# Employer letters for FSW application



## little.miss (Nov 15, 2013)

Hi I was just looking for some advice on employer letters. I've contacted my previous employers, going back to 10 years ago. I know there is very specific information required on these letters, including job descriptions, etc. However some of my employers have returned my letters but have not put all this information on the letter, and one particular employer do not write personal references and cannot include job descriptions, salary etc on it (apparently it's their HR policy). So would these not be valid and I would lose points on this, and is there any solution to this?
Thanks in advance.


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## Auld Yin (Mar 10, 2009)

CIC recognizes that all employers are not co-operative. If the letters together contain the information sought then you will be fine.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

Maybe you can write a letter yourself, based on the information they gave you (what they had at hand probably) and completed with what you know yourself, and ask them to put it on letterhead?

When a company is not very willingly to help you with mentioning the salary, maybe you can dig into your own administration and retrieve old statements regarding your wage/old contract?


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## little.miss (Nov 15, 2013)

Thanks Auld Yin and EVHB for your advice. I do have various letters but not all with the necessary information, well most of the longer chunks of employment are the ones that I don't have all the info on. 

One of my older employers who I spent more time with have come back and said that their HR have destroyed old records and he no longer has dates when I worked there, and unfortunately I've not kept old P45's or wage slips or contracts. However I do have an old one which he wrote about a hear and a half/2 years ago but again quite brief but it does have dates - would this still be valid if it's not within the past few months?

One of the agencies I've worked for 10 years ago don't have my record anymore.

But if I got as many of these letters from the past 10 years but they don't contain all the information, would they discount some of them? I'm concerned as I think I might not gain enough points if I lose points in work experience. 

As I've got some letter back already, most of the ones I think I would be able to get, I don't think I'd be able to ask them again to write one if I produce a template for them - I guess I should've tried this approach at the start.

My other thought is maybe to add in my CV - would this work to fill in some information? Or if I added a job description myself for ones which don't have one?


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

You can write whatever you want on your CV, that doesn't count. You will need an official paper (statement from employer, pay stubs, ...).


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## Wexford_Ireland (Mar 6, 2012)

i had a similar issue earlier this year.

They are looking for proof and will accept a contract and matching payslips showing you worked for the period covered etc.

Basically anything that supports your assertion that you worked at that company, doing xy and z and paid 1234.00

Also I found ringing the HR dept and explaining that the letter was just for emigration purposes helped a lot. One company deliberately addresses the letter to CiC and noted on the reference that it was for the Canadian immigration dept only and not to be used as a work reference for the purposes of employment.

John


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## little.miss (Nov 15, 2013)

Thanks for the advice on this. With one of the companies that only gave very basic information, I phoned HR, and explained, but they told me that it was their policy and they weren't very helpful unfortunately. I'm wondering if HMRC would hold records of all my past employments and time periods, pay etc that they might be able to reproduce? 

Job descriptions I'm a bit stuck with, since I've not kept my old contracts. Any suggestions how I can go about trying to fill in this gap of information?


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