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?

Dear Company X

I enclose the dates for my previous employers to the degree of accuracy that I have be able to establish with my supporting information including pay stubs, bank statements, personal photographs, past calendars and conversations woth colleagues and friends……Put every possible source in here so they go wow she has tried really hard……. Where I dont have personal records or recollections, I have called the companies directly and also checked my tax records with x government departments. Despite my best efforts, some information is still an estimate, and I have italicised these specific data.

Please let me know if this level of detail is acceptable and if you wish for further clarification, I would be grateful if you have any suggestions on how I could source the required data as I have done everything that I can think of.

kind regards SM

Hopefully putting the ball back in their court will get them to realise how crazy their requests are.

I always make it up as accurately as I can but fortunately most of my background is schools, so it’s much easier to guess.

Some employees want dates that include the day of the month too, which I think is so silly.

I have worked in prisons, which are one of the strictest professions for security and employment checks and they never found any issues with my dates.

That last paragraph is wee bit passive aggressive, I'd leave that out. Or reword it or something. It's crazy though, I had to apply for garda clearance not too long ago and it wanted all my addresses ever. I hadn't a clue and had no real way of finding out. I put down what I could cobble together and they accepted that.

its only 5 years on my revenue account. However they are incredibly helpful so I’d advise you to use the “my enquiries” service to ask them for the details they have if your previous employments

Yeah I'll just get it as accurate as i can from my old emails, and I'll do my best.

That's all I can do.

Thanks guys.

Just an update on what happened

I went through all my old email accounts for hours and I was able to find most of the dates for my really old jobs.

I had a yahoo email account that I used 15 -10 years ago. But then I stopped using it as gmail becme more popular.

I was able to log into that old yahoo email account and get some dates for the very old jobs.

I sent them all in. And I told her that Ive checked the dates, and it's as accurate as I can get it.

And it's OK, she said my file is complete , and i'm starting the job next week.

I have the months saved on my cv now for future

Well done! I totally wouldn't be able to trawl back that far. You must be delighted 💐