Originally Posted by Lady Chaos
I really doubt there is an actual list like that somewhere. I guess you can kinda tell by what the job is. Like if you are going to work at a bank or deal with lots of money there is probably going to be a background check. If you are going to work at a car wash or fast food place then chances are there isnt going to be a background check.
^^This pretty much sums it up. I once asked myself the same question, "where's the list?" But after years of working in many different kinds of jobs (with painstaking attention paid to this very question every time), I can offer the following rules that largely restate what Lady Chaos said, and can be successfully used to derive your own "magic list:"
1.) Large corporations do background checks for corporate jobs.
2.) Small business entities either will or will not give a background check for a corporate-type job, it's a fifty-fifty chance, and may be dependent on how far up in the heirarchy the postion in question is.
3.) Any blue-collar job which requires state licencing will require a background check from both the company as well as the governmental licencing agency.
4.) Retail sales companies do background checks
5.) Food service companies give background checks
Each of the background checks above come with varying degrees of critical eyes, but generally just pretend 1 is the most critical and 5 is the least critical.
Regarding your situation in particular
Employers can understand someone who smoked a little pot back in the day. They can also understand that time you were drunk in public. Maybe they can understand that time you got in a fight.
But no one understands theft. By any means possible, get that charge expunged.