Welcome to our monthly product update!

With some big releases just around the corner, we have been a bit light on product updates recently. Having said that, there are still some super exciting changes that you might have missed!

Professional qualification form improvements

We've made the professional qualification form clearer for candidates. They now select their qualification type first and the form adapts to show the right fields. Membership or licence numbers (such as an NMC PIN) are now required fields, reducing errors and improving data quality.

Partner API: manual DBS identity verification 

Recruiters can now complete manual DBS identity verification directly from supported ATS and HRIS platforms. When a DBS check requires in-person identity verification, integrated systems can receive the notification and mark the step as complete through the Partner API — eliminating the need to switch platforms.
This helps teams keep background checks moving within their existing workflow, reducing context switching and saving time.
If you'd like to use this functionality, speak to your ATS or HRIS provider about supporting the latest Zinc Partner API capabilities.

Other improvements we made in May

• We've upgraded our UK address finder to a new provider with 33 million address records — up from 8 million. Candidates should find it easier to locate their address, and we expect to see fewer DBS rejections from invalid entries.
• Workday HRIS customers can now configure their integration to route check requests to candidates' work email rather than their personal email — useful where company policy restricts personal inbox access at work.
• We've added clearer guidance to the selfie capture step so candidates better understand what's being photographed.

Zinc Product Team

Welcome to our monthly product update.

Here’s a quick recap of what we delivered for you last month 🙌

Changes to identity verification for DBS checks

We've updated the identity verification process for DBS checks to stay aligned with the latest version of the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. Here are the new requirements: 

Basic DBS: All UK or Irish nationals will now require a passport. Non-UK or Irish passport holders will require a passport plus one additional photo ID (e.g. driving licence, national ID card, or residence permit).

Standard & Enhanced DBS: Candidates will require a passport plus one additional photo ID (e.g. driving licence, national ID card, or residence permit).

Please note, not all passports are accepted, they typically need to be a modern biometric passport (strength 4). See our IDSP's document strength rating system. Any required secondary documents need to be a minimum of strength 3. 

We appreciate this change in process means we have had an increase in the number of manual reviews required. We are working hard to release improvements and we'll be expanding out the accepted document pathways throughout the year.

Changes since release

- Document strength failures → now trigger immediate manual review, with no resubmission.

- ID failure reasons in emails → failure reasons are now displayed in emails, for example: no consent given, document data missing, duplicate document used, or passport not provided.

Coming soon

- ID failure reasons on reports → failure reasons will also be displayed directly on reports.

- Displaying documents when ID fails → document copies will soon be visible when ID checks fail.

- Manual review document selection → reviewers will be able to specify which documents they reviewed.

Academic references and structured non-employment periods on references

Zinc will now guide candidates to explain any gaps in their timeline while completing their reference check. Candidates can choose from structured options including education, seeking work, travelling, or other.

If a candidate was in education during the required period, we’ll automatically request an academic reference.

Find out more about non employment references here.

Improvements to the Partner API statuses

Partners often saw many different scenarios in Zinc summarised under a single “pending” status in the Partner API. The partner API did not yet reflect the more granular statuses shown in app such as "awaiting candidate".  This made it difficult for recruiters to know whether to chase the candidate, wait on Zinc, or take action themselves.

This has now been fixed and new statuses are available to map to. Webhook events will now always fire on these important transitions, meaning updates can't be missed.

See the updated docs here.

Other improvements in April

Reference chaser notifications

Previously, we only showed the number of times a referee was contacted via icons or badges on the candidate report, and up to three contact attempts on the PDF report.

We’ve now updated reports to show all contact attempts in hover content and display the full contact history in the PDF report

CV requirement indicator for CV checks

We've improved the Partner API to make it clearer when a CV upload is required. Previously, partners could not determine via the API whether a package included a CV check, which could lead to missing information and delays.

Zinc Product Team 🌸

Welcome to the March edition of our monthly product updates!

We hope you're getting ready for your Easter break. Just before you go, here’s a quick recap of what we worked hard to deliver last month 🙌

Customisable Digital Self Certification Forms

Self-certification forms are now fully customisable. Collect the information you need during pre-employment, including SM&CR details, Fitness and Propriety, or any other information you need to make onboarding smoother for candidates.

Learn more about customisable self-certifications here.

