How Do Apartments Do Employment Verification?

If you’re searching, “How do apartments do employment verification?” this post will answer how a professional landlord or property manager verifies a tenant applicant’s employment.

Some landlords prefer to make these verification calls themselves and others will hire out to include these calls in their tenant screening report.

In the video below, we share with you exactly how to do apartment employment verifications.

How Do Apartments Do Employment Verification?

Our CEO Steve White took time to show you, in this mock phone call, on how to do employment verifications.

This video is part of a larger guide that includes instructions on how to call a tenant applicant’s landlord. 

Below are the bullet points of the questions Steve asked in the video above:

• Hello, can I speak with Regan Smith’s supervisor?
• Can I have your name please (asked to HR manager after being transferred)
• Is this Regan’s current employer?
• Is Regan full-time or part-time? (you’ll want to verify this matches with detail on application)
• What is Regan’s hire date?
• What’s his position there?
• What is his hourly or annual salary? (It’s a good idea to make the question available in both hourly or salary terms)
• How do you prefer I send you the signed rental application? (If they ask for a release form, most times
• Do I need to mark this attention to anyone in particular?
• Do you require any other type of form?
• How long until you will be able to get that back to me?
• I emailed you a release yesterday and hoping we could complete the verification over the phone now?
• What is Regan’s salary?

Be sure to watch the video above to see the flow of the call.

Employment Verification Release Form

Here at RentPrep, our free rental application form includes language on the back that authorizes the landlord to perform a background check.

This includes calling the current employer and previous landlord.

Here’s a snapshot of this language on the 2nd page of our rental application.

Be 100% sure you have this written consent before doing apartment employment verification calls.

What is The Work Number?

The Work Number is a user-paid verification where certain employers will require a landlord (or screening service) to go through The Work Number for employment verification.

This service is frustrating for a few reasons. The main reason is that it requires a fee to access and it doesn’t guarantee what information you’ll receive back.

You may end up spending $10 – $20 only to find out the employment status and nothing else. No salary, hire dates, or if they’re full/part time.

Typically we find that larger companies use this service.

Here’s a few we’ve come across:

• Kraft Foods
• USPS
• Domino’s Pizza
• United Airlines
• Walmart (not every Walmart, it seems to depend on location)
• Hospitals
• Hotels including Hilton

It’s a roll of the dice to see how much information you get back from The Work Number. You may want to ask for 90 days of bank statements or recent pay stubs from an applicant for income verification purposes (or use our income verification service).