Download the form
Use DA Form 3439 when you need to employment reference inquiry. Full title: EMPLOYMENT REFERENCE INQUIRY. Everything you need is on this page — the file, the entry rules, the routing. Edition 04/01/2024, status ACTIVE, 1 page(s), roughly 200 fields. Note the supersession: a later edition exists, and this one applies only to records already completed on it.
Authority sits in two places. G-1 owns the form, AR 215-3 says when it is raised and where it goes. Routine cases need neither read in full — the page itself carries the sequence. The entries are completed by their subject or by unit administrative staff working from what that person supplies.
PDF, XFDL are available and the decision takes one second. Type your entries: fillable pdf. Write them: printable pdf. The published layout is common to both, so the format governs your method and nothing more.
Use a full pdf reader, not the browser viewer. Browser viewers display fields they cannot always save, and the loss shows up only when you reopen the file — type one entry, save, reopen, verify, then fill the rest. The xfdl file is IBM Lotus Forms, used inside Army systems, and opens in the Lotus Forms Viewer alone — no pdf reader, no word processor.
Free, unregistered, unmodified. What arrives is what the publisher released.
What the form asks for
- ADJUST_A
- ADJUST_B
- ADJUST_C
- ADJUST_D
- ADJUST_E
- ASSOCIAT
- CAP_ACUQAN
- CAP_EMPLYR
- CAP_FELLOW
- CAP_OTHER
- CIVILSERV
- CIVILSERVB
- CONSIDR_A
- CONSIDR_B
- CONSIDR_C
- CONSIDR_D
- CONSIDR_E
- COPRATE_A
- COPRATE_B
- COPRATE_C
- COPRATE_D
- COPRATE_E
- ContentArea1
- ContentArea2
The heading entries carry more weight than the body. Name spelled as in official records, identification number, organisation, date prepared. Retrieval runs on those values, so a transposed digit or a casual spelling costs someone a file search. Fill them before anything else.
Tabbing beats clicking for coverage. The order was set at build time and tracks the page layout, so following it leaves no gaps. Boxes and buttons are clicked; where options are exclusive, one selection cancels another by design. Watch field width on long entries: one-line fields have no wrap, and what runs past the edge disappears in print though the screen still shows it. Move that text to remarks or a continuation. Never leave an inapplicable field empty — enter the nil mark, because a reviewer cannot distinguish a skipped question from a considered answer.
Signature comes after every other entry — ink or an approved electronic means, and without it the document is a draft. Where reviewing, approving or witnessing signatures are called for, take them in printed block order, each dated on the day applied. Before release, one pass from the top. The defects worth hunting are always the same four: mandatory fields left empty, identification digits transposed, dates with day and month reversed, and stale data surviving in a copy reused in place of a blank form.
Privacy Act statement first, personal entries second. The notice covers who is authorised to collect, why, who else routinely sees it, and whether you must answer. After completion the file carries personal data and is stored and sent under the corresponding safeguards.
Send it where the directive says: the office it names, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's file. Take your copy before submission. How long the record is held comes from the schedule for the series, not from the office holding it.
Related forms are found by series and number. DA series documents under the same proponent or the same prescribing directive are commonly required as a set, and any form named on the face of this one goes forward with it. Assemble continuations, covers and transmittals before submitting, not after the query comes back.
Check the edition date before reusing a saved copy. Revisions come from the proponent without notice to you, and the printed date is the only version marker on the page. Already-submitted records under a superseded edition stand as filed; the change does not run backwards.
The files are copies of published Department of the Army forms. This site has no official connection, no authority to issue anything, and no basis for saying whether an office will accept a given submission. None of the text is legal advice. Real questions — entry, requirement, eligibility — belong with G-1 or the administrative office servicing your unit.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 3439?
- EMPLOYMENT REFERENCE INQUIRY
- Which edition is current?
- 04/01/2024
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF