Bar app employer section question Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have had a lot of jobs in the last ten years, and a couple of them were very short term, and I have absolutely zero clue what the name of some of my managers were, or even the address of some of the places I worked (as they were private residences I worked at years ago). Does anyone have experience with what the best way to deal with this? I'm guessing that sending in a blank "supervisor name" section wouldn't be ideal.

[acr]

I have had a lot of jobs in the last ten years, and a couple of them were very short term, and I have absolutely zero clue what the name of some of my managers were, or even the address of some of the places I worked (as they were private residences I worked at years ago). Does anyone have experience with what the best way to deal with this? I'm guessing that sending in a blank "supervisor name" section wouldn't be ideal.

The employment history section on bar apps is ridiculous.

I worked at a local grocery store when I was 15 years old (in high school) that went out of business. I contacted an old coworker from the job who I hadn't spoken with in 7 years via Facebook messenger and asked whether he would be willing to verify that we worked there together, in case he was asked. He was surprised that the employment verification went back so far, but was happy to help.

The legal profession, in general, is outrageous tho, and having to put ten years of employment history is a prime example, especially when it forces you to dig up the address of old employers from ancient times. It just changes at a glacial pace.

[nixy]

OP, I think the thing to do is make reasonable efforts to find out the info they want, and then just document those efforts. I’ll admit that the bar is exceedingly unlikely to be able to find out that, say, you worked as a babysitter for a local family over their kids’ spring break (or mowed their lawns or whatever) when you were 19 or something. That said, you should probably write something like “around April 2013 I answered an advertisement in a local newspaper and worked as a babysitter for a local family for approximately 5 days. However, I no longer have the name of the family who employed me and have been unable to verify their identity and I was paid in cash, so cannot consult pay stubs for the relevant information.” Or something along those lines. I’m sure that the bar gets responses like that all the time, and it’s better just to err on the side of disclosing what you don’t know. If you can verify anything, then do, but sometimes it’s just not possible.

(How stupid this is varies a little. My state at least didn’t ask for anything before age 18!)

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Thank you guys, this is helpful! I'm just starting to feel like bar apps are a minefield that I will be shocked to get through without any issues, especially with as many places I've lived and jobs I've had. My ethics professor refers to this as a mostly being a "hazing ritual," and I'm beginning to think he is not wrong.

[QContinuum]

OP here. Thank you guys, this is helpful! I'm just starting to feel like bar apps are a minefield that I will be shocked to get through without any issues, especially with as many places I've lived and jobs I've had. My ethics professor refers to this as a mostly being a "hazing ritual," and I'm beginning to think he is not wrong.

Your ethics prof isn't wrong, in my view. It's just a whole ton of bureaucracy, most of which adds zero value to anyone - not the applicant, not the legal profession, and not the public. I get why it makes sense to cast a broad net and ask for disclosure of anything potentially even remotely relevant, and employment history is certainly - at least potentially - remotely relevant... but it's one thing to ask for disclosure, and a whole different ballgame to have a blanket policy of requiring references for every. single. long-ago. job. no matter how brief or informal. Like, how difficult would it be, for example, to have a C&F reviewer go down the list of jobs and determine which jobs require references? Any common-sensical reviewer would go, "oh, babysitting for the neighbors? no reference required. paralegaling at Skadden for 2 years? yea, let's get a reference for that."

Anyway, it's a pain, and a time-wasting exercise, and stressful to boot, but you'll get through it before you know it!

[rcharter1978]

It can be a pain. One of the jobs I disclosed was working at a hotel that was part of a large chain.

Apparently, the specific hotel I worked at was a franchise....owned by a trust and managed by a property management group. The hotel had been sold twice while it was a franchisee of one company and the initial property management group had gone out of business. The hotel was then purchased by a different hotel chain.

No one, and I mean no one, could find records of my employment. I called everywhere and those records were nowhere to be found.