Is Experience/ Relieving Letter mandatory?

[saynotocat]

Experts,

I have been offered by a giant MNC in Singapore and my Employment Pass application In-principle approval has arrived yesterday. I am in India at present and will be moving to Singapore for the first time. The Background Screening process is still under process with the company- "First Advantage" and has not been completed yet. I have provided the "First Advantage" with all requisite documents of all earlier companies except the relieving/ experience letter from my current employer (which I may receive on my last day with my current employer).

The Singapore employer now wants me to resign and decide on early joining date in December 2017 in Singapore. I have a notice period of 3 months at my current employer and my current employer is not ready to give me an option to buy out the notice period and indicated that they will mark my exit as "non-clean" and will also not provide the Experience/ Relieving Letter, if I don't serve the complete notice period.

I have all the Employment proofs like joining letter, pay slips etc. from my current employer and I actually dont care of receiving the Experience/ Relieving Letter and ready to leave my current employer earlier against their wishes. Also, my prospective employer in Singapore has not specifically asked me for the Experience/ Relieving Letter from current employer as of now. However, I am not sure that whether will I ever need in future the Experience/ Relieving Letter of my current employer with my prospective Employer in Singapore (at the time of landing/ while on first day/ in future pending background process etc).

I dont want to explain this situation to my prospective employer in Singapore. Can anyone please provide a view that will I ever face issue with my prospective employer in Singapore due to missing the Experience/ Relieving Letter ( or due to non-clean exit due to not completing the notice period)?

[saynotocat]

Please advise

[luckycricket]

Experts,

I have been offered by a giant MNC in Singapore and my Employment Pass application In-principle approval has arrived yesterday. I am in India at present and will be moving to Singapore for the first time. The Background Screening process is still under process with the company- "First Advantage" and has not been completed yet. I have provided the "First Advantage" with all requisite documents of all earlier companies except the relieving/ experience letter from my current employer (which I may receive on my last day with my current employer).

The Singapore employer now wants me to resign and decide on early joining date in December 2017 in Singapore. I have a notice period of 3 months at my current employer and my current employer is not ready to give me an option to buy out the notice period and indicated that they will mark my exit as "non-clean" and will also not provide the Experience/ Relieving Letter, if I don't serve the complete notice period.

I have all the Employment proofs like joining letter, pay slips etc. from my current employer and I actually dont care of receiving the Experience/ Relieving Letter and ready to leave my current employer earlier against their wishes. Also, my prospective employer in Singapore has not specifically asked me for the Experience/ Relieving Letter from current employer as of now. However, I am not sure that whether will I ever need in future the Experience/ Relieving Letter of my current employer with my prospective Employer in Singapore (at the time of landing/ while on first day/ in future pending background process etc).

I dont want to explain this situation to my prospective employer in Singapore. Can anyone please provide a view that will I ever face issue with my prospective employer in Singapore due to missing the Experience/ Relieving Letter ( or due to non-clean exit due to not completing the notice period)?

This is funny... from day one (after joining your current employer) you knew that you need to give 3 months notice and still you did not bother to inform your future employer about it and now seeking advice. You may not required the relieving letter to join your new employer but it may affect your future background checks. The best thing that you can do now is .. talk to your new employer and ask them to postpone your joining date and at the same time talk to your existing employer and try to negotiate for a early relieving date. You may leave your existing employer without proper settlement if you have no plan to change employer in future and don't care about future background checks.

Few years back, I was in similar situation (my notice period was 2 months) but I had informed my new employer about the notice period and told them that there is a possibility of early joining and I will try for it. I negotiated with my employer and after few rounds of meetings, they agreed to relieve me after a month.

[saynotocat]

I have informed my new employer that notice period is 3 months but I also informed that I will try to negotiate down to 1.5 months. That was a bad assumption on my part. Now the current employer is not agreeing to anything less than 3 months with no buy out option

Yes, I understand it may create issues with future background check (done know how much?) . Tough situation I am in due to my wrong assumptions.

[ecureilx]

I dont want to explain this situation to my prospective employer in Singapore. Can anyone please provide a view that will I ever face issue with my prospective employer in Singapore due to missing the Experience/ Relieving Letter ( or due to non-clean exit due to not completing the notice period)?

good employers don't care about experience letters

Though if you one day decide to migrate elsewhere, those country immigration may demand ..

[saynotocat]

I dont want to explain this situation to my prospective employer in Singapore. Can anyone please provide a view that will I ever face issue with my prospective employer in Singapore due to missing the Experience/ Relieving Letter ( or due to non-clean exit due to not completing the notice period)?

good employers don't care about experience letters

Though if you one day decide to migrate elsewhere, those country immigration may demand ..

Thats a great inputs. Thanks.
I am not concerned about future immigration since I am not planing any. However, background verification may fail with my next to next employer in the absence of experience letter (although I have all other docs like joining letter & each months salary slips) ??????

[Strong Eagle]

This "experience letter" has got to be an Indian artifact... there is certainly no such thing in the USA.

What good is it? You could make it up yourself. It's as useful as a fake college certificate.

Any hiring company worth its salt will contact the old company's HR to verify what you said.

