you have the legal right to be informed as to the reason why and if you think there is a mistake, you have the right to dispute it and have it corrected should it be in error and your application reconsidered without prejudice.
Another reason why we only accept actual signed job applications from those candidates, who we are prepared to make a job offer to, is for EEOC compliance. If we take applications from everyone, every single person who is interested in a job, or even those who just show up at the HR office looking for a job, even if we have no open positions, if we take their signed application then we then have to track it for EEOC compliance. This is why a lot of companies including the one I work for, will not take “cold call” job applications for non-specific job openings or as we do for most of our hourly manufacturing positions, we refer them to one of the several temp agencies we use to staff those positions on a temp or temp to perm basis. They still have to pass a background screening and pass a drug test to work for us, but the temp agency handles this for us based on our requirements. When and if we offer them a permanent position, depending on how long they have been a “temp”, we only do an update background check and drug screening if it has been more than a year.