Inviting candidates to verify
Sponsor a candidate's checks with one verification. They see what you ask to read before accepting; once they accept, you read it on the terms they agreed.
4 minute read
An invitation asks somebody to verify themselves on certo, paid for by you. It works whether or not they already hold a passport. Each invitation spends one verification, and the candidate pays nothing.
What the candidate gets, and what you get
Every invitation you send from Candidates is sponsored. Your verification pays for the candidate's identity check and the confirmation of their work and education, and their passport is free for a year.
If they accept:
- You read what you asked to read, records they add later included, and their contact details if you asked for them.
- They cannot withdraw it for the first 12 months. After that they can, as with any access. An erasure request to certo ends it at any time.
- The passport stays theirs. They can show it to any other employer, who spends a verification of their own to read it.
They see all of this on the invitation before they decide: who is paying, what you will read, and that they cannot withdraw it for that period.
Send an invitation
- Open Candidates and press Invite candidates.
- Who. Type names and addresses into the table, or paste a list from anywhere: a spreadsheet copy, a CSV, "Name and address" lines, a signature block. Press Read the list and certo turns it into rows. It keeps none of what you pasted, and nothing is sent until you confirm the table.
- Fix any row marked in the table, such as Not an e-mail address or Already invited, and still open. The table shows, for example, "12 rows · 2 need fixing".
- Press Next: what you ask for.
- What you ask for. Choose a Position if you use them, write Why you are asking (shown to them word for word), tick what you Ask to read, and decide on contact details and the date of birth (below). Under What the candidate must have ready, keep certo's defaults or change them.
- Press Send invitations.
Each row then shows its outcome: Invited, Already invited or Not sent. Fix the rows marked Not sent and send again: nobody is invited twice. You can invite up to 500 people at once.
What you can ask for
| Option | What it means |
|---|---|
| Ask to read | The parts of the passport you will read: employment, education, certifications, roles, languages, right to work. |
| Ask for contact details too | Their contact details, a separate permission. |
| Ask for their date of birth | Only with a reason they read beside it (Why you need it). Every invitation already shows whether they are over 18 and over 21, so ask for the date only if you need it, for example for a visa. |
| What the candidate must have ready | A checklist, such as the last five years of work answered. It changes nothing about what you may read. See The requirements checklist. |
Verifications
The whole list needs its verifications up front: one per invitation. The dialog says, for example, "Uses 12 verifications, one per invitation. You have 15." If you are short, buy verifications first.
The verification comes back if the candidate declines, if they never answer, or if you withdraw the invitation. One exception: once the candidate has started the identity check you sponsored, certo has already paid for it, so the verification is kept whatever happens next. Withdraw tells you this before it acts.
How long an invitation stays open
An invitation stays open for 60 days. If nobody answers, it shows as Invitation expired on your list, the verification comes back (unless the identity check had started), and you can press Invite again.
When a candidate declines
The candidate can decline outright. You see Declined, the verification comes back (unless the identity check had started), and nothing about them is released. The invitation tells them, kindly, that you will see a decline or an expiry.
Following it on Candidates
Each invitation is a row on your Candidates list: Invited, then Accepted, then the identity check (KYC in progress, KYC verified) and how much of their last five years is accounted for and verified. To withdraw an invitation still waiting, press Withdraw. What you can read once they accept is in Reading a passport.