A reference checking service that does the chasing for you

Choosing a reference checking service in the UK — what actually matters

A reference checking service exists to solve one problem: getting referees to respond without your team spending hours doing it. Anyone who has recruited knows the pattern. The offer goes out, the reference request follows, and then — nothing. The referee is busy, the email is buried, and the start date creeps closer while someone in HR sends the third polite nudge. Multiply that by every hire and reference chasing quietly becomes one of the most expensive admin tasks in recruitment.

Historically, the answer was to outsource reference checking to a manual provider — a company whose staff email and telephone referees on your behalf and send back the results. It works, but it is priced like the labour it is: typically £5–£15 per reference, often with contracts or minimum volumes attached, and your reference sits in their queue behind every other client's.

Outsource reference checking — without paying for the labour

The part of reference checking worth outsourcing is the persistence, not the judgement. You don't need a professional to read a reference — you need someone, or something, that never forgets to follow up. That is precisely what software does better than people. RefAssure sends each referee a secure single-use link by email, then chases automatically by email and SMS over around 12 days. It doesn't get busy, doesn't work through a queue and doesn't charge you for its time. When the referee responds — through the structured online form, or simply by replying to the email — the response is captured and the completed reference is delivered as a structured PDF report.

The result is the outcome people are looking for when they search for a reference checking service: the chasing is done for you, and all you do is read the report. The difference is that it costs from 99p per reference instead of £5–£15, and you keep full visibility of every reference in progress instead of waiting for a provider to come back to you.

What a good reference checking service must produce

Whoever does your reference checking, the end product needs to stand up to scrutiny — from an employment tribunal, a CQC inspector, an Ofsted visit or an internal audit. That means written references rather than telephone notes, documented candidate consent, and a clear record of when the reference was requested, chased and completed. This is where manual services vary enormously: some provide thorough documentation, others send back a typed summary of a phone call with little supporting evidence.

RefAssure produces the same evidence pack on every single reference, because it's generated automatically rather than typed up by whoever handled the file. Every PDF report includes the candidate's GDPR consent with digital signature, the referee's full responses, and a complete timestamped audit trail from request to completion. For regulated employers — CQC Regulation 19 in care, KCSIE in education, NHS Employment Check Standards in healthcare, GLAA licensing in labour supply — that consistency is the difference between evidence that satisfies an inspector and a folder of mixed-quality paperwork.

The cost question, answered honestly

Manual outsourced reference checking typically costs £5–£15 per reference. On a team making fifty hires a year with two references each, that is a meaningful line in the recruitment budget — for work that is overwhelmingly automated chasing. RefAssure's pay-per-reference credits start at 99p each (10 for £9.99) and fall to 80p each at volume (250 for £200). No VAT is added, so the price shown is the price paid. There's no subscription and no contract, and because credits never expire you can buy a pack and use it at whatever pace you hire. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.

Service without the black box

The traditional trade-off of outsourcing is loss of visibility: you hand the candidate over and wait. An automated service removes that trade-off. With RefAssure you can see where every reference is up to at any point — consent captured, referee contacted, chasing in progress, completed — while still doing none of the chasing yourself. If a referee prefers to reply by email rather than complete the form, that reply is captured into the report too, so nothing falls through the cracks. You can see the mechanics of the whole process on our how it works page, or try a reference template to see what referees receive.

If you're weighing up a manual provider against automation, the fairest test is simple: run your next hire through RefAssure. Ten credits cost £9.99 — less than the cost of a single reference from most manual services.