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Getting your first passport is a rite of passage, and something most of us do as a child when our parents apply for a passport on our behalf. But if you’ve never had the chance to apply for a passport as a child then getting your first adult passport is quite a different process. Most people apply for a passport in order to travel overseas, but that’s not the only reason. A passport is one of the most widely accepted and trusted forms of identification. A valid passport doesn’t just prove your name and date of birth but your nationality too. If you’ve never had a passport before, you’ll be called for a face to face interview as part of the process.

Making the Appointment

After you’ve sent off your application for your passport, you will be invited to make an appointment for your interview. You have a fair degree of flexibility over when and where you attend and can choose the office most convenient for home or work. If you live in a very remote area, there might be alternative options for an interview closer to home. You can’t book your appointment online, so you’ll have to give the passport office a ring and try to book a slot which suits you.

What Will I Be Asked?

The staff at the passport office are interested in working out if the person in front of them is the person who has filled out the form. They will therefore ask some seemingly random questions to establish your identity. Questions vary; there’s not a standard list of questions which all applicants will be asked as this defeats the purpose of an interview. Applicants might be asked where they were born, the full names and birthdays of their parents, who else lives at their address, or how many siblings they have. As well as the basics, some of the questions are things which are less fact based. Applicants might be asked to describe the route they’d walk from their house to the nearest station or bus stop. Or to describe the house they live in- how many bedrooms, detached or semi-detached, what can they see from the window? All things which are very easy to answer if you’re genuine, but which will stump a fraudulent applicant. You may also be asked about the person who has countersigned your application to make sure you really know them.

Getting Your Passport

The team which conducts the interviews isn’t the same team as produces the passports. They will just record on the system whether you passed the vetting process or not. The standard turnaround time for a passport after interview is just a few days, but issuing a new passport can take longer, especially in the spring at the busy holiday booking period. The good news is that children under 16 don’t require an interview if their parent is applying for their first passport, and when your first passport runs out you can apply for a renewal rather than going through the interview again.

The end of the year is always the time for reflection and statistics, so it’s no surprise that the end of 2019 saw the release of an interesting survey into the state of the pre-employment checking market. Although every employer does their own style of checking or vetting, the broad trends identified in the survey can help candidates predict what kind of employment checks they may be up against in 2020. From an employer’s perspective it can act as a check – if all your competitors are vetting in a certain way, should you be doing it too?

Criminal Records Checks

One of the main conclusions in the report is that employers are asking about criminal records with increased frequency. Around 78% of all organisations now ask about criminal records and do some form of checking. The most common way of checking up on criminal records is by asking candidates to complete a basic DBS check, which will flag up current convictions and cautions only. This is one of the most controversial aspects of pre-employment screening however, as employers have to find the balance between allowing people to leave their past behind and protecting their business.

CV Discrepancies

83% of the companies interviewed for the end of year survey said they had found discrepancies on candidate CVs. Some of these may well be genuine errors, such as misremembering dates of employment or mixing up your exam grades. However, many other discrepancies are intentional, designed to paint the candidate in a better light to give them the edge on the competition. However, companies know that this is a growing problem and are fact-checking CVs with increasing frequency so it’s really not worth risking it. Employers who don’t fact check risk taking on someone who is really not suitable for the role, and who lacks the essential experience required.

Re-Screening

Although most companies are aware of the need to look into the identities and backgrounds of people who are applying to work with them, only a third repeat the process for existing employees. Workers’ situations change over time, and not repeating the screening when someone is promoted or moved into a position with new responsibilities could be risky. It was also found that even when companies have a robust system for checking workers, volunteers, interns and work experience staff often walk into the organisation without any checks at all.

Future of Employment Screening

There’s no surefire way of predicting how employment screening is going to go in the future. However, with more databases going online and social media making it easier than ever to check up on the background of candidates, employers aren’t going to stop doing what they can. If you’re thinking about applying for a new job, probably the most essential thing to do is go through your CV and application forms and make sure that everything is completely accurate. Any errors or deliberate fibs could come back to haunt you in the future – being found out lying on your CV is normally defined as gross misconduct, and cause for immediate dismissal.

