How Does Your CIBIL Score Affect Employment Opportunities?

The TransUnion Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL) issues credit scores to borrowers based on their past credit behaviour. This score is called the CIBIL score and remains the most widely used among lenders in India. But how does this affect your employment? To answer this question, you must first understand the traits that can be analysed using an employee’s CIBIL score.

Companies often scrutinise employees CIBIL scores to determine their financial capabilities and money-handling skills. Timely repayment of loans also indicates a sense of responsibility and honesty among employees, which lowers the chances of corporate criminal activities or forgery, and establishes the employees trustworthiness.

The article below discusses various aspects of how a CIBIL score can affect your employment.

What role does the CIBIL score play for employees?

Having a good CIBIL score can help you broaden your employment opportunities. In contrast, having a low CIBIL score can adversely affect your employment. As you may already know, a CIBIL score is a 3-digit number ranging from 300 to 900. Therefore, any CIBIL score above 750 is excellent, whereas anything below 500 is problematic. But how does it affect your reputation?

Trustworthiness 

Employees with excellent CIBIL scores showcase financial stability and money management skills. As a result, employees with these skills are usually in high demand among employers, especially in the finance and banking sectors. On the other hand, employing defaulters carries the risk of fraudulent activities, for which a company might have to bear the unnecessary cost.

Careless Nature

Employees are responsible for their financial portfolios. It proves that they value money. In contrast, irresponsible employees usually squander their earnings and may get into financial trouble. As a result, many companies are unwilling to onboard such employees.

Negative Intent

An inconsistent repayment history with multiple credit accounts and large pending debt states that a person may carry treacherous intent. It increases the risk of money laundering, especially for employees working in financial departments.

Excess Stress

Nobody likes pending bills. Large pending debts culminate in stress, eventually lowering employee productivity. Therefore, companies may reject job applications based on the abovementioned reason to ensure their workflow is maintained.

Lack of Stability

People who tend to borrow money and not pay it back in time eventually opt for more loans to pay off their debts. Unfortunately, this traps them in a debt cycle, due to which they often set out for higher-paying jobs and never settle down for a stable career. Therefore, a company may only consider a candidate if employee retention is certain.

What do companies look for in an employee’s CIBIL report?

Below is the information in a CIBIL report that companies and their Human Resource Departments (HRD) usually look for:

Repayments

The first thing an employer looks for in a credit report is your repayment history, as this data point significantly impacts your CIBIL score as it has a weightage of 35%. Any delay or failure to repay a loan may substantially affect your CIBIL score, your credibility as a borrower, and, eventually, as an employee.

Unsettled Debt

Companies may look for an employee’s outstanding debts as they have a weight of around 30% of the CIBIL score. Therefore, you must pay some part of your loan beforehand. Paying more than 40% of the borrowed amount is always advised, as it will help you maintain a good CIBIL score.

Duration of Draft History

The longer the use of instruments like credit card along with prompt payment will help you maintain a good CIBIL score. This criteria contributes around 10% to your CIBIL score.

Credit Diversification

Candidates with diversified borrowing applications in secured and unsecured loans usually have higher CIBIL scores. In contrast, candidates with more unsecured loans will have lower CIBIL scores. This constitutes 10% of the CIBIL score.

Borrowings

This credit report section states all your borrowed debt and the frequency of loan applications. If you frequently take loans with inconsistent repayments, some points will be deducted from your CIBIL score. It would also justify the lack of creditworthiness and responsibility toward repayments. It has a total weight of around 10% of the CIBIL score.

How to improve your CIBIL score to increase employment chances?

To increase your chances of employment with reputable employers, having an excellent CIBIL score is a must. Here are some tips to consider to upscale your CIBIL score: 

Repay your debts on time

The first and foremost rule to maintaining a desirable CIBIL score is to remember to repay your loans on time. You can ensure that you meet your deadlines by opting for an automatic payment facility by contacting your respective bank. Furthermore, you may request a credit report from TransUnion CIBIL by paying nominal service charges to keep an eye out for your CIBIL score.

Restrict over or under usage of credit card limit

Every credit card lender assigns a credit limit to every borrower. Therefore, maintaining a credit utilisation ratio is essential, ensuring you stay within the borrowing limit on your credit card, which could negatively affect your CIBIL score.

Furthermore, you can customise your credit limit based on expenses by contacting your lender.

Opt for a longer repayment tenure

It may not be feasible to pay large EMIs every month. One way to reduce your monthly instalments is to opt for a longer repayment tenure, which would lower your EMIs so that you never fall short on funds. Subsequently, paying your EMIs on time will help you increase your CIBIL score.

Diversify your loan portfolio

Diversifying your loans proportionately on secured and unsecured credit for both long and short-term credits can help you avail lower interest rates for personal loans. Furthermore, diversified credit history and timely repayments add to your CIBIL score and let you procure more debt.

Final Words

Now that you know how the CIBIL score affects employment opportunities, you can implement the above strategies to help you avoid the loss of job opportunities due to a low CIBIL score. These days many top IT and finance companies are checking the credit scores of job applicants. Therefore, it is always advisable to check your CIBIL score every once in a while and take immediate action, if required, to avoid complications.

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