Your employment status

Lose your job and you probably feel like the bad news is tattooed on your forehead. One place no one will see it: your credit report.

Even if you tell individual lenders, such as your mortgage holder, that information won't make it onto your credit report.

Employment information, though, could be there and will vary slightly depending on which of the three credit bureau reports a lender pulls.

Names of your employer or past employers could be on the report if you applied for credit and listed them on applications, says Rod Griffin, director of public education for Experian, one of the three major credit reporting agencies. But an Experian report won't list your job title or dates of employment, he says.

Your Equifax report will list your last known employer and occupation, but not your dates of employment or whether you're still employed, says Jennifer Costello, director of public relations with the credit bureau.

Your TransUnion report will list, "if available," your current employer and occupation, plus the date employment was verified, the hiring date and/or the date the information was reported, says Clifton O'Neal, spokesman for the bureau. It also lists the same information for the previous employer, he says.