Disclosure and Barring Checks, also known as CRB checks or PVG checks in Scotland, are a way of looking at whether or not candidates for a job have a criminal record. A surprisingly high number of people have had a minor brush with the law in the past. Some estimates are that up to a third of men have some sort of criminal record. Having a DBS check is something many people worry about, but that’s usually because of a misunderstanding about the process.

Is DBS standard practice?

There are three different types of DBS check. Basic checks are a confirmation of a candidate’s current, unspent criminal record. That means that crimes which were very minor or happened a long time ago won’t show up on your certificate. You’re therefore under no obligation to tell your employer anything about them. In other sectors, more detailed checks apply. Employers can’t pick and choose which sort of check they will do, as the requirements are set by the government. Usually, it’s fairly clear whether or not a DBS check applies as it will be stated in the job advertisement.

Standard and Enhanced DBS Checks

These are the more detailed types of checks which may reveal older convictions, considered forgotten under other circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that all convictions are automatically disclosed. The police have to tread the line between giving someone a second chance and protecting the people or companies they are applying to work with. The general rule of thumb is that the older and less serious the conviction, the less likely it is to be disclosed. The type of conviction is also relevant in that the police will look at the type of work the applicant will be doing, and whether the conviction is in any way related.

Employment Vetting

If you’re applying for a job which requires a DBS check, then it’s important to bear in mind that it’s just a small part of the employment vetting process. Employers will also chase up references, speak to people who you have been working for in the past, ask to see degree certificates and look at passports to confirm nationality and identity. The information provided on a DBS certificate will just be a small part of their assessment about whether you’re the right person to join their business or not. DBS checks don’t have to be “clean” in order for someone to be employed. Employers just have to prove that they’ve taken steps to minimise risks to the people they are working with. They might look at all of the information and decide that on balance, someone with a minor conviction in the past who has held down a job for the past five or ten years isn’t a risk at all.

Getting Help With Convictions

If you do have a criminal conviction and are concerned about pre-employment checks, then there’s lots of help out there. One of the best sources of information and advice is from Unlock, an ex-offenders charity. Look on their website, email them or contact the helpline for answers to specific questions.

Asking for referees from candidates applying for jobs is nothing new. Although pre-employment checks have extended to encompass everything from social media screening to credit checks, checking references is still as important as ever. There are a lot of myths around references, and what employers can and cannot do.

It’s Illegal To Give a Bad Reference

One of the biggest myths, but one which you’ll hear every day, is that it’s illegal to give a bad reference. This isn’t true, but it’s easy to see how the myth has arisen. Previous employers are not allowed to lie or say something inaccurate about a previous employee without the evidence to back it up. So, if you’ve been sacked, and your ex-employer has all the paperwork from disciplinary investigations, then they are absolutely to state the fact you were sacked. A reference making value judgements or giving negative opinions rather than facts could be challenged.

Many companies get around this tricky legal issue by only giving basic references. They will just confirm that a person of a certain name was employed between stated dates, in a named position. This doesn’t give much to go on from an employer’s point of view but should confirm the position the applicant has stated. There’s no legal requirement to give a reference at all. Most employers do, but as a matter or courtesy not because they are obliged to do so.

Off The Record References

If an employer has been unable to obtain references on an applicant, or if they’ve just had the standard confirmation reference with no detail, they might try another approach. Many recruiters have been known to call up and ask to speak to their applicant’s previous boss and get “off the record” comments about the candidate’s personality, honesty and integrity. Not all managers are prepared to do this but may be happier to have a frank conversation than to put anything in writing. From the new employer’s point of view, it’s worth trying to get a verbal reference, especially in situations where the recruitment decision is borderline.

Who Do I Give as a Referee?

In most cases, it’s best to give the name, phone number and email address of your immediate manager as a referee. If you know for a fact that your employer prefers to give out generic references only, then the contact details for the HR manager may be more appropriate. School leavers and students should list tutors as a referee if they don’t have work references.

It’s also important to remember that it’s never worth lying about your position or responsibilities. If you’ve said that you were a team leader in charge of 20 people, your prospective employer isn’t going to be impressed with a reference stating you didn’t manage anyone at all. Lying in CVs and on application forms is increasingly common, with exaggeration one of the main issues. Companies must check whether people have the experience they claim. Hiring someone very inexperienced, but claiming experience, can be disastrous for a business.

