Job Discussion Forums

roywebcafe · Joined: 13 Jan 2006 Posts: 259

Employers often demand to see original certificates before you can start work with them.
If you are moving around with everything in the palm of your hand i.e digital as someone suggested on another post what do you do about it? Has anyone called home to get their original degree/CELTA etc posted? I worry that these can get lost in the post. I lost a job in Vietnam due to this.

One employer in the middle east demanded i post my originals including my passport through the post. I refused and never heard from them again.

My main question is does this happen often? Has anyone lost their certificates + passport?

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

It happens that an Embassy or Consulate may need your actual passport to add visas, but original copies of CELTA or equivalent certs seem unnecessary to me.

In the case of a passport, I can see the occasional necessity.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

I spent all of my years teaching in the Middle East, and every employer wanted certified copies of my degrees... and then wanted to see the originals once I arrived. So, I carried them all with me because I knew it to be standard. I would never ever ever ever let them have the originals... I was in the room as they checked them against the copies. I had had to go back and get new originals because one I got in the 70's was painted on glass... and not convenient to carry around. Once I was in country and doing the work visa paperwork, they normally had my passport for a while but I would never have mailed it to them before I was officially in the country.

Get your originals... I wouldn't use the post office, but whatever international shipping company works best wherever you are... UPS or DHL or whoever. Their items are tracked...

VS

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

He-he. The Canadian embassy requires people to mail them actual passports from wherever for visas. It's not just for shady third world countries!

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

The idea of providing any embassy with my passport (which I've done many times in the past to get tourist visas) doesn't bother me. But to send any original document - be it passport or original certificates - to a possible employer before you are in country? Never!!

VS