how can i find my employment history

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An employer or licensing agency may request your employment history as part of your application for employment or licensing. Yous likewise may be expected to provide your employment history when applying for benefits such as Social Security. If you've worked for a number of employers over the years, information technology may be difficult to recollect everywhere you've worked and the exact dates when you worked there – especially if you've worked in short-term, temporary or seasonal positions. If you lot're drawing a blank on certain years in your employment history, yous can use several methods to fill in the gaps in your retention.

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Get a form to request earnings information. Since your Social Security benefits are based in part on contributions you brand through the withholding of a percentage of your earnings from each paycheck, the Social Security Administration maintains a record of your work history.
- You can download the grade online at http://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-7050.pdf. Once y'all've downloaded the form, you tin fill it out on the computer and print it out, or you tin can print out a blank form and fill up it out by hand.
- If you adopt, you likewise tin can ask for a paper grade in person at your nearest Social Security role.
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Fill out the form. The form has blanks for identifying data such as your get-go and terminal name, Social Security number, and date of birth. Mark on the form that you are requesting an itemized statement of earnings and provide the range of years y'all desire.^[1]
- The itemized statement of earnings includes the names and addresses for all employers you lot had during the years you specify.^[ii]
- If you make full out the form by mitt, yous should only use a pen with blue or black ink.
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Mail the form to the SSA forth with the fee. When you've completed the form, send it to the Segmentation of Earnings Record Operations at the address shown on the form, along with payment of $136 for a non-certified statement of earnings, or $192 for a certified statement of earnings.^[three]
- If you simply demand the report for your own records, there's no need to get a certified statement. Typically you would only need a certified argument if you lot were specifically asked for i.^[4]
- You can pay the fee using credit card, check, or money order. If you cull to use a credit card, you should enter your credit carte information in the credit carte du jour section on the last page of the request form.^[5]
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Wait to receive your report. The SSA may accept up to 120 days to procedure your request. If 120 days have passed since you sent your asking and you still haven't received your report, you can telephone call the SSA at i-800-772-1213 and asking a status update.^{[half dozen]}

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Check your ain records. Since yous filed a W-2 for each employer when you filed your taxes, the name and address of those employers will exist included on the Westward-2s you submitted with your taxation return each year, along with dates of employment.
- If you lot've kept copies of your taxation returns, y'all can pull them up to find names and address of employers and make full in gaps in your employment history.
- If you use online tax preparation services, y'all can oft review former tax returns past logging onto your account. Typically you'd only be able to view returns you prepared using that service, but if you can remember which services you used for which years, y'all may exist able to get copies of all the tax returns you need gratuitous of charge.^[7]
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Go IRS Form 4506. If y'all demand names and addresses of employers to make full out your employment history, y'all tin can find them on your tax returns, which you lot demand Form 4506 to request. The IRS makes the form bachelor for download online at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506.pdf.
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Fill out the form. You tin can download Course 4506, fill it out on your computer, and impress information technology off, or you lot can print it and fill up information technology out past hand.^[8]
- If you fill it out by paw, make sure yous only write in pen using bluish or black ink.
- To consummate the course, you lot will have to enter your name equally it appeared on your tax return, along with your Social Security number. If you lot filed jointly, you besides must include the proper name and Social Security number of your articulation filer.^[9]
- You will need to enter your current address, plus the address on your previous return if it was dissimilar.
- Enter the twelvemonth or range of years for which you want copies of your tax returns.^[x]
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Summate your processing fee. The IRS charges you $l for each return y'all request, and so add together up the number of years you lot've requested returns and multiply that number by 50.^[11]
- You may pay the fee using either a bank check or coin social club made payable to the United States Treasury.^[12]
- For instance, if y'all've requested five years of taxation returns, you must pay the IRS $250 to go those copies.
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Mail the course to the IRS forth with your fees. Find the state where you lived in the years when you filed the returns you're requesting on the chart included with the class and send the form to that address.
- If you lived in 2 different states that show 2 different addresses, send your course to the address based on the state where you lived when you filed the most recent return.^[13]
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Look to receive your returns. The IRS may take upward to 75 days to process your request.^[14]

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1
Sympathise the limitations of credit report information. Credit reporting agencies aren't in the business of keeping records of your employment history, and they only have data if it was reported to them past a credit carte visitor.
- The information on your report may be spotty or outdated, only it might assist jog your memory.
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Visit annualcreditreport.com. You are entitled to receive one gratuitous credit report a year, and this website is the simply free credit report service authorized by the Federal Trade Commission.^[15] Using another website could stop upwards being a scam or costing you a lot of coin in subscription fees.
- Although the information on your credit report may not be every bit thorough as the information you could become from Social Security or from the IRS, it has the benefit of being complimentary.
- If you're looking for a job or contemplating a change in careers, it'south probably a good thought to review your credit report anyway, as potential employers may pull it up when they are evaluating you for a chore.^[16]
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Contact each of the 3 major credit reporting agencies. Bank check the data bachelor on each report, and correct inaccuracies if yous encounter any.
- If your report contains whatever employment information that bothers you, unremarkably a simple request to the reporting agency is all it takes to have information technology removed.^[17]
- The employment data on each report may be different. For case, your Experian report will list your terminal known employer and occupation, but not any dates of employment. TransUnion, on the other mitt, includes your current employer and occupation plus your previous employer. For both, your written report includes the appointment your employment was final verified, the date you were hired, or the appointment your employment was reported.^[eighteen]
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1
Search online for old resumes or biographical data. Information technology'southward often said that in one case you put something on the internet, information technology's incommunicable to remove it completely. You lot may be able to use this to your reward.
- Use a search engine to look for your full name and whatever other versions of your proper noun that y'all've used in the past. You tin can narrow this search past including other data such as the name of the city or land where you lived at the time.
- Look not only for actual documents that would display your work history, only as well for words or accounts that might jog your retentiveness. For example, if you lot notice an one-time social media account, you may read a mail service you fabricated talking about a coworker that helps you lot remember where yous were working at the time.
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Look through your old emails. If y'all maintain an annal of old emails, or if you take an erstwhile email accost that y'all can still access, search for work-related keywords to notice mention of previous employers.
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Check old contact lists for sometime managers or coworkers. If your computer or your phone archives your contacts, scroll through the list and see if information technology includes people from old jobs.
- Yous may have added the phone number of your workplace, or of a managing director or coworker, then failed to delete it when you moved on to some other employer.
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Talk to your friends and family members. Although you may non retrieve that summer job you had when you were xvi years old, for example, your mother might. Friends and family can also assist remind you of other details that might trigger a recollection.

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Article Summary X

If y'all demand to provide your employment history, but tin't retrieve everywhere y'all've worked, try searching online for your old resumes or biographical information. Use a search engine to look for your total name and narrow the search by including other data similar cities and states you've lived in before. In addition to public sites, wait through your one-time emails for clues or letters from former employers. Search for work-related keywords to try and discover any mention of previous places you lot've worked at. If you accept no luck on the computer, reach out to friends and family. While you might not remember where you lot worked when you lot were 16, at that place's a skillful chance that your mother does! For more tips from our co-author, like how to request employment information from the IRS, read on.

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