Updating the employers listed on your credit report

Dear IMW,

New employers are added to your credit history if they are reported by one of your creditors. That typically occurs only when you apply for new credit. The listing of employers is not intended to be an employment history. Rather, it is an additional identification tool that may help lenders ensure you are the person applying for credit and may help you identify fraudulent activity.

The employer you list on your credit application sometimes is provided to Experian along with the other application information when you open a new credit account. At that time, Experian adds the new employer listing.

However, it is not uncommon for a person to change jobs one or more times during the life of a loan. For example, a car loan can be repaid over five or more years. But, a person doesn’t notify their lender each time they change jobs while repaying that loan. Because the lender doesn’t update its records each time you change jobs, that information isn’t updated in your credit history.

By the time you apply for another loan or credit card, you may have changed jobs more than one time. If so, it is possible that one or more of your employers may not be listed. Lenders understand this fact and so do not consider a missing employer to be a problem. Also, employer listings, like other identifying information, have no impact on credit scores.

Instead, lenders may manually compare the employers you list on your application with those listed in your credit report. If all or most of them match, there is a greater likelihood that you are who you claim to be. So, it acts as an identification tool.

Similarly, if you get your own credit report and see an employer for whom you have never worked, it could be an indicator of fraud, which can be a valuable alert for you to take further action.

Thanks for asking.