P2P Lending / NFT Lending Forum

Anyone else notice that the "current employer" column has been removed from loan descriptions?  LC replaced it with "Job Title" so we're seeing things like "factory worker", "sales", and "registered nurse" instead.  In the past I had looked at the employer and surmised if the claimed income was reasonable.  People with sales jobs tend to have much more volatile cash flows.  If the employer was "Super Maxx Auto World" I would shy away from it.  I like this change because instead of just telling me who they work for it gives me a better idea of what they do.  Of course, this only applies to those actually being honest with this unverified information.

LC probably also wanted to anonymize borrower details a bit more.  It was relatively easy to google the employer with the city and state and find out exactly where they work and be able to call the business, especially if the borrower worked at a less-than-national company.

LC also added a loan counter in the top right corner of the browse notes page that displays the number of loans listed in the past week.  Perhaps they are hoping this will help counter some of the perception of limited loan availability.

I'm not seeing that. What page are you on?

I see listings both ways, with "Job Title," and with the old "Employer." Is this choice up to the Borrower?

from: yojoakak on September 25, 2013, 02:30:47 PM

Yup, the new ones say Job Title. BrowseNotes V7 also. Hate these silent updates. They really waste my time.

from: brycemason on September 25, 2013, 02:53:45 PM

Advance notice was not given, at least to P2P-Picks' one institutional client. And yes, it screwed our buying for 6am. Spent the next hour rebuilding the application to account for the change.

This loan that was just listed contains the old "Current Employer".

https://www.lendingclub.com/browse/loanDetail.action?loan_id=7372343&previous=browse

However, in the browseNotes Infor Global is listed under "emp_title".  Maybe there are some loans with the old borrower form that hadn't been fully processed and listed due to the borrower taking a long time with their application or some other delay.

from: core on September 25, 2013, 03:14:13 PM

from: yojoakak on September 25, 2013, 07:56:56 PM

Does anybody else see this change as negative? I for one lost a very useful piece of information about the stability of the borrower's income, because the same position in different companies or industries may imply very different risks. On the other hand, knowing the position, doesn't give me much more information than combined employer + income, since the position can be guessed from the two. In sum, this means less information about the borrower, higher uncertainty, and, in the end, lower returns. It may be easier for computers to sort through a shorter list of positions, but excluding the employer is not helping us humans. Not a good change IMHO. Thanks!

Definitely a negative. I use employer to make final yes/no decisions on whether to make a loan after making it through my filter.

I don't like it.  I infer peripheral information from the employer--like what a person's interests along that line could have to do with a responsible attitude or how he/she got into too much overspending.  Using only generic information attached to labels eliminates another element of the P2P factor, imho.  Since this is already a too-much-time-consuming "hobby" for me, I need more "fun" associated with the numbers.

I don't like this at all. Since I can only use FolioFN, I feel like I lost one of the most valuable pieces of information.
I used to be able to skip plenty of loans because I know that company x or y was laying off people or that a particular government position was no longer secure, while some others might be.
Job title provides nearly no useful information, especially in the current era of corporate speak.

I'm sure we can all look forward to 1000s of loans to 'associates', 'coordinators', 'managers' and 'consultants'..
In fact a 'consultant' is a perfect and very informative title for everyone from a hairdresser, to networking engineer, to someone unemployed looking for work...

Wow, WTF are they thinking.  . Employer is a huge piece of information while job title is virtually meaningless. If true I may stop investing on LC. Absolutely crazy how they treat their investors sometimes.

Quote"> from: LonghornSF on September 27, 2013, 12:24:01 AM

I think my favorite job title (sarcasm) would have to be analyst.  For those of you who have Prosper accounts, have you noticed how so many people seem to have that title??  I guess it's right up there with consultant, professional, other, administrative assistant, etc., all descriptions that tell you little or nothing about the job.  Which brings me to another point, Prosper has always (or at least for the two years I've been there) only listed occupation, not employer, on its loan listings.  So this is nothing new for some of us.   

Quote"> from: brycemason on September 25, 2013, 03:57:37 PM

from: Fred on September 27, 2013, 02:48:01 AM

Quote"> from: LonghornSF on September 27, 2013, 12:24:01 AM

from: Fred on September 27, 2013, 02:48:01 AM

Quote"> from: lender_john on September 26, 2013, 11:28:11 AM

from: Peter on September 27, 2013, 08:26:46 AM

from: brycemason on September 27, 2013, 08:55:10 AM

No employer info is definitely a negative for me.  (So much so that I registered for this forum just now as a consequence of googling the issue this a.m.)  Employer + years employed was my "sanity check" rejection criteria for loans filtered for me by nickelsteamroller.  In particular, I'd pass on loans where the employer was listed as N/A.

I'm starting to get a bit uneasy about the involuntary decline of my filtering process in general, as the investor-to-loan ratio has risen.  I used to ask questions, and wait to see if & how the borrowers would answer.  That went out the window in the past year.  With the semi-recent rush to invest in loans before they go 100%, I'm starting to feel like (modulo LC identity verification that I'm not privy to) I might as well be playing the slots with my money.

from: core on September 27, 2013, 01:05:51 AM

While I haven't looked into specific employers as a predictor term, I think employer N/A was significant. I'd bet that was in a lot of filters and models out there (big guys and little guys as well), but of course I'm only guessing. It will take a long time to know if its replacement has any value at all.

