Proof of previous employment

For paid employees the salary payment level can only be set when all proof from earlier employers have been collected to determine the length of the scientific career. Therefore, employment certificates of your former employers are requested at the start of your employment. The certificates must be translated and hold an end date of the previous employment.

A document must be provided for each employment you had in the past (per employer). These documents will be used to connect your seniority to your salary and will allow you to receive pension in Belgium, taken into account other employments. The attestations can be submitted until 3 months after the start of the employment, or later in consultation with your HR contact person.

Following information needs to be mentioned on the documents:

  • Personal information: first name and last name of the employee
  • Work information:
    • Name and address of the organization
    • Description of the profession or title of the function
    • Period of the employment with the exact start and end date;
    • Paid or unpaid activities
    • The employment percentage

As also the end date of the employment must be mentioned, a contract is not accepted as if often doesn’t mention an end date or it is not certain your worked until the end date of the contract. With an actual attestation of employment from your previous employer these important things, such as end date or employment percentage can be verified.

If you were self-independent for a certain period, this can be proven by a registration for a national VAT number or detailed description of the activities.

For PhD scholarships only a limited previous experience can be taken in to account. Researchers who come with own funding are also not considered to become an employee and therefore do not have to provide these documents.

Consequences of providing the attestations

As long as there is no approval on the seniority, the payment of the salary will be made starting at scale 0.

Once the attestations are provided, the seniority calculation will be made and be taken to the supervisor or Faculty for approval. After approval of the seniority, your seniority will be paid retroactively as from the starting date.

Upon recruitment, the pecuniary seniority is determined for each staff member, taking into account the relevant and demonstrable experience and the professional career up to then, at the motivated recommendation of the budget holder. This implies that the staff member is assigned a salary step upon recruitment. In the same manner as for other statuses and staff categories, the Department of Personnel and Organization will ensure that the relevant and demonstrable experience in function of the professional career up to then is assigned in a correct and uniform manner.

More detailed: seniority to be taken into account for seniority calculation must full fill the following conditions:

  • The duration of the appointment is calculated per calendar month: incomplete months are not included.
  • The total salary scale seniority can never exceed the nominal duration of the eligible periods.
  • Pecuniary seniority is expressed in years and full calendar months, which always start on the first of a month.
  • If the start date is not the first of a month, the seniority is calculated from the first of the month following the recruitment date. (If the previous employment starts at, f.e. the 10th of a certain month or ends f.e. at the 20th of a certain month; these months are not counted for seniority.)

Professorial staff member (ZAP)

To find out how important the employment attestations are, you can check following information the salary regulations for academic staff (after log in).

Academic assistant staff (AAP)

To find out how important the employment attestations are, you can check following information the salary regulations for academic staff (after log in).

Scientific staff (WP)

To find out how important the employment attestations are, you can check following information the salary regulations Research staff (WP) (after log in)

Administrative and technical staff (ATP)

To find out how important the employment attestations are, you can check following information the salary regulations for ATP (after log in)