Reading a report

The report is an HTML page (plus PDF) that summarises everything we verified. It is immutable. If you think something in it is wrong, tell us at hello@prehire.ai and we will look at the check again. It is not permanent: we keep a report for 12 months from the day it was issued, and the date we delete it is printed in the report's own footer.

Report structure

The report is eight parts in this order. Four of them carry a printed number, so you can hold this page beside the document and know where you are.

1. Header — the candidate's name, the role, the hiring employer and the date it was issued.
2. Result at a glance — how many referees replied out of how many you asked for, then one tile per referee: what they were to the candidate, their would-re-employ answer and one word for where their reference stands.
3. 01 Checks — one row per check and one column per referee; a check that referee's reference type runs has a result, and one it does not shows a dash. Select any result to see the evidence behind it.
4. 02 Ratings — "How each referee rated the candidate against what the role needed. Their answers, not ours."
5. 03 In their own words — "Free-text answers, exactly as written. Not graded."
6. 04 Activity — "Everything that happened, in order. Times shown in UK time." Reminders we sent are lighter; replies are in bold.
7. Technical detail — the reference, the version, the referee addresses, the raw sender and mail records a domain published, and the tamper-evident record, collapsed by default: "Technical detail — retained for dispute or IT review; not needed to read this report."
8. Footer — "PreHire reports verification evidence. Hiring decisions, and any judgement drawn from this evidence, rest with the employer." — with the reference, the version, the issue date and the date the report is deleted.

Check results

Every check on the grid carries one of these results, and so does each referee's headline in the summary. These are the report's own definitions, word for word: it prints the same list beneath its verification grid, so this page and the report can never tell you two different things.

Result	Meaning
✓ Verified	what came back agrees with what was given
! Discrepancy	partly agrees, or could not be tied to the employer
! Not found	no company register answers to the name, as is true of many ordinary employers
✗ Not confirmed	we could not confirm this, or what came back differs from what was given
! Dissolved	the register says the company is no longer trading
– Not yet run	no source available for this check yet
– Not applicable	not a real question for this kind of reference
– No response	the referee did not reply before the check closed
– Declined	the referee was reached and declined to give a reference
– Undeliverable	an email to the address given could not be delivered
– Not contacted	our request to the referee did not go out, so they were never asked

Two results can share a mark, so the word beside it is what the report is actually saying. A dash is not a grade: it means there is no result to give — the check had no source, the question does not apply to this kind of reference, or the referee never answered.

The report prints the definitions of the results it actually contains, so a short report shows a short key.

The verification grid

This is the core of the report. Every cell with evidence behind it opens to show that evidence: the actual email address and mail records, the Companies House name and number, the two date pairs side by side. Not only the cells that disagreed — a result you are relying on because it agreed is exactly the one worth reading the evidence for. A cell that does not open is one with no evidence to show.

How many rows a referee has depends on the kind of reference they are giving. See How it works for which of the five checks each kind runs.

On paper the evidence is not printed — forcing every cell open would put the raw appendix across half the page — so the printed copy tells you where to find it instead.