What would you do?

[Sashamalia]

I just applied for a new job . And I've been offered the job.

I sent in my references and they checked out.

They are now still doing due diligence on me.

I provided accurate dates for my most recent employment.

I'm 40

When I applied for the role , I put every job since I left college on my CV.

For the older jobs: jobs that were 10 + years ago, I put the years that I worked down.

For example I wrote:

I worked in this role, in this company, from 2012-2014.

HR for my new job have now come back to me and said that they want me to put the starting month and finishing month down for each job. That just stating the year is not good enough for them.

I genuinely don't remember anymore. I probably knew the month at one stage. But in my saved copies of my cv , i just have the year saved. I don't have saved contracts or job details from the older jobs. People that worked with me don't work there anymore.

I'm stressed because- they're a really strict company and they really do their due diligence.

I dont know what to do.

They dont seem that flexible of a company. Im afraid to say that I don't remember. In case it makes me lose my job

What's the best thing to do?

I can't do that.

Some jobs you might possibly get away with that for the really old jobs.

My job is in a financial company, and by talking to them so far, they seem to be the type of company that would say you're lying and fire
if you put a month wrong on your cv. She sounds like the type that would ring every one of my old companies to check months

I'm just going to have to say to her for some of them "this is an approximate guess as it was a long time ago, I'm recalling it to the best accuracy that I can"

This would be normal in education due to Safer Recruiting. You have to account for all periods out of work too. I’d argue though, that if you have no way of finding out dates, then neither does the employer. Could you call and explain that? Ask them (politely!) how they’d check, and if so, could they do so on your behalf?

I had this once. I was 45 and the company who was doing the checks (not the company employing me) wanted copies of my GCSE certificates. I told them “no chance”, and they accepted this answer.

If I were you, I would just say you don’t know, and it should go away, especially if you have details for the last 10 years

Should also add, thus was financial services

It's just where you said this, I thought "well how are they gonna know you made it up if the company doesn't even know"

Financial services are tough!

The last job that i was in just asked for two references.

This new job (financial services) has been asking me for stuff for weeks.

I'm stressed. But I'll just do my best

This is excessive, even for a financial job. Also, if you put in your best recollection (i.e you remember it was near Christmas, birthday etc. as already suggested). how are they going to verify this information? Businesses are not required to retain data relating to former employees for ever ( think it is normally 7 years after end of employment) and in fact should be safely disposing of it under GDPR/data protection legislation - they are not supposed to retain personal info unless there is a legitimate business need.

Go through what you have available to you - HMRC, bank records, emails and do your best. if they are worried about prison they can do a criminal disclosure and check for equivilent in Spain and Ireland.

Yes I was thinking this was normal but I have worked in care/education settings. I used to interview in a care settings and this is one thing we were told to look for on an application- anything over a week or 2 had to be accounted for. So it was ok if they had one job finishing Jan 2021 and the following starting Feb 2021 but if it was March 2021 we needed to know why the gap.
I have all this logged on my CV for that reason.

Exactly.

You seem to be making an unnecessary drama out of this.

Contact the companies to ask for the dates. If they don’t know then you can fit them round the ones you do have and make up any missing ones.

You can't make up dates for jobs in financial services.

I don't think you realise how extremely thorough they are.

I have contacted my old ompanies.

Some of them don't know the dates i worked there, because none of the same staff are there and they don't retain data after so many years.

I'm checking my old emails, and I'm going to try to get it as accurate as i can
.
For the ones i cant get im going to say to her that I can't give her exact dates for some jobs , but I can give her an approx date

For people saying to look at revenue in ireland. Do you know where to go on it?

I'm looking at it and I can just see an employment history page for the last five years.

Is there any other page that I'm not seeing. Thanks

Yeah, it’s obviously so important that no records are kept of it. Explaining the situation to her sounds like the sensible and obvious solution so not sure what all the angst is about unless you are applying to MI5

Not at all. They're looking for gaps in employment and any reasons for this. For all they know applicants could be trying to hide prison sentences etc

Doctors, nurses, clinicians, nhs staff etc must have every month and year accounted for. When people are vulnerable - ill, under anaesthetic etc they need to cared for by workers who are fully checked out

I think you are better off explaining that some dates are your best-guess estimates rather than making up dates and just giving those. Otherwise if it comes out that dates are incorrect, surely the employer will be more concerned that you are trying to cover something up - even if you’re not!

They can ask said jobs for references.

www.revenue.ie there's a login where it'll give you the option to register (top right of the screen iirc) but they'll have to send you out a pin in order for you to log in. It gets sent quick enough but it means you won't get in til next week. The employment history is handy though and you can request balancing statements and request refunds for medical expenses etc. it's worth doing

What has the HR people suggested when you explain you don’t have the dates and in at least one case the old company doesn’t have them?

Fellow irish ladies.

Where are the job details on Revenue.

I'm looking at it on my mobile, so maybe I'm not seeing everything. I must look at it on my laptop later.

But I can only see employment documents going back the last five years on revenue

I'm not sure it does go back very far. You have managed to get in so?

Hi thanks I am registered. And I can log in.

But under employment history, it is only showing me the last five years.

Can you see further back than that on it?

I would just explain i cant remember and none of it exists anymore. Iv been in the workplace over 20yrs and those early days may as well be the stone age 😂 if they want you, they'll accept it. If they don't and treat you as that expendable, did you really want the job anyway?

I can't remember but I think you're probably right in that it wasn't a full history. But I do think it gave me a history of a job that I was in going back a good bit further than years, I had just left it recently. If that makes any sense 😬

I would add the dates you remember and on the others make it clear when there was no employment gap.

@Sashamalia

take a deep breath!!

Do your best, get the information sent off to them or you'll stand out as being disorganised & a PITB.

if YOU can't find the exact date, they won't be able to either

best of luck with the job!!

Have you looked on the welfare.ie site? They do have some information on there and it's a bit less fort Knox