They're less likely to waste their time getting almost all the way through the interview process only to fall at the finish line. Better to spend your time elsewhere. Besides - there's many legitimate reasons not to want people checking your credit... every credit check is a hit against your credit score and thus may negatively impact future ability to get credit for things like auto loans and mortgages.

...and it still seems to me that the easiest way to get hired for a job is to work hard to be the best at whatever it is you do. Then when someone thinks "Oh, we need someone to do X job, everyone says 'This is the guy you need'," instead of having to go in through the front door like the rest of the unknowns. Your reputation should already have walked in the door long before you even know there's a job there for you. At that point, nobody looks at or cares about your credit.

That works for the kind of people who frequent HN. With lower-end jobs, there may not be a large enough difference between average and best to matter. Most of the people interviewed for the articles were seeking relatively unskilled positions.