[BBCDoc]

I’ve never ever had to deal with any experience letter. However, now that I know about it perhaps I should demand from future candidates..muahahaha


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[sundaymorningstaple]

I was thinking along the same lines. Especially since we have been hiring more Indian S pass holders and less from Myanmar in the past 2 years. I wonder if the experience letters are as flowery and inflated in the duties as the normal CV from there?

[saynotocat]

This "experience letter" has got to be an Indian artifact... there is certainly no such thing in the USA.

What good is it? You could make it up yourself. It's as useful as a fake college certificate.

Any hiring company worth its salt will contact the old company's HR to verify what you said.

Thats surprising.....its a kind of norm...irrespective of the country.....I understand that anyone can fake it but in the absence of any such letter the hiring company will have only way of check the background is by calling HR (which may not respond/ welcome calls in specific scenarios or non-existent since earlier employer has closed its operations now)

Every MNC/ company who follow some kind of standards, provides experience/ relieving letter.

Experience letter only says (on company letterhead with a seal/ stamp):
TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN
Employee name AA has worked in organization BB from CC to DD as EE and resigned due to personal reasons. signed by FF

[saynotocat]

I was thinking along the same lines. Especially since we have been hiring more Indian S pass holders and less from Myanmar in the past 2 years. I wonder if the experience letters are as flowery and inflated in the duties as the normal CV from there?

ignorance is bliss

[Strong Eagle]

This "experience letter" has got to be an Indian artifact... there is certainly no such thing in the USA.

What good is it? You could make it up yourself. It's as useful as a fake college certificate.

Any hiring company worth its salt will contact the old company's HR to verify what you said.

Thats surprising.....its a kind of norm...irrespective of the country.....I understand that anyone can fake it but in the absence of any such letter the hiring company will have only way of check the background is by calling HR (which may not respond/ welcome calls in specific scenarios or non-existent since earlier employer has closed its operations now)

Every MNC/ company who follow some kind of standards, provides experience/ relieving letter.

Experience letter only says (on company letterhead with a seal/ stamp):
TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN
Employee name AA has worked in organization BB from CC to DD as EE and resigned due to personal reasons. signed by FF

It's NOT a norm at all... until you posted about your "experience letter", I'd never heard of it. And, I have hired many people in Singapore, in KL, and in the United States.

Again, it is a worthless document. It can be faked. The only way to verify a candidate is to call the previous employer. Almost all employers will at least supply the dates of employment and position held. Others may include salary and reason for termination... but most do not, especially MNC's and companies in the USA.

[saynotocat]

This "experience letter" has got to be an Indian artifact... there is certainly no such thing in the USA.

What good is it? You could make it up yourself. It's as useful as a fake college certificate.

Any hiring company worth its salt will contact the old company's HR to verify what you said.

Thats surprising.....its a kind of norm...irrespective of the country.....I understand that anyone can fake it but in the absence of any such letter the hiring company will have only way of check the background is by calling HR (which may not respond/ welcome calls in specific scenarios or non-existent since earlier employer has closed its operations now)

Every MNC/ company who follow some kind of standards, provides experience/ relieving letter.

Experience letter only says (on company letterhead with a seal/ stamp):
TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN
Employee name AA has worked in organization BB from CC to DD as EE and resigned due to personal reasons. signed by FF

It's NOT a norm at all... until you posted about your "experience letter", I'd never heard of it. And, I have hired many people in Singapore, in KL, and in the United States.

Again, it is a worthless document. It can be faked. The only way to verify a candidate is to call the previous employer. Almost all employers will at least supply the dates of employment and position held. Others may include salary and reason for termination... but most do not, especially MNC's and companies in the USA.

May be we have worked in different domains/different part of worlds. All the companies I worked for, have atleast provided me-

• Joining Letter (Hard Copy)
  Experience/ Relieving Letter (Hard Copy)
  Promotion/ Designation change letters (Hard Copy)
  Salary Slips (Hard or Soft Copy)

Also, all the companies, while joining, asked me for:

• Experience/ Relieving Letter of earlier company or
  Joining Letter and Last few months salary slips

The reason of existence of such letters is: Not all the (small) companies (or start-ups) have dedicated/ specialized departments to carryout background check which calls to every earlier company. Also, not all companies are bound/ care to reply to each such call verification call (Imagine an instance of Infosys company in India with a strength of 1,00,000 employees. In last 10 years, over 5,00,000 employees might have worked there who are applying to 20,00,000 jobs each year. So Infosys may end up providing details to 20,00,000 calls each year )

[BBCDoc]

Not all job functions require experience letters. I’ve worked for 2 large MNCs and they do not provide such for departure. In my current one, they would not either.

For candidates, we would rely on reference follow up, since as alluded to before, letters can be faked. If the reference sounds fishy, the candidate will be out.


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[sundaymorningstaple]

saynotocat,

I'll just bet you are from a 'reputed' university in India as well, correct?

The rest of the world, outside of the sub-domain/sub-continent, usually refers to that letter as only a Testimonial letter and it is ALWAYS taken with a grain of salt (or more likely a teaspoon of salt). It is generally disregarded if provided (most don't and none of my Indian S pass holders (degrees, all) have ever bothered to submit nor do we bother to ask, as has been already been noted, it is virtually worthless. Salary vouchers and reference checks work better (if warranted). So, in your own words, Ignorance is bliss if you think it's going to make a difference in your application.