Asking to read a passport

A candidate who already has a passport can send you its address, such as certo.bio/sam-taylor, with an application. Anyone can read the public page. To see who confirmed each line, you ask the candidate to open it to your company, and they decide.

Where to ask

Open the passport while signed in to certo as an owner, admin or recruiter of your company. A strip on the page reads "Hiring for Northwind Ltd? Ask Sam to open their passport to you." Press Ask to read.

Not signed in yet? Press Read the verified record on the passport. It takes you to sign up as an employer, or to sign in, and brings you back to the same passport with the ask ready. See Creating your company account.

You can ask about any published passport that is not your own. Your company profile has to be complete first, because the candidate sees your name, logo and description with the ask.

What you ask for

The dialog, Ask to read Sam's passport, has:

• Ask to read: the parts you want, from employment, education, certifications, roles, languages and right to work. The candidate ticks what you read, which can be less than you asked for.
• Their contact details as well: a separate permission.
• Their date of birth: only with a reason they read. Every approval already shows whether they are over 18 and over 21, so ask for the date only if you need it.
• Why you are asking (optional): up to 280 characters, read word for word.
• What the candidate must have ready: the checklist they see. See The requirements checklist.

Press Send the ask. The candidate sees it under Needs you in their console.

What it costs

Asking holds one verification. What happens to it depends on the answer:

Some passports read free for the employers they approve, for example one whose holder pays for their own year. Then no verification is held at all, and the confirmation says so. See Free reading for subscribed passports.

No verifications left? The ask goes through only if the passport reads free. Otherwise you can buy verifications from the dialog and come back to the ask after paying.

Following your ask

On the passport page the strip shows where it stands, and so does your Candidates list:

• Asked · waiting for the candidate, with the date it closes. You can Withdraw it: the candidate stops seeing it, and the verification comes back.
• Ask expired, after 30 days with no answer. Press Ask again to send a new one; a verification is held only when you send it.
• Declined. The candidate said no, and the verification came back.
• Approved: the passport is on your list as one you can read, and the page says your company can read it. If you need more than they opened, press Ask for more.

Your company can have one open ask per passport at a time. The candidate is not told when you withdraw an ask or when it expires.

Asking or inviting?

To sponsor somebody's verification instead, see Inviting candidates to verify.