Do employers call ALL ex employers or only the most recent one?

Question

The thing is this, I've gone to 3 job interviews already, this week I'm doing some tests and after that it's get the job or not I've been working at my current job for 2 years (job A), before that I worked for a few months at another job (job B) but said I was there for a year on my resume.

Job B experience is not relevant to the position, do you think they'll be called? Is it normal to call ALL of your previous employers or just the previous one?

Thanks!

help me sleep at night!

Answer 1

It depends on both the company and position you're applying for. Larger companies hiring for key positions are more likely to go farther back in your employment history when contact past employers. When the Navy was investigating me to authorize a "Top Secret" clearance they actually contacted one of my kindergarden teachers. Mom and pop style operations hiring a cashier will usually limit their contact to the last employer, if they contact any, as they often can't afford the time lost going any farther back.

Another thing to consider: Most basic background checks will include your employment history typically going back as far as seven years. Depending on the state you live in they may even be authorized to pull a copy of your tax records to verify your employment.

As to whether "Job B" pertains to the position your applying for, it's doesn't matter. Employers don't contact each other to check on your skills but rather your work habits. It's very difficult to check on your skills because they'll be different (even if slightly) between every job you have. If you worked as a cashier for Wal-Mart and move to Target you'll still have to be retrained on how to use their registers (which are controlled by a different computer system), paging codes, customer service practices, etc. What they want to know by contact your past employers is if you tend to show up to work late, bring a lot of personal problems to the job, or are you a hard worker who will put in a full day's work. In some states it's illegal to address the question directly but it's not currently illegal anywhere to contact a past employer and say "Jim applied for a job, is there anything you can tell me about him?" Trust me, employers know how to pass information back and forth and stay within the bounds of the law. Besides, even if they did discuss things they shouldn't they're not going to tell you that they did it so you'll never know.

Briefly addressing the issue about stating a year when it was just a few months. Depending on what the months were and how you stated it in your resume you might be alright. If you worked from Dec04 to Jan05 and you state it as 2004 to 2005 then you've done nothing wrong. If you actually stated that you worked there for one year than you are in fact wrong by doing this.

While there are ways to state items on your resume that aren't completely true it is important to that they are technically true regardless of the implication you're trying to make. Padding your resume with incorrect information could quickly come back to haunt you as there may be ways of verifying the information that you haven't even thought of yet. If you lie and get caught you've already proven yourself to be untrustworthy and thus unemployable. If this was a mistake then fix it, if it was intentional then never do it again.

Answer 2

It depends on the company. When I would verify employment I would go five years back. If there was something missing or if something did not seem right, I would go further back. Most people can not remember dates of how long they were on a job, but that pushing it a few months to over a year.

Answer 3

Depends on the employer. There is a strong trend to doing complete checks because of people like you fake their resumes (Unless you are a friend of George W. Bush, then you can pad your resume as much as you want and be responsible for the deaths through incompetence).

So dude, all you can do is wait and see, and next time no cheating.

Answer 4

Only two jobs? Yep, I would call both.

Quit lying on your application, that is fraud and can either not get you hired or can get you fired after hire.

And most managers do not like to call current bosses, what happens if I decide to hire someone else and your current boss fires you because he finds out your looking. So I would call the older reference first.

And find out you are a liar, so then I wouldn't hire you.

When you fill out the application be truthful then you won't have to worry about it.

Answer 5

No they will only call those who they think are qualified for the current vacancies. personnel department will not waste their time calling everybody. their basis would be the performance record of the person.