It is often confusing when comparing the information in the Browse notes file, LC web site and info on IR. Take loan ID 7339187 for example:
BrowseNotes.csv:
emp_title = Self
emp_status = Employed

LC Website
Current Employer = Self
---

Interest Radar Loan Info
Employer = N/A
Employment Status = Employed

I would like to avoid unemployed borrowers (previously filtering out Employer = N/A), but from the Browse file it appears that the borrower is employed!? However, the title"Self" makes me think otherwise. I wonder how IR determines Employer=N/A unless it is an error?

My opinion was formed while piddling about using NSR; nothing more. I'm not yet seriously into the note selection thing since I've been using P2P picks since day one. For me it is nice to have  a (hopefully) profitable hobby rather than an expensive one. My wife is into Miche (sic) purse covers and, like shoes, she can never have enough.  Go figure... (not a sexist comment; simply the absolute truth). LC is a nice hobby for me though,  so I must eventually build my own loan selection models to validate my ability to do so. We engineers are not without a certain degree of independence and self confidence, no matter how badly misplaced, Meanwhile there's a Doors concert special on TV and I think for now I'll just just kick back , enjoy and remember ...

I actually prefer this to knowing the employer.  Employer's big or small lay people off and go out of business.  I think an individual's ability to bounce back from these setbacks based on what career field they choose.  In the last 10 years: I've been fired twice, Laid off twice because the plant was shutting down, changed companies for promotions 3 times, and worked as an independent contractor for a year making way more than I had working for a private company.  Any time I've sat down to look for work it normally takes 2-3 weeks for me to get multiple offers often at better pay than I had been making.

People don't work places for their whole career anymore.  Having a stable company is good, but is no guarantee of ongoing work.  I look at borrowers that can recover from job loss as a way better bet than those that work for big companies.

Quote"> from: faeriering on September 28, 2013, 04:28:34 PM

I look at borrowers that can recover from job loss as a way better bet than those that work for big companies.

faeriering:

I agree with your above statement.  However, the problem is we are not provided with the data to find these abovementioned borrowers.  If you believe we are, I'd like to hear from you exactly what they are.

Pharmacists
Engineers
Nurses

People in fields that have resiliency:
Petroleum, health care, etc
Trades especially those on the coasts (welder, pipe fitters, electricians, Iron workers)

Things that I would avoid:
Manufacturing jobs (unless they were extremely specialized)
Residential or commercial construction

But that's just from my personal work experience or family experience.  I'm sure there are others that you have experience with?

Thank you, faeriering, for your breakout.  I wouldn't argue againest any of it, even if I was inclined to, which I am not.  But it does raise a couple of questions.  Do white collar professionals and skilled workers make better borrowers, i,e. less risk, than the remaining labor pool?  As a retired EE, there are many engineers I have known in the past who I wouldn't loan a nickle !

I have only been investing in LC since April, 2013. However, after buying into nearly 1,500 loans during that period, I know it is commonplace for these borrowers to "lie" to us and mistake the facts concerning their loan.   Therefore, I am, seemingly, constantly looking for a way to measure  the character  of the borrower, but with so very little info available to us it is almost a crap-shoot!  By removing Employer from the loan description, we lose yet one more piece of the character-puzzle, however tiny it may be. 

Good luck to all LC investors.

Considering analyzing Prosper historical data. Prosper has used Job Title/Occupation for long time. Based on my review of Prosper data, Job Title/Occupation are better predictor of defaults compared to Employer Name specially when coupled with income.

from: faeriering on September 30, 2013, 09:30:57 PM

IMO,  the Employer should be given for military personnel since they are granted certain protections in the event they default on a loan.  Just saw a loan with the job title "chief" and the location is San Diego. Using my super slueth skills,  I deduced this borrower was in the Navy although there is a chance he/she may be the head of an  indian tribe.

from: rlv99 on October 03, 2013, 05:55:14 PM

Hey, you should come mix it up with Dan, NJG, and I, if you are so fast on your moccasins.  Put some feathers in your hat though.


I enjoy the give and take....or is it slap and smack!!!   I just might do that on occasion.  However, I don't share the same affinity for arrows sticking in my back as you three.

from: core on October 03, 2013, 06:21:05 PM

from: Randawl on October 03, 2013, 06:40:42 PM

from: rlv99 on October 03, 2013, 06:37:11 PM

But I have never, ever in my life heard of "slap and smack".  Do we want to know?

Derived from DanB's latest production.  Not!  Just kiddn'!  Actually,  I think I picked it up in San Francisco in the early 50's when I cut high school and wound up seeing Marx Bros. movies.

from: rlv99 on October 03, 2013, 09:42:26 PM

"slap and smack"...

You sure you don't mean "slap and tickle"?