Why are my "real" jobs not coming up in Employment Verification?
April 5, 2023 2:07 PM Subscribe
I'm in the US. I've had two long term jobs that have spanned the years between my college graduation and now as well as several, low paying 'placeholder' jobs that I had every intention of leaving within days.
I have had a few jobs over the years, but only two of them were jobs I actually wanted and stayed at long term.. the others were just low paying placeholders to keep me from starving when an emergency came up or when I was waiting to find a "real" job. Out of these five job placeholders, the longest I ever stayed was three months (Which was much longer than I had planned to stay).
YES- I realize that it's not fair to have an employer onboard you when you know you don't want to stay more than a short time, but during certain times in my life, financial emergencies would leave me with little choice. Actual temp work was not really a thing where I was located so I would have to just get hired to crappy call centers and some shady gigs knowing that I would be out of there as soon as made enough money (or was creeped out too much to stay).
Placeholder Job A: stayed 5 days
Placeholder Job B: Stayed 16 days
Place holder Job C: Stayed 3.5 weeks
Place holder Job D: Stayed 3 months.
Place holder Job E: Stayed 2 days
Jobs C, D, and E all had very shady and even criminal practices, but they were willing to hire fast so I took the work to pay the bills while searching.
After a background check I was just told that only these placeholder jobs have shown up on my background report! How is that possible?
As for my real jobs- I've had two since 2016 and they both lasted years. One from 2016-2020 and the other from 2020- present. However they were both part time (up to 30 hours per week officially, but would take stuff home frequently.) These are the only jobs I put on my resume.
My references were called so they they know I worked at these places long term, but they still say my long term jobs are not coming up in my employment verification. Why is that? It's worrying me.
I have had a few jobs over the years, but only two of them were jobs I actually wanted and stayed at long term.. the others were just low paying placeholders to keep me from starving when an emergency came up or when I was waiting to find a "real" job. Out of these five job placeholders, the longest I ever stayed was three months (Which was much longer than I had planned to stay).
YES- I realize that it's not fair to have an employer onboard you when you know you don't want to stay more than a short time, but during certain times in my life, financial emergencies would leave me with little choice. Actual temp work was not really a thing where I was located so I would have to just get hired to crappy call centers and some shady gigs knowing that I would be out of there as soon as made enough money (or was creeped out too much to stay).
Placeholder Job A: stayed 5 days
Placeholder Job B: Stayed 16 days
Place holder Job C: Stayed 3.5 weeks
Place holder Job D: Stayed 3 months.
Place holder Job E: Stayed 2 days
Jobs C, D, and E all had very shady and even criminal practices, but they were willing to hire fast so I took the work to pay the bills while searching.
After a background check I was just told that only these placeholder jobs have shown up on my background report! How is that possible?
As for my real jobs- I've had two since 2016 and they both lasted years. One from 2016-2020 and the other from 2020- present. However they were both part time (up to 30 hours per week officially, but would take stuff home frequently.) These are the only jobs I put on my resume.
My references were called so they they know I worked at these places long term, but they still say my long term jobs are not coming up in my employment verification. Why is that? It's worrying me.
I can't tell you why, but anybody should accept a W2 with the employer's name on it (redact the salary if you'd like). If you didn't hold onto your W2's you can get a transcript of your prior taxes from the IRS.
posted by Narrow Harbor at 3:22 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Narrow Harbor at 3:22 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
had a job that had difficulty being verified after a very public name change. I also had trouble with discrepancies because my W2 said something like GRANT PAYOR but my job and the hiring went through Agency xyz.
It held up a new job for over 6 weeks.
Lessons learned: 1) use only what is on the w-2 on background check forms 2) keep information as consistent as possible and 3) ONLY list as much as you need to list and not any bit more. 4) 4) list only jobs that were reverent enough to put on my resume. 5) If my employer needs more info, they can ask me for it a piece of information at a time.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:07 PM on April 5, 2023
It held up a new job for over 6 weeks.
Lessons learned: 1) use only what is on the w-2 on background check forms 2) keep information as consistent as possible and 3) ONLY list as much as you need to list and not any bit more. 4) 4) list only jobs that were reverent enough to put on my resume. 5) If my employer needs more info, they can ask me for it a piece of information at a time.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:07 PM on April 5, 2023
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posted by General Malaise at 2:29 PM on April 5, 2023 [3 favorites]