After over three years of political wrangling and discussion, the UK finally left the European Union on 31st January 2020. We’re now in a transition period which is due to last until the end of the year, giving the government and the EU the opportunity to thrash out a trade deal. The aspect of Brexit which affects most of us are the travel restrictions, and there is a lot of misinformation about passports, Visas and other travel requirements, whether you’re popping over to France for the weekend, or planning a much longer overseas trip.

Do I Need a New Passport?

If your passport is currently valid, then there is no need to rush out and apply for a new one just because of Brexit. The current agreement is that nothing will change during the transition period. Your burgundy passport is still valid. After the end of 2020, the situation is less clear. The most likely scenario is that the UK will at that point stop issuing the burgundy passports with “European Union” written on them, and then start issuing old-style navy-blue passports without the EU wording. But that still doesn’t mean that everyone will be asked to send back their old passport to get a new one; the sheer number of applications would overwhelm the system.

Using Passport for Identity Checking

Your passport is perhaps the key identity document used to verify your identity in a whole range of situations from right to work checks for a new job, to opening a new bank account. Passports are still going to be equally important in the future, and British institutions will be ask just as happy to accept a valid passport for identification as they were a year ago. If you’re a holder of a EU passport from another country then nothing will change until the end of the 2020 transition. The arrangements for next year are still to be decided. However, what is certain is that EU citizens will lose their right to live and work in the UK at that point. Different rules apply to those from the Republic of Ireland.

6 Month Validity

For longhaul trips, it’s standard for tour operators and immigration departments to ask for at least 6 months left on your passport before you travel. This is mostly because of Visa conditions, and to avoid the situation where someone’s passport runs out before the end of their stay, making it more tempting to stay on illegally. At present, travellers to the EU still just need a passport which is valid for the duration of their stay. Getting a new passport is expensive, so don’t rush out to buy a new one before it’s necessary.

Will we need a Visa for Europe?

At the moment, you don’t need to apply for a visa to travel to Europe. The visa requirements for all other countries remain unchanged. The latest information from the government is that after the end of 2020, visas will not be required for visits of less than 90 days. Students or people staying for longer may need to apply for a visa.

Surely there’s no harm in increasing that D grade pass in GCSE maths to a B in order to apply for your dream course at college? Or claiming a 2:1 in your degree when you actually dropped out half way through the second year? It’s one of the most common fibs on CVs and application forms – either claiming qualifications which you never sat or inflating the grades to appear a stronger candidate. Employers are becoming wise to these tricks though and many have started a rigorous process of pre-employment checks to make sure that candidates are who they say they are. Can they check up on exam passes?

Universities and Colleges

Universities, unlike schools, all set their own exams and do their own marking. There are a couple of options for verifying if a candidate has indeed achieved the degree and classification which they are claiming. Many Universities run their own verification service which is usually free. Google “academic verification” and the name of the institution to get to the right page. Universities will need the full name of the student, their date of birth, the course of study and the year of graduation. They will then be able to confirm what the student studied, their degree class and date of graduation. If the student graduated several years previously, make sure they haven’t changed their name in the intervening period.

There is also a database called HEDD which allows employers to check to see whether a listed institution of higher education is legitimate, or a bogus college which isn’t accredited and issues fake degrees. Employers can apply for verification directly through HEDD for £12, or just use the information to approach universities and colleges direct.

School Qualifications

Verifying GCSE and A-Level results is trickier. If a candidate has a certificate, this should state the exam boards which made the award. The most common exam boards are AQA, OCR and Edexcel. All three offer a verification service which will allow you to check that the certificates presented to you are legitimate. If a candidate sat exams decades ago, and has lost certificates, it can be trickier to check up. Many employers don’t check school exams dating back decades. If you still want to check, the candidate may have to contact their old school or local Council to find out the exam board, give written consent, and then employers can request information.

Professional Qualifications

Again, employers may not want to go to the hassle of checking each and every professional qualification, but in some industries it’s essential. If someone is claiming “chartered” status in a field, registers will be held by the appropriate body and are easily checked.

Cutting Down on Fraud

Often, if employers make it very clear that they will check up on qualifications this is enough to make candidates think twice about lying on applications. Pre-employment checking is becoming standard practice in many industries. Press coverage of news such as the Oxford NHS executive convicted for fraud and imprisoned for falsely claiming a degree may also make people think twice about being less than honest.

