Background Checks for Graduate jobs after Dismissal

[jjsunny123]

Found this forum and I hope this is a good place to ask for some advice on my situation!

First of all I just want to say that I accept my mistakes and I do not want to downplay them at all.

I was recently dismissed from my finance company job for emailing sensitive data to my personal email. The company was very strict on not working from home. I had to WFH one day due to car being in the garage. I had to complete a piece of work that was due on this day to a higher up - I was under a lot of pressure and the laptop that work had provided would not connect to a monitor, mouse, or ethernet cable which I wanted to connect to to work more accurately and efficiently and to make sure the VPN connection didn't drop out. In a moment of utter and a disappointing lapse in judgement, I sent the excel sheet I was working on, via personal email to my personal laptop, to work on it here with the connections earlier mentioned. Once finished, I sent the file back to work laptop.

I don't expect anyone to believe me, and I do not want to make excuses, all I can say is that there is categorically no malicious intent behind the action I did, I simply wanted to work efficiently - which I agree is no excuse. So there is the context and I tried explaining this in the disciplinary meeting, however I got dismissed regardless.

At the disciplinary meeting I was told that if the company is asked for a reference in the future, they will not include the details of the dismissal - only the length of employment. However if the company asks for a regulatory reference, then they company will have to mention the dismissal and reason behind this.

I am currently applying for graduate finance roles (actuarial) at major banks and firms (e.g. Barclays, Lloyds, Deloitte) and am at various stages in the hiring processes. I am worried if these places will ask for a regulatory reference.

I do not plan on lying if I get asked about my reason for leaving, I hope being transparent and explaining my stupid naivety as a 22 year old will show some sort of integrity and honesty, and that I will absolutely learn from this mistake and never make a similar one again.

However, if I do not get asked about previous roles, do you think it will be wise to just not mention this at all? Is there a chance that if it gets to an offer stage, they don't ask for regulatory references?

Should I use references from my previous hospitality and tutoring jobs where I left on good terms instead? I welcome any and all advice you can offer. This was an expensive lesson but I believe in learning from mistakes and just want the chance to prove it. Please lend any insights you may have.

 

[jjsunny123]

Use the finance company reference, it will mean a lot more for these sort of orgs than pretending you never worked there.
A lot of people in FS will have done similar to yourself at some point in the past, before this got a lot more scrutiny and control. If you are honest and acknowledge your mistake for me it wouldn't be a red flag.

I will definitely be honest if asked about it. The thing is, with these graduate roles, they don't usually ask for reasons for leaving throughout the whole application process as they don't always expect graduates to have much experience. If they give me an offer, then depending on the role and company practice, they will conduct background checks which may or may not ask for reasons for leaving form my previous employers.

I have an assessment centre next week with one of the banks and this is the final stage, they probably will ask about my previous role especially the relevant finance role. They may not ask about reasons for leaving but I am battling with myself on whether the right thing to do is tell them about the dismissal regardless? What do you think?

 

[jjsunny123]

That's not really your choice to make, you list your employment history and they will proabbly want to contact the most recent one, they're unlikely to care about your tutoring job or whatever.

A standard background-checking agency might want to contact those but more so if those were say full-time roles after leaving uni, if those were roles when you were also a full-time student then they're not going to care as much as the fact that you were a full-time student already accounts for that period of your life (i.e. you weren't employed somewhere you're not telling them about or in prison or something.)

Re: the regulatory stuff - is that going to be relevant for the role you're immediately hired into? That sort of thing looks at past employment up to 6 years I believe but what's the deal re: actuaries, is that once qualified or when in training? Like if you were going to become a broker or had some front office role in a bank then you'd be in a regulated position right away, would need to be on the FCA register and be a fit and proper person etc.. but if you're employed by say Deloitte as a trainee and are due to sit exams over time etc.. then maybe you leave Deloitte and jump to another firm before you're qualified and you're still not in a regulated role? I think that's what I'd try and find out - if you're not going to be in a regulated role and it takes you say 6 years to qualify (quite possible for an acutary) then this company may never be asked for a "regulatory reference".

Thank you for this

From my research, the role is going to involve consulting and is not likely to fall under a regulatory role