Coming up: Academic references and structured non-employment periods

Zinc will now guide candidates to explain any gaps in their timeline as they complete their reference check. They’ll choose from structured options: education, seeking work, travelling, or other.

If a candidate was in education during the required period, we'll ask them to submit an academic reference automatically.

Find out more about the upcoming release here.

Other improvements we made in March

• Following the release of free quarterly Update Service re-checks, we have made it easy to enrol existing employees in the automatic quarterly recheck cycle.
• Run credit checks for candidates based in the United States. This check uses data from Equifax and must be enabled by your Zinc account manager.
• We’ve made it easier for candidates to enter their country of employment and citizenship details. Clearer guidance reduces mistakes and helps prevent delays, keeping the journey quick and seamless.
• Set reference requirements by duration and quantity, not just one or the other. This gives you more control over what you need from candidates and cuts down on time spent going back and forth to collect your true requirements.
• CV Checks are now available through our SmartRecruiters integration.
• Our HRIS partners can now use the new GET /partner/v2/search endpoint enabling them to search candidates (by email or request ID) and retrieve complete background check results in a single call, without needing to trigger or manage checks.

Zinc Product Team 🌸

We’ve been listening, and January reflects that. Welcome to the January edition of our monthly product updates, a quick way to keep you in the loop on what we’ve been working on for the last month. Here’s what’s new:

Automated update service rechecks - Truly free

When you head to the Insights tab, you’ll land on Analytics, where you’ll see a snapshot of your key product performance metrics.

Overview

The Overview dashboard gives you a high-level view of activity across your account:

• Requests over time helps you spot hiring peaks and troughs, making it easier to plan capacity.

• Packages used shows how different packages are being used, so you can see which locations are hiring most, or which role types are driving demand.

Package performance

The Package Performance section helps you dig a little deeper:

• The map view shows where checks are being carried out, often reflecting where candidates have previously lived or worked.
• Completion rates highlight the percentage of requests that have been completed. If this looks lower than expected, it may be due to a recent surge in requests, or checks that weren’t cancelled for candidates who didn’t proceed.

Engagement

The Engagement dashboard focuses on the candidate journey:

• Time to start shows how quickly candidates begin their checks after receiving an invitation. If this is longer than expected, it can help to set clear expectations during the recruitment process — for example, asking candidates to start within two days.
• Candidate Experience Score reflects how candidates felt about completing their checks. If anything looks concerning, we’d always love to hear your candidates’ feedback so we can continue improving the experience.

There’s even more to explore across the Analytics dashboards, but these core metrics can already help you build scalable, global background checking processes — while delivering a great experience for your candidates. 🙌

As always, if you’d like help interpreting your data or digging deeper, your Zinc team is here to help.

Whilst December is often associated with end of year parties and cozy evenings at home, the Zinc team were hard at work improving our product so that we can continue to deliver the easy, instant and delightful Zinc experience that you expect.

Here is a quick summary of the improvements we made to our product in December.

In-app and email feature communications

We’re now sharing all product updates in one place — through our new in-app What’s new section, changelog page and by email for any high-impact changes.

Whats new

• Only hear about what matters to you. We look at the checks you run and the integrations you use, so we don’t fill your inbox with updates that aren’t relevant.
• Fine-tune your preferences anytime. You can update what you’d like to hear about in your account settings.

Other improvements we made in December

• UK visa expiry dates are now listed on the Schedule page, so you can easily track upcoming expiries and rerun checks all in one place. Click here for more info.
• Australian criminal check submissions are now much simpler for candidates, thanks to our improved points calculation interface. 
• You can now view the email used to send checks to a candidate directly from their individual progress and report pages. This makes it easier to check they’ve received their checks or quickly find the email you need.
• Individual check turnaround times are now available in the Checks sub-tab of the Analytics section within Insights.
• Your All Checks report now includes the dates candidates start and complete their checks. You’ll find this in Insights → Reporting.
• If a referee’s email address bounces, Zinc will help keep things moving by suggesting an alternative email address from the same company, where available.
• We’ve updated our Greenhouse integration and Partner API to support Word (.doc/.docx) CVs for CV checks, bringing them in line with Workday. Recruiters can now submit Word files without background check requests failing, with the same smooth experience across all integrations.