An Introduction To Experience Letter & Its Format
An employer issues an Experience Letter or Experience Certificate to the current or ex-employee. This letter is required y employee while applying for a new job or to maintain it as a reference for any further job or work the employee will undertake. We will see a standard format of this letter, but it mainly contains employee’s tenure in the organization and role/designation.
It may contain the employee’s individual strengths also. It is a part of closing formalities as a part of best practices. Unless the Experience Certificate is on Company’s letter head, there is no value to the letter. Any other organisation won’t accept the experience letter otherwise. In many organisations, someone from HR (like HR manager/HR Head) will issue this letter. In most cases, there are no financial/salary details mentioned in the experience letter.
What all things an Experience Letter can contain?
- Date of issuing the letter
- Letter is not for a particular person, but it is only mentioned as ‘To Whom It May Concern’ to make it more generic
- Employee Name and Role/Designation/Title
- Date of Joining and Date of Leaving the job
- Work Details can contain basic functionality of that role
- Anything special to be mentioned about the Employee
- Wishes for future
- Signature/Seal of Company
Experience Letter Format:
Date of Issue:
To Whomsoever It May Concern
Subject: Certificate of Experience
This is to certify that <Employee Name> is/was working with us as a <Designation> from <joining date> to <last working day>
<Employee Name> is/was a very sincere, hardworking and dedicated employee and has shown these strengths on various occasions in last <years and months> with our Company.
<Employee Name’s> job responsibilities included
<Bullet points of job responsibilities>
<Employee Name> is/was a very professional employee and will be an asset to any company where he/she joins.
We wish him/her success in all future endeavours
Signature
Name of the person signing the letter
Title of the person
Company Seal
How to obtain an Experience Letter?
Most companies will create a one-time template, get it approved from legal and management team and use the same for every employee. You can get the letter as a part of your departure documents without any formal application for it. For ex-employees, they have to apply for getting such letter, and it will be issued only on request.
Sometimes, the employees ask for specific details of their work responsibilities to as a part of their experience letter. The inclusion of such specific details vary from company to company, and most corporates do not change their templates for every employee. For small to medium level companies, they can accommodate such requests based on their policies. Never try to get a fake experience letter, which can ruin your career for entire life.
Summary:
Experience letter is an important document in your professional life. For any job change, if you have experience letters; you can show the continuity and responsibilities managed. The experience letter has more weightage than your profile/CV and serves as good reference documents. As the authority name and signature is there, anyone can confirm with these people for the authenticity of such letter and can help you getting your next job.