Is a future employer verifying previous employment the same as asking for a reference?

Question

I am not really sure on what to do. I resigned from a position at a company but I still want to put them on my resume because I still gained experience none the less.

Is giving contact details for my future employer to verify my employment the same as asking a reference?

I am not sure whether they will just call up to verify if I worked there, position title and dates or does it include character references as well which I won't get because I resigned.

I am really confused, thanks.

Answer 1

Your employer can't refuse to verify your employment. Even if they tried you should have check stubs to show you were employed there. If another company called to verify and your old company said you can't use them as a reference, then 9 times out of 10 all they'll offer is dates and title which is all you want them to verify anyway.



As for references, your references don't even have to be anyone from that company. If a hiring company asks for a reference at that company, give the hiring company the old company's contact information and let the old company refuse to provide a reference. But, they'll still verify you were an employee there.



Today some companies are using a third party source to verify employment and conducting references internally. Verifying employment is like checking the price of an item but doesn't rate the quality of that product.

Answer 2

References are not the same as employment history. References may be colleagues you have worked with in the past, college professors, clients, etc. People who would give testiment to your character basically.



You should still obviously list the previous employer in your resume or else there will be a large gap in your work history. If you did indeed "resign", i.e. quit your previous job, any prospective employer is going to want to know why. You should have a good answer, and it should avoid giving an impression that you were disgruntled or didn't get along with others, etc. That is a red flag to an interviewer.



Candidly, I would never advise someone to quit their job before having another lined up, precisely because their aren't a lot of good reasons you can use to explain why you chose such a drastic course of action.

Answer 3

I don't see why resigning would make you get a bad reference?



It sounds as though they are just checking dates, though.