Checkr mission

A candidate story is candidate-submitted context about their arrest or conviction records and self-improvement efforts. After a candidate submits their story, you can read it in their report in the Checkr Dashboard.

Candidate stories help you comply with fair chance hiring practices and Ban the Box regulations. Some jurisdictions require you to collect relevant supplementary information from candidates during the adverse action process.

To disable candidate stories, contact Checkr.

Request a candidate story in the Checkr Dashboard

To request a candidate story, use the steps below:

1. In the Checkr Dashboard, open the candidate's report.
2. In the Actions section, select "Request candidate story."

Candidates can also submit stories without you requesting them.

The Tag field on the Candidates page shows who you asked for additional information and who submitted it. Checkr uses the tags below:

• candidate-story-requested
• candidate-story-submitted

Notifications

To set notifications for candidate story submissions, use the Account page. By default, your adjudicators receive notifications for candidate stories submitted before the pre-adverse action process begins.

To manage candidate stories you receive, you can make an account for your adjudicators to share:

1. Create a new user with an adjudicator role.
2. Set the new user’s email address as the address for the group.
3. Set the new user to receive notifications of candidate story submissions.

After submission, the story and supporting documents appear in the Additional Information section in their report. After you read the candidate's story, you can mark it as read.

Candidate experience

Candidates receive an email invitation to log in to the Candidate Portal and voluntarily submit additional context or supporting documents.

In the Candidate Portal, the candidate selects "Share your story." The candidate then provides general information or context for a specific record and submits documents.

The Candidate Portal clearly states to candidates that you, decide whether to review submissions and Checkr doesn't guarantee that you will.

At Checkr, we believe people with records should be able to leave their pasts behind.

Fair chance hiring is the practice of hiring people with arrest or conviction records. Fair chance hiring offers everyone an equal chance at suitable jobs, regardless of background. Fair chance hiring helps you find skilled, varied workers with different experiences, who boost diversity and business success.

Fair chance dashboard

The fair chance dashboard appears only if you use Checkr for employment purposes, not for business, insurance, or housing purposes.

You can access your organization’s fair chance dashboard from the "Fair chance" page of your Checkr Dashboard. This page has education, hiring-related analytics for organizations that have data, and other resources.

The data in this dashboard appears for admin users and other roles that have explicit permission to access analytics in the Checkr Dashboard.

Analytics

The analytics below don't appear for all customers. The data your organization has determines which analytics appear.

Adverse action rate bar chart

The three-bar chart compares your rate of adverse actions to organizations that order a comparable number of background checks each year.

Your adverse action rate is the total candidates your organization initiated adverse action for, divided by the total reports that have the Consider outcome.

"Average" is the adverse action rate of the 50th percentile for your group of similar-size organizations.

"High fair chance" is the adverse action rate of the top 10% of similar-size organizations with the lowest adverse action rates.

Fair chance opportunity metric breakdown

This section shows the total candidates who received adverse action in the past year and shows candidates in four charge categories:

• Pending charges: No official guilty or not-guilty decision exists, and the case is ongoing.
• Petty charges: Petty charges are the least severel, might not be serious in nature, and might not be relevant to your business or job type.
• Charges over seven years old: People are less likely to commit additional offenses over time. People with charges older than seven years have surpassed the statistical reoffense rate.
• Charges from when the candidates were younger than 25 years old: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) encourages considering the person's age at the time of offense when determining eligibility for candidates with records. Research about brain maturation suggests that adolescent brains continue to mature well into the 20s. Additionally, according to many world organizations, such as the United Nations, "youth" refers to people younger than 25 years old. You can consider candidates who were younger than 25 at the time of the offense as “youth.”

For more information about fair chance hiring practices, refer to Checkr's Fair Chance Mission.

At Checkr, we believe a criminal sentence shouldn't be a life sentence to unemployment. We believe that the past shouldn't limit human potential, and we work to expand people’s opportunities.

To promote our mission of fair chance hiring, we built an affordable expungement process for candidates with certain eligible charges in California.

What are expungements?

Expungements seal, or remove criminal charges from, a public record. The factors below affect the availability of expungements:

• Jurisdiction of the initial charge
• Charges from multiple jurisdictions
• Charge type and severity
• How long ago the charge happened
• Rehabilitation procedures and opportunities
• Fines and fees for the charges and potential expungements

Some states have mandatory expungement policies for certain charges. Many candidates and employers don't know about these policies and don’t know which charges qualify.

Checkr supports expungement services in the ways below:

• Identify potentially expungeable records for certain charges in California.
• Help candidates through the expungement petition process.

Expungements in California

Checkr identifies records

Checkr helps both customers and candidates identify which records might qualify for expungement:

• For customers: The Checkr Dashboard identifies potentially expungeable records.
• For candidates: For potentially expungeable records for certain charges in California, Checkr takes the actions below:
  • Checkr contacts candidates directly by email and text message.
  • The Candidate Portal identifies the record.

