Employment Verification
vs.
Employment Reference

• Job title
• Employment start and (if appropriate) end dates
• The employee's current status. (E.g. Active or Inactive)
• Salary verification (with the employee's express permission).

The third party verification companies typically offer an automated process which is accessed either by phone or over the internet. The party requesting the information must pay to get it. And the information provided is only as good as the data entry person who put it in the system.

At companies that don't outsource verification the information typically comes from the payroll department. But it can also come from someone else in Human Resources.

Many companies regardless of size have a policy of providing only employment verifications. They will not provide employment references.



Employment references are statements from former managers or supervisors regarding how well you performed on the job. They are used by potential employers as part of a multi-step recruiting, screening and hiring process.

References include everything employment verifications do plus a lot more. Information such as:

• How well someone met performance expectations
• What their primary duties were
• How well they worked with their subordinates, peers or manager
• Whether or not they would be rehired if there was an opening
• Clarification of information shared by the candidate in the interview.

As a manager I wanted to get a well rounded picture of a candidate before making a hiring decision. Being able to personally talk to a candidate's former supervisor or manager provided a vital piece of that puzzle.

Employment verifications are not substitutes for employment references. Potential employers will sometimes accept verifications if that's all they can get. But if you have good employment references you will have a definite edge over candidates who do not.

Companies that refuse to give employment references will usually say the policy is in place to protect the company from law suits brought by former employees. Now I'm not a lawyer and don't intend this as legal advice. But I'm wondering about the potential for law suits from future employers.

• Take this situation for example:

  A hiring manager calls a candidate's former supervisor for a reference. He is told by the supervisor that as a matter of policy the company does not provide employment references. So the hiring manager does not learn that the former employee was fired for violence in the work place.

  What happens when that former employee goes on to shoot three co-workers at his new job? Does his former employer bear any responsibility for that? I don't know the legal answer but from my perspective he sure bears moral responsibility.

Competent employees benefit from good employment references as do prospective employers. Employees who do not meet expectations benefit when a company will offer only employment verification.

Companies that have this restrictive policy are not supporting their deserving current and former employees' best interests. They're not supporting their own best interests either.

These same companies want to hire strong candidates with great references. Yet their policy of providing only verifications perpetuates a watering down of work force competence.