In this article:
- Why Lenders Want to Know Your Job Title
- Does Your Job Title Affect Your Approval Odds?
Lenders may ask for an applicant's job title to verify employment and confirm a stated salary. It's also used to verify identity and, in some cases, is used as a factor to predict default risk. If a lender asks for your job title, it likely won't sway their decision as much as your credit history and credit score.
Why Lenders Want to Know Your Job Title
There are several reasons that lenders may ask you to provide your job title and employer. Here are the primary reasons lenders ask for those details:
- Confirming your identity: Lenders use your job title as a piece of personal identification information. While it isn't required, many lenders also report identifying information to the credit bureaus, which list the information on your credit report. Employer information and employment status have no impact on your credit score.
- Verifying employment and salary: In some cases, such as in the mortgage approval process, the lender will contact your employer to confirm the employment history and income information you provided. This helps the lender ensure that you meet their borrower qualification requirements.
- Predicting default risk: Some lenders may consider job titles as a risk factor when calculating how likely a borrower is to repay their loan. However, this practice isn't universal and has a much lower impact on your approval odds than key creditworthiness factors, such as your credit score.
Does Your Job Title Affect Your Approval Odds?
Some lenders may use data on default risk and occupation as one factor when they consider you as a borrower. However, your creditworthiness, income and length of employment will play a much more significant role.
The following factors are more important than job title when it comes to affecting your approval odds:
- Credit score: A key factor for qualifying for any form of borrowing is your credit score. Your credit score not only determines what loans you're likely to qualify for, but it plays a large part in how much you can borrow and what lenders will charge you in interest.
- Payment history: Lenders look at your payment history for insight into your ability to manage debt payments. If you have a history of consistently making on-time payments, it reflects positively on you as a borrower. On the other hand, a history of late payments is a red flag to lenders.
- Debt-to-income ratio (DTI): To gauge your capacity to repay a loan, lenders look at your gross income and your monthly debt obligations. They use a metric called your debt-to-income ratio to compare the amount you owe on your debts each month to how much you earn. This gives lenders a snapshot of whether taking on more debt will likely make you financially overextended, which predicts how easily you'll handle making payments.
- Loan specifics: The specifics of the loan you're applying for play a large part in eligibility requirements. For instance, a secured loan that requires collateral may be easier to qualify for than an unsecured loan. A smaller loan can be easier to qualify for than a large loan.
The Bottom Line
Lenders may look at your job title when you apply for a loan, but it isn't likely to have a big impact on the credit products you're able to qualify for. As a prospective borrower, the best way to improve your approval odds is to focus on improving your credit.
When you monitor your credit through Experian, you'll get updates on how your credit behaviors translate to activity on your report. You'll also see insights into what's impacting your credit score and how you might be able to improve your score moving forward.