After Checkr identifies candidates with charges in California that are eligible for expungement, Checkr refers them to Avenues Legal LLP. Avenues Legal LLP is a law firm in California that evaluates candidate eligibility and processes expungement petitions. All service costs go to Avenues Legal LLP.

The expungement process has the steps below:

1. Checkr notifies the candidate that they have a potentially expungeable record.
2. If the candidate wants an expungement, they complete a questionnaire in the Checkr Candidate Portal to determine whether the record qualifies.
3. If the record qualifies, Checkr passes the information below to Avenues Legal LLP:
   • The candidate’s contact information
   • The candidate's eligible charge information
   • The underlying background check report
4. The candidate chooses whether to pay the legal and processing fees for filing their petition.
5. Avenues Legal LLP creates and files the candidate’s petition and communicates results.
6. Checkr emails the candidate with the expungement decision.

California data access expungement legislation

In July 2023, California enacted California Senate Bill 731 (CA SB 731). California is the first state to allow most old convictions on a person’s criminal record to be permanently expunged. The law also expands the list of convictions eligible for expungement. 

Checkr’s policy team tracks expungement legislation to ensure that implementation doesn't limit court access to records for background checks.

Get involved

Checkr wants to partner with nonprofits, government entities, and companies to sponsor expungements so more candidates benefit from a clear record. To learn more, contact expungements@checkr.com.

This article explains some differences between Checkr's discontinued positive adjudication matrix (PAM) and Assess Lite.

Labels

The magenta Consider label is now an orange Review label.

A new Eligible label applies for reports with records that don’t disqualify a candidate. Assess Lite hides Eligible records by default. You can expand Eligible records as needed.

Candidate list

The Status column shows the stage of the invitation, such as sent, pending, or complete. The report result determines which label the Assessment column shows:

• Clear
• Eligible
• Review

Report

After you enable Assess Lite, a broad definition appears with each charge. When Assess Lite labels a record Eligible, it explains why.

Guidelines

Quickstart templates

With quickstart templates, you can select from five common adjudication guidelines to help expand your hiring funnel and encourage fairness:

• Non-convictions
• Non-felony marijuana possession
• Non-felony drug possession & paraphernalia
• Vehicles and traffic events not resulting in death or DUI
• Less-than-misdemeanor severity

Lookback period guidelines

With lookback period guidelines, you can do the tasks below:

• Specify lookback period years for the Statutory category and its seven subcategories across three severities:
  • Less-than-misdemeanor
  • Misdemeanor
  • Felony
• Bulk edit by the subcategories below:
  
  • Custody & Support
  • Public Nuisance
  • Safety & Zoning
  • Fish & Game
  • Animal Ordinances
  • Gambling
  • Miscellaneous Citations

Review guidelines & download

After you set your guidelines, you can save and publish them as usual. You can download your guidelines in a CSV file in the Review section.

Adjust how Eligible records appear

You can set whether and how Eligible records appear. Assess Lite hides these records by default.

Review and set Assess Lite guidelines

Assess Lite compares your guidelines to state or county criminal records in a candidate's report. Assess Lite then assigns your eligibility label to each individual record. 

Review Assess Lite guidelines

Quickstart guidelines

Assess Lite helps you with starter guidelines that align with best practices and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance for considering criminal records. These guidelines apply to all records.

Records that searches find in the categories you select have the Eligible status.

Quickstart templates have the sections below:

Set your Assess Lite guidelines

Determine how to show Eligible records

You can set how the Checkr Dashboard shows records that your guidelines assess as Eligible. The settings below that you enable apply to all assessed records for your account.

• Show Eligible records with an icon: The locations below show records assessed as Eligible:
  • Candidate Portal
  • Checkr API
  • Checkr Dashboard
  • Report PDF
• Hide Eligible records in the Dashboard: By default, you have to select "Show more" in the Checkr Dashboard to show records with the Eligible status. Records with the Eligible status appear in the locations below:
  • Candidate Portal
  • Checkr API
  • Report PDF
• Remove Eligible records: No location below shows records assessed as Eligible:
  • Candidate Portal
  • Checkr API
  • Checkr Dashboard
  • Report PDF
• Hide Eligible records from pre-adverse action: When you begin the adverse action process, you can't select records assessed as Eligible to include in the pre-adverse action notice.
• Auto-engage candidates with Eligible records: Automatically engage candidates whose reports are assessed as Eligible.

Add new Assess Lite guidelines

Assess Lite guides you through adding Checkr-designed quickstart templates.

Select Add to automatically assess those records as Eligible.

Review previous guidelines

You can review the settings for each published version of your guidelines.

In a guideline, open the menu and select View Versions. A window shows all published versions of the guideline with the user name and publication date.

Checkr offers Assess Premium to help streamline your team’s adjudication process by manually defining rules for evaluating records that searches find. 

First, you set powerful and flexible adjudication rules. Based on your rules, Assess Premium assigns a status to records in the completed reports. You can then focus on reviewing reports that need your attention.

