Meaning & use
prior employer
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A person or company that someone worked for before their current or most recent job.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a prior employer' or 'my prior employers'.
Patterns
- someone's prior employer
- a prior employer
- from a prior employer
She listed her prior employer as a reference on the application form.
He learned those skills at a prior employer before joining our team.
The company contacted my prior employer to check my work history.
Word forms
| plural | prior employers |
|---|
Common combinations
- someone's prior employer
- My prior employer gave me a strong recommendation.
- a reference from a prior employer
- They asked for a reference from a prior employer.
- leave a prior employer
- She left a prior employer to start her own business.
Synonyms and how they differ
- previous employer
- This is the everyday phrase and fits most situations; 'prior employer' sounds more formal and is common in written English.
- former employer
- This emphasizes that the employment has ended and is often used in legal or official contexts.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: prior employer or previous employer?
prior employer vs previous employer
These are very close in meaning, but 'previous' is more common in speech and 'prior' is more formal and often used in writing.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'prior employer' correctly.
Choose one answer.
'Prior employer' is a noun phrase, so it can be the subject or object of a sentence. Sentence B uses it correctly as the subject with the verb 'was'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “prior employer”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.