A few years ago, biometrics seemed like something out of a science fiction movie, but in 2020 we think nothing of just looking at our phone to open it, or using fingerprints to pay for our kids’ school lunches. Biometrics refers to everything in our physical person which makes us unique. Fingerprints were recognised as being unique and identifying in the early 1900s, and since then the technology has evolved rapidly to include iris recognition, palm prints and voice recognition. Many companies go through a very rigorous process of checking the identity of people who apply for jobs, which usually includes seeing a wide range of documents and a lot of paperwork. Could this all be replaced by a quick scan of an applicant’s eyes or checking their palm prints?

Government Guidance and Biometrics

Currently, some of our ID contains biometric data already. The passport is the best example, as it holds both a physical photograph and digitised data of certain measurements and aspects of appearance. When you go through the biometric passport gates at the airport, a computer is looking at the information in your passport and comparing it to your appearance.

However, setting up this sort of system isn’t easy for businesses and can be expensive. Any system using biometrics requires several checks and balances. Government guidance requires companies to make sure the data hasn’t been tampered with, that false matches or negatives are kept to a minimum, and that the person is alive and not just a photograph.

Confidence in Identity

Most companies set up a scoring system to record whether they’re confident in an individual’s identity or not. This could be as simple as a yes/no tick box exercise or giving scores for the type of identity documents seen. As biometrics data is harder to fake, it scores higher in confidence than something like a utility bill or bank statement.

How Will This Affect Job Searches?

As biometrics become more commonplace, and the technology comes down in price, it seems natural to assume more organisations will adopt the technology. From an applicant’s point of view there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that it’s all much quicker; a quick retina scan or palm print will confirm who you are, without the need to dig out lots of identification and wait for someone to review it. The negatives are around data security, and the fact there’s not one integrated system. You may have set up thumb print recognition to access your phone, but that isn’t linked to your bank, the NHS or police computers. That sort of one large database is not planned, and there are serious concerns about privacy which would stop organisations from setting it up.

Should I Be Worried?

Biometrics doesn’t have to be scary. We’re already happy to use biometrics to access things like banking apps on smartphones, and the technology is moving on very quickly. It seems logical to think that in the next 10 or 20 years, linking job applications to something like a credit checking website to verify identity will be commonplace.

You’d think it would be easy to prove your identity. Most of us like to think that everyone we come into contact with is honest, and that’s often the case. But when it comes to applying for jobs or dealing with government bureaucracy, nothing is taken at face value. Employers need to check up on the people who are applying to work for their company. Don’t take it personally if you have applied for a job and are asked to take along something to prove who you say you are – it’s standard practice. However, there are some forms of identity which are more useful than others.

Right to Work

The most common type of check in recruitment is a Right to Work check. As employers are hit with very heavy fines if they are found to be employing illegal workers, any decent employer will ask for proof of your nationality. The gold standard proof of identity in this case is your passport. You can only get a British passport after extensive government checks, and the same applies to passports issued by other countries too. Passports have your photo, and other details such as your full name and date of birth which can be matched against other documents which you have. If people from other countries have the right to work in the UK, they will usually have a visa stamped in their passport, and their status can be checked with the Home Office. Having a passport will make life a lot easier when it comes to dealing with bureaucracy.

DBS Checks

One of the other reasons you may be asked about identity is if you’re applying for a job which needs a disclosure check. DBS checks, which used to be called Criminal Records Bureau or CRB checks. These are mostly jobs which involve positions of financial responsibility, or caring jobs. There is a wide range of documents which you can use to verify your identity for a DBS check, but you will need more than just a passport. In addition, you may be asked for a driving licence and some documents which verify your financial history such as utility bills or bank statements.

Bank Accounts and Finances

Opening a bank account also requires you to prove who you are. Banks are constrained by money-laundering legislation and have to make sure they verify the identities of their customers. Most banks will ask for some form of official photo ID such as driving licence or passport and will match your appearance against the photo provided. They’ll also want to see something which shows your address, like a utility bill or letter from an official body like the Council. Most financial services providers will also run a credit check on you, and this looks at things like whether you’re on the electoral role, and whether you’ve defaulted on credit in the past. The good news is that you can look at your own credit score by signing up for one of the apps or websites which lets you monitor your score.

