To help reduce the risk of candidate fraud, employment verification will now be compared against the candidate's full name.

Zinc's employment verification pulls a candidate's work history and dates directly from HMRC and other global integrations, helping teams to hire with confidence and receive fast, accurate results. With this update, if employment verification details don't match the candidate's name on the background check request, this will now be flagged with a badge on the report. You'll see one of the following:

• Employment verification name match
• Employment verification name mismatch

The badge helps you confirm that the person who submitted the employment verification details is the same person the background check request is for. 

What this means for your team

This feature doesn’t change the status of the check, but you’ll now have visibility of potential mismatches so you can easily review and follow up where needed. For teams not yet using employment verification, a layered approach of both references and employment verification returns results instantly at no extra cost, with candidates' employment details sourced directly from government tax records and any discrepancies flagged. 

When a referee raises concerns about a candidate, you should instantly be able to see what matters. Two updates make that easier: reports now flag the answers that are worth a closer look, and you can ask referees exactly what you need to know with customisable questions for all reference types. Here's what to set up to get the benefit of both.

What you need to know

• Answer flagging is live now, ready for you to configure which answers trigger a "Consider" in your package editor.
• You can now write your own questions for academic, character, and HR references, so referees answer exactly what you need.
• Nothing changes by default. You'll need to set this up yourself in the package editor.

What to do now

1. Go to your reference packages.
2. Review your questionnaires to set which answers should count as clear.
3. Want more specific answers on academic, character, or HR references? Customise those questions while you're there.

Looking for more information? Check out our help article or talk to your account manager.

Planned Maintenance Notice – Temporary Service Disruption

We’d like to inform you of a scheduled maintenance window that will temporarily affect some of our checks.

On 26 April, between 09:00 and 17:00 Central European Time (CET), international criminal, education, credit and directorship checks will be unavailable due to essential system maintenance. All England & Wales checks will remain operational.

During this time:

• You will still be able to request checks as normal.
• Candidates will not be able to submit their information for these checks.

All other services will continue to operate as normal, and full functionality will resume immediately after the maintenance window.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding as we carry out improvements to maintain the quality and reliability of our platform.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reply to this email.

Warm regards,

Zinc Product Team

Planned Maintenance Notice – Temporary Service Disruption

We’d like to inform you of a scheduled maintenance window that will temporarily affect some of our checks.

On 5th April, between 09:00 and 17:00 Central European Time (CET), international criminal, education, and directorship checks will be unavailable due to essential system maintenance. All England & Wales checks will remain operational.

During this time:

• You will still be able to request checks as normal.
• Candidates will not be able to submit their information for these checks.

All other services will continue to operate as normal, and full functionality will resume immediately after the maintenance window.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding as we carry out improvements to maintain the quality and reliability of our platform.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reply to this email.

Warm regards,

Zinc Product Team

This is a pre-release notification that from Wednesday 8th of April, you’ll have a clearer way to understand candidate history through references, without extra follow-ups. Find detailed information about this release here. 

What you need to know

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.

You can view the questions they’ll be asked.

What’s new

Clearer gap explanations from candidates
Candidates will now select a category for any gaps in their timeline, making it easier to understand their history without chasing additional details.

Academic references, built for education periods
If a candidate was studying, they’ll submit a tailored academic reference instead of trying to fit this into an employment reference,  improving completion and relevance.

More context, where you need it
For other gaps, candidates can:

• Add a short explanation, and
• Upload supporting documents (optional)

If enabled in your package, candidates may also be asked to provide a character reference for these periods. If you previously enabled ‘accept character references’ for regulatory references, this will now be applied automatically.

The Impact

Providing you a clearer candidate story upfront means you have fewer follow-ups, but more intel to make faster decisions.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or feedback, have a lovely day!

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.

Whats new

• When you add a self-certification check to a package, you can now choose Create your own form in the package editor.
• Start from a pre-built template or create your own form.
• Choose from these question types: yes/no, multiple choice, free text, and scale(1-5).
• Set which response will mark the check as clear.
• Review candidate’s answers in the candidate report, just as you do today.

What you need to know

• If you’re using SMCR self-certification form previously, we’ll automatically move you to a customisable questionnaire with the same question set.
• There’s nothing you need to do. You can jump in and tailor the questions whenever you like.
• If you want to utilise one of the new templates, you can simply edit your package and update your questions to the latest version.

You can now 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.

What you need to know

• This feature is opt-in. Nothing will change unless you ask your account manager to enable it.

• Before enabling the check, we’ll confirm that:

  • You’re hiring candidates with a current address in the U.S.
  • You have a legitimate business reason for running credit checks (for example, financial responsibility roles or due diligence requirements)

If either of these conditions isn’t met, the check won’t be enabled.

What’s new

Once enabled, the US credit check includes data from the Equifax Credit Bureau, with nationwide record verification for citizens and lawfully residing foreign nationals aged 17/18+ with credit activity.

Results may include:

• Insolvency and bankruptcy records - provides a comprehensive view of financial distress, including insolvency filings, bankruptcy registers, debt-related legal actions, and relevant court or official gazette records. (coverage up to 10 years, depending on bankruptcy type)
• Bad payment history – Provides a comprehensive consumer credit assessment, identifying adverse payment behaviour across banks, utilities, telecoms, landlords, collection agencies, retailers, and credit card providers, where legally permissible. Results include current financial status, payment defaults, credit accounts, loans and credit cards. (coverage up to 7 years)

The check leaves a soft footprint, meaning it does not affect the candidate’s credit score or creditworthiness.

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.

What's new

• There’s now clearer guidance on what we mean by citizenship, so candidates can make the right selection.
• Candidates now see a short summary of their right to work details before they continue, so they can spot and fix errors early, without delaying the check

You can now 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.

What’s new

Until now, reference checks supported either:

• A number of references (for example, three references), or
• A time period (for example, five years of references)

These options were mutually exclusive. You can now choose what works best for your hiring needs with combined AND logic. Even if one reference covers the full five years, candidates will still need to add another reference.

This flexibility is available across all reference types and is configured directly in the package builder.

How this impacts candidates

Candidates are guided clearly through what’s required:

• If the quantity isn’t met → they’ll be prompted to add character references (if enabled).
• If the duration isn’t met → they’ll be prompted to add gap verification.
• If neither is met → they’ll be prompted to add both until all requirements are fulfilled.

This helps candidates understand what’s missing, while reducing manual follow-ups from recruiters.

Wanting to set up a combined criteria? Find out more here

Reference Smart Routing raises the bar for how employment references are completed, helping you and your candidates reach higher completion rates with fewer delays.

This release introduces a new approach to reference delivery. Instead of relying on a single contact and waiting to see if it responds, Smart Routing builds resilience into the process from the start. When we’re highly confident it will help, we automatically send reference requests to both the candidate’s chosen referee and a trusted departmental or general inbox at the same time - creating two strong paths to completion without adding any extra steps.

What you need to know

• Smart Routing is on by default for all supported Regulatory, HR and Professional reference types
• No setup or action is required from recruiters or candidates.
• We only ever contact appropriate generic or departmental inboxes (for example, admin@zincwork.com or HR@zincwork.com) - never individual email addresses. It operates fully within Zinc’s existing consent framework.

What’s new

• A smarter way to route references: When a candidate enters their referee, we check whether the employer also has a trusted departmental or general inbox within our smart routing database. If our data shows that inbox is likely to help, we send a request there at the same time as the candidate’s chosen contact.
• Trusted inboxes, chosen carefully: We don’t rely on static lists. Trusted inboxes are identified using historical reference data, including recency, frequency, completion rates, and information quality. Individual email addresses and location-specific inboxes are intentionally excluded.
• Parallel requests, faster outcomes: Both requests run in parallel. As soon as any referee completes the reference, the check is marked complete and any remaining requests quietly close in the background.
• No added candidate friction: Candidates follow the same familiar flow, we'll let them know when we are also contacting an additional reference on their behalf
• Clear visibility for recruiters: Recruiters can see both requests clearly labelled in their workflow, with completed references reflected in reports.

On the report, you may see items that we have not collected marked as 'No longer needed'. These are shown for transparency on our efforts and to ensure your records are complete. We will continue to automatically chase these items, however our Customer Success team won’t be able to manually chase them on request.

Curious how Smart Routing works in practice, the FAQs cover the details.