If you were in the Hitler Youth in 1941, and you were 14, and it was mandatory, people will still bring it up 72 years later when you are literally the Pope [1]
Is it fair? No. Will some people do it anyway? Absolutely.
Didn’t help Ratzinger that he spent his whole career being the inquisitor attack dog of the Church’s right wing.
My Mexican Jesuit friends called him “Nazinger” for his political actions as an adult, not for his past. German Catholics called him the “Panzerkardinal”.
If you were a low level Wells Fargo employee, that could be something you had to explain in an interview. According to NPR, Wells Fargo employees have found they can't get another job in the banking industry:
There's also an additional difference in the industry which is explained in the article:
It turns out Wells Fargo had written on Jeremy's U5 report card that he admitted to opening accounts for customers without their authorization. A bank is required to report wrongdoing on a U5. But Jeremy says in his case it just wasn't true. "The second I found out about the U5 information I was appalled," he says. "And now it all made sense." That is, all the times he'd get so close to getting a job only to have it get yanked away after a background check.
Employment lawyers say getting a negative mark on your U5 is like getting the mark of Cain in the world of bankers and brokers. The U5 database is maintained by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, which is an industry self-regulatory organization. The goal of the U5 system is to hold financial advisers, brokers and bankers who sell securities accountable for wrongdoing.
Some major banks have a flat-out "zero-tolerance policy," says attorney Scott Matasar with the firm Matasar Jacobs. "They just flat out will not hire" anyone with an entry on their U5 that even suggests a sales practice violation or unethical behavior, he says.
If I had "Low Level Enron Employee" on my resume would the top executives' misconduct be a black mark I had to explain to future interviewers?