Customized, role-based adjudication rules

Customize adjudication rules for any role based on the information below:

• Age of the record
• Candidate's age at the time of offense
• Disposition
• Frequency of record type
• Record severity
• Record type

More efficient adjudication

Assess Premium can help reduce the number of reports that need manual review by up to 90%.

Filtering records based on the rules your adjudicator sets can reduce your time manually reviewing reports by up to 80%.

Risk mitigation

Assess Premium helps you standardize eligibility decisions for your candidate pool. By setting your rules to show only the records you care about, you can reduce the risk of human error and bias. Targeted and consistent review processes help you with the tasks below:

• Help demonstrate your compliance.
• Make informed decisions about your policies based on real data.

Assess Premium doesn't replace your compliance program, particularly your background check review and adjudication practices. Assess Premium applies your defined rules to records to help your review and adjudication practices.

As a consumer reporting agency, Checkr doesn't adjudicate records for you. You should consult your legal counsel about which Assess Premium settings best fit your needs, including the topics below:

• How to apply your company’s review and adjudication practices to Assess Premium
• How your use of Assess Premium might affect your responsibilities under applicable federal and state laws

Possible report statuses for Assess Premium

When a report completes, Assess Premium compares records to your eligibility rules and assigns 1 of 3 possible statuses. The assigned status appears in the Assessment column on the Candidates page of the dashboard:

• Eligible: A situation below applies:
  • The report has no criminal history or other records.
  • The report has records that, according to your Assess Premium rules, don't require adjudicator consideration.
• Review: Your rules flagged at least one record in this report.
• Escalated: Your rules flagged at least one record in this report for detailed review.

Checkr Dashboard

Completed reports that use Assess Premium have the Complete status. Only admins and adjudicators can access record-level assessments in the dashboard.

Checkr API

A report has an overall status of Clear, Eligible, Review, or Escalated based on the searches it includes. Reports with no records have a status of Clear. 

Checkr offers Assess Standard as a more affordable version of Assess. Assess Standard helps streamline your team’s adjudication process.

First, you set powerful and flexible adjudication guidelines. Based on your rules, Assess Standard assigns a status to records in the completed reports. Reports that meet your criteria are assessed as Clear, and you can automatically engage those candidates. You can then focus on reviewing reports that need your attention.

Customized, role-based adjudication guidelines

Customize adjudication guidelines for any role based on the information below:

• Age of the record
• Candidate's age at the time of offense
• Disposition
• Record severity
• Record type

More efficient adjudication

Assess Standard can help reduce the number of reports that need manual review by up to 70%.

Filtering records based on the guidelines your adjudicator sets can reduce your time manually reviewing reports by up to 70%.

Risk mitigation

Assess Standard helps you standardize eligibility decisions for your candidate pool. By setting your rules to show only the records you care about, you can reduce the risk of human error and bias. Targeted and consistent review processes help you with the tasks below:

• Help demonstrate your compliance.
• Make informed decisions about your policies based on real data.

Assess Standard doesn't replace your compliance program, particularly your background check review and adjudication practices. Assess Standard applies your defined guidelines to records to help your review and adjudication practices.

As a consumer reporting agency, Checkr doesn't adjudicate records for you. You should consult your legal counsel about which Assess Standard settings best fit your needs, including the topics below:

• How to apply your company’s review and adjudication practices to Assess Standard
• How your use of Assess Standard might affect your responsibilities under applicable federal and state laws

Possible report statuses for Assess Standard

When a report completes, Assess Standard compares records to your eligibility guidelines and assigns a status. The assigned status appears in the Assessment column on the Candidates page of the dashboard:

• Clear: The report returned no results.
• Eligible: The report returned no records that would make the candidate ineligible.
• Review: At least one record in this report needs evaluation based on your guidelines.

This article explains some differences between Checkr's discontinued positive adjudication matrix (PAM) and Assess Standard.

Labels

The magenta Consider label is now an orange Review label.

A new Eligible label applies for reports with records that don’t disqualify a candidate. Assess Standard hides Eligible records by default. You can expand Eligible records as needed.

Candidate list

The Status column shows the stage of the invitation, such as sent, pending, or complete. The report result determines which label the Assessment column shows:

• Clear
• Eligible
• Review

Report

Select a record to read a broad definition of it. When Assess Standard labels a record Eligible, it explains why.

Guidelines

Quickstart templates

With quickstart templates, you can select from 13 common adjudication guidelines to help expand your hiring funnel and encourage fairness.

Lookback period guidelines

With lookback period guidelines, you can do the tasks below:

• Set your criteria for less-than-misdemeanor records.
• Identify records in each subcategory.
• Bulk edit by category or bulk upload using a CSV.
• Specify lookback period years for up to 55 subcategories.

Review guidelines & download

After you set your guidelines, you can save and publish them as usual. You can now download a guideline PDF in the Review section.

Adjust how Eligible