Hello large corporate HR professionals.
A friend of mine worked at a company about 4 years ago. He recently signed up for the company’s verified job service just to see what they send out to prospective employers. I guess his former employer out-sourced this task. So he told me they sent him a copy of what they would provide to prospective employers and under “Current Status” it says “Involuntary Separation”.
What does HR for jobs he is applying for in the future do with this information? Is it considered negative? If the employee says there was a layoff, does “Involuntary Separation” explain it? Or does HR go further to determine if this was a layoff or if the employee was terminated? Or can they even do that if this out-sourced task has been assigned to this 3rd-party and that’s all the information they have? Or does HR stop with “Involuntary Separation” and if the employee says they were part of a layoff, they accept it?
A prospective employer might (probably will) ask why a candidate left his or her most recent job, and if the reason given is consistent with the reference provided by the previous employer (or third party vendor) it’s unlikely any additional questions would be asked unless there were some other reason to be suspicious.
For example if your friend worked in the housing industry, and told the interviewer that he was laid off when the housing market tanked, they would not bat an eye if the verification came back as “involuntary separation.” If he had said in his interview that he left to pursue another opportunity or start a business or whatever, and the verification came back as involuntary, that would probably lead to more questions. Or, if he had worked for a well-known company in a healthy industry - but even then, sometimes people are no longer needed through no fault of their own.
Something that the prospective employer cares more about is whether or not the candidate is eligible to be re-hired with their previous employer. But that is not usually reported by verification services as far as I know.