Evaluating reference check software: a campus checklist

Reference check tools are often built around corporate recruiting: high volume, one recruiter, one hiring manager. A campus search runs differently. A committee shares the decision, faculty references keep academic calendars, candidates may not have told their current institution they are looking, and the record may need to hold up in a grievance years later.

This checklist is written for that setting. Use it to compare tools, to prepare questions for a demo and to give procurement and IT what they will ask for before they sign.

Start with the process you have

Before you look at any product, write down how references work today for one faculty search and one staff search. The gaps in that description become your requirements.

• Who sends reference requests, and how many per finalist?
• How is the candidate’s permission captured, and where is it kept?
• Who reads the answers: the committee, HR, the hiring manager?
• What does the committee receive, and in what format?
• Where does the record live after the search closes, and for how long?

The candidate and reference experience

Candidates and references did not choose your software and will not be trained on it. If their part is slow or confusing, the search waits.

• No accounts. References should be able to answer from a link. A required sign-up is a reason to put the request off.
• Works on a phone. Many references will open the request on a phone between other commitments.
• Reminders that send themselves, on a schedule you set, and stop once the reference answers.
• Language. References and candidates should be able to work in the language they read most comfortably.
• A clear time estimate on the request, so references know what they are agreeing to.

Consent and fairness

• Consent before contact. The candidate’s agreement should be recorded before any reference is contacted, and kept as part of the record.
• Candidates nominate their own references, so the people contacted are the people the candidate agreed to.
• The same questions for every reference for a given search, so finalists are compared on the same evidence.
• Plain notices. References should be told who will read their answers. Be wary of a tool that promises references confidentiality your process cannot keep.

If the tool also runs background checks, that part has its own consent rules. Reference checks vs. background checks explains the difference.

Questions, scoring and the committee report

• Your own questions. Templates should be built per institution, or per position type, not fixed by the vendor.
• Scoring against your competencies, with each rating kept next to the reference’s explanation.
• One report per candidate that a committee can read in one sitting, with every reference’s relationship to the candidate stated.
• A way to lock the report once the committee has it, so what was decided on cannot change afterward.
• Exports in the formats your search files use, such as PDF and Excel.

Ask every vendor for a sample report before the demo. It shows more about the product than the feature list does. Ours is on the product page.

Security and privacy review

Reference answers are personal information about candidates and the people who know them. Expect IT security to review any tool before it is approved, and shorten that review by asking these questions early.

• Where is the data hosted, and in which country?
• How is one institution’s data kept apart from another’s in a shared service?
• What is encrypted, at rest and in transit, and who holds the keys?
• Is there an audit trail of who viewed, changed or exported a record, and when?
• Single sign-on. Does it support the SAML or CAS sign-in your campus already runs, and multi-factor authentication?
• Roles. Can recruiters, hiring managers and department administrators see only what they need?
• Retention and deletion. What happens to your records when the license ends, and can you export them first?
• The questionnaire. Will the vendor complete your institution’s security questionnaire? Many campuses ask for the HECVAT, the Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit maintained by EDUCAUSE, and some also ask for an accessibility conformance report before any purchase.

Accessibility

Ask which accessibility standard the candidate and reference pages are built and tested against, and ask for current conformance details, such as an Accessibility Conformance Report. For public colleges and universities this is not optional: the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2024 rule under Title II of the ADA sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for the web content and mobile apps of state and local governments, including content provided through vendors. An April 2026 interim final rule kept that standard and moved the first compliance date to April 26, 2027, with April 26, 2028 for smaller entities.

Fit with the systems you already run

• Sign-in through your identity provider, so staff accounts follow your onboarding and offboarding.
• Exports that drop into the search file or HR record without retyping.
• Applicant tracking connections, if you need them. Ask what is included and what is a separate implementation project.
• Background checks in the same workflow, if your campus runs them for the same roles.

Pricing and procurement

Reference check tools are priced in different ways: per check, per seat, as an annual license or a mix of these. Compare them on what a year of your searches would cost, and on what counts as one check: a single reference, or one candidate however many references it takes.

• Can a single department start on its own, then expand to the campus later?
• Is there a published price, or does every quote start with a sales call?
• Can you pay by purchase order, and will the vendor complete supplier onboarding?
• Is implementation included, and what does a pilot involve?

Questions to ask in every demo

1. Show me what a reference sees on a phone, from the email to the last question.
2. Show me where the candidate’s consent is recorded, and what happens if they have not given it.
3. Show me the report a committee chair receives, and how it is locked and exported.
4. Who at your company can see our candidates’ data, and how is that access logged?
5. Which accessibility standard are the candidate and reference pages tested against?
6. What happens to our records at the end of the license?
7. What will a year cost for our expected number of searches, all fees included?

How ReferenceCheck answers this checklist

We built ReferenceCheck as reference check software for campus HR and search committees, so here is how it answers the list above. Candidates acknowledge a privacy notice and nominate their own references, and consent is recorded before anyone is contacted. Neither candidates nor references create an account. References answer institution-built, competency-based questions from a unique link, with reminders on a schedule. The committee receives one scored report per candidate that the chair can lock and export to PDF or Excel.

For IT and procurement: the platform is hosted on Google Cloud in the United States, every record belongs to one institution, names and contact details are encrypted at the field level, and every change to a request, template or report is logged. Staff sign in with SAML or CAS single sign-on, with optional multi-factor authentication and defined roles. The public candidate and reference pages are built and tested against WCAG 2.1 AA, and we complete security questionnaires ahead of your review. Department plans are priced on our pricing section, and campus-wide licenses are quoted.

This article is general information for campus hiring teams, not legal advice. Confirm the requirements that apply to your institution with your counsel or HR policy office.