There is a very wide range of situations in which you might be asked to prove who you are. Opening a bank account, applying for a job, applying for benefits – the list is endless. For young people who are still living at home with their parents or in student accommodation, proving their identity can be tricky, as their names aren’t on utility bills, and they’re unlikely to have credit card accounts either. This lack of official ID, especially something with a photo on it, can start to cause problems. So, if you’re in this situation, here’s our advice on the best way around the problem.

Provisional Driving Licence

If you don’t have a passport and are starting to struggle with providing official ID, the best starting point is to apply for your provisional driving licence. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re actually learning to drive – the provisional licence is official government ID which will make life a lot easier. You can apply for a UK provisional driving licence with your birth certificate or student card, current address and birth certificate. Applying for your provisional online costs £34 at current rates and the application process is very straightforward.

Passport

The other option is to apply for a passport. This might be a better option if you are planning to travel abroad in the next few years and have no intention of learning to drive. However, getting a passport involves a lot more form filling, expense, and potentially hassle. The online application cost for an adult passport is £75.50 at current rates, more than double the cost of getting your provisional driving licence. If you have had a passport as a child, this will be treated as a renewal and usually passports take around three weeks to be issued. If you’ve never held a passport before, then you will probably be called to an interview at one of the passport centres around the UK. There’s no charge for booking the interview, but there will be additional costs in terms of travelling expenses and potentially loss of earnings if you need to take time off work.

Building a Financial History

The easiest way of building your own financial history is moving out of home or a house share and getting utility bills with your name on them. This is often not an option however, and there are lots of other things you can do too. The first thing is to make sure you are on the electoral register, either at home or your student accommodation. Open a student bank account and think about getting a credit card even if you are not intending to use it. The next time you upgrade your phone, take the contract out in your name and make sure the bills are settled on time, every month. Think about downloading an app such as ClearScore, which will show your current credit rating and give tips about what you can do to increase your score and give a bigger financial footprint.

According to a recent survey by the University of Portsmouth, the cost of recruitment fraud in the UK has reached the staggering figure of £24 billion. This figure covers the cost of advertising positions, salaries for recruitment staff, and the losses which could be encountered by a business if they take someone on who isn’t who they say they are. Determined fraudsters will find a way to circumvent even the strictest pre-employment checking processes which a company can put into place. However, knowing the main tricks which fakers use can help you identify which risks are a factor in your company and take steps to minimise them.

Key Findings

Some of the findings highlighted in the University of Portsmouth report are shocking, such as the fraudster who conned his way into a job as a commercial pilot. Or the European bank which lost over 5 million euros in fraud after recruiting a former temp worker without going through the proper recruitment process. Although these serious cases show just how bad things can be if you don’t check up on applicants, the problem isn’t just limited to a few rogue fraudsters.

University of Portsmouth researchers found that a staggering 80% of CVs examined showed some type of discrepancy. One of the most common lies was around experience, with 21% of applicants claiming more responsibility or experience by inflating their job titles. 12% of CVs contained lies about exam or university grades. 18% of companies reported that in the previous year they had been given fake documents to support someone’s application. There is growing evidence of a thriving black market in academic and professional qualifications which may help applicants secure a job, especially in the financial and healthcare sectors.

Quantifying Losses

In the past, businesses have often been reluctant to disclose exactly what losses have been incurred by employing someone who isn’t what they think they are. The losses can be split into two main categories. Someone wo is desperate to secure a position and fabricates references or plays up their experience isn’t necessarily criminal. However, they are more likely to be incompetent and not up to the job you have employed them to do. Often, it can take a while for their lies to be uncovered, and by that point you may have lost key customers, or other decent members of staff too. Getting rid of them is usually the least expensive part of the process; recruiting again and rebuilding your company’s reputation might take a lot longer.

The other main group of applicants are the determined fraudsters who have their eye on emptying your bank accounts from the off. These people try to lie their way into positions in the company which give access to suppliers, accounts or administrative systems which help them in their fraud. Companies have also reported that failing to conduct proper pre-employment checks or staff has also led to incidents of violence against colleagues, theft, or even examples of industrial espionage.