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Part 5 of 7 · Background check chaser series ~5 min read

How the chasing picks its target

This is the part that makes the system worth having rather than merely tidy. Chasing is easy to do and almost always aimed at the wrong person, which converts a process problem into a relationship problem with somebody who has not started yet.

Key takeaways

  • Chase the party who owns the item, which for a reference is the referee.
  • A reference chase is short, names the candidate, and makes replying trivially easy.
  • Escalation goes sideways — to an alternative referee — before it goes anywhere else.
  • The candidate is told what is happening, but is never the target of a chase they cannot act on.
  • An agency is chased with the reference number, because that is the only thing they can act on.

Who owns which item

How chasing is routed to the party who owns each checkThree boxes across the top outside the AWS account. The referee, who owns a reference. The agency, which owns a disclosure. And the candidate, who owns their own documents. Inside the account, three components. Owner lookup, which finds the owner per item from the check list. Chase builder, which writes something short, specific and easy to answer. And Sideways escalation, which goes to a second referee rather than to a manager. Arrows show each party returning what only they can produce. A note says the candidate is kept informed and is never chased about somebody else's item.AWS ACCOUNTThe refereeowns a referenceThe agencyowns a disclosureThe candidateowns their own documentsOwner lookupper item, fromthe check listChase buildershort, specific,easy to answerSideways escalationa second referee,not a managerthe referencethe certificatetheir documentsThe candidate is kept informed and is never chased about somebody else's item.
Fig 1. Who gets chased about what. The candidate appears in this diagram as an owner of their own documents only, which is the entire point.
  • Management
  • Analytics
  • People
  • Outside AWS

What a reference chase says

Four lines, and no more

  • Line one. Who and why. “We asked you for a reference for Kwame Osei on 2 July.”
  • Line two. What is needed. “Three questions, about two minutes.”
  • Line three. One link, going straight to a form with the candidate’s details already filled in. No login.
  • Line four. An out. “If you are not the right person, reply and tell us who is.”
  • Nothing else. No deadline framed as urgency, no company boilerplate, no compliance language, and no chasing tone. A referee is doing you a favour.

The fourth line earns its place surprisingly often. A large proportion of unanswered reference requests are sitting with somebody who left, moved team, or was never the right contact, and giving them a one-line way to say so is faster than any number of reminders to a person who cannot help.

Sideways, not upward

The instinct with an unresponsive referee is to escalate: chase harder, involve the candidate, tell a manager. All three make things worse. The referee does not work for you, the candidate cannot compel them, and nobody at your end has any leverage.

How an unanswered reference request is escalated sidewaysA vertical chain of four steps entered by a box labelled Reference not back, past the median. Step one chases the referee with something short carrying one link; a reply exits to Replied and the item arrives. Step two asks whether it is still silent after five days, exiting to Try a second address if the candidate supplied one. Step three asks again after five more days, involving the candidate to ask for an alternative referee, and exits to New referee, which is a fresh item with a fresh clock. Step four tells whoever is hiring, with the dates. A note says the third step replaces the item rather than pushing harder on a dead one.AWS ACCOUNTReference not backpast the medianChase the refereeshort, one linkReplieditem arrivesyesStill silent?after 5 daysTry a second addressif the candidate has oneyesStill silent?after 5 moreThe candidateasked for an alternativeNew refereea fresh item, fresh clockyesTell whoever hireswith the datesThe third step replaces the item rather than pushing harder on a dead one.
Fig 2. The escalation ladder for an unresponsive referee. The useful move is to replace the item, which resets the clock honestly rather than pretending a silent request is nearly done.
  • App integration
  • Machine learning
  • Management
  • Analytics
  • People

Asking the candidate for an alternative referee is the one moment they are involved, and the framing matters: it is not “your referee is not replying, sort it out”, it is “we have not been able to reach X — is there somebody else who could speak to that role?” The first version makes their new employer’s onboarding feel like a problem they caused. The second is a normal request.

Chasing an agency

Different in tone and much simpler. An agency has a case reference and a queue, and the only thing that moves either is a specific enquiry quoting the reference. So an agency chase is one line with the reference number and the submission date, sent to whatever address they publish, and repeated at a cadence that matches their stated turnaround rather than your impatience.

The one genuinely useful escalation with an agency is the median: “submitted on the 4th; your published turnaround is fourteen days and our last six have averaged twenty-two.” That is a factual sentence, it is frequently news to the person reading it, and it is only available because the system has been recording durations all along.

Next: what all of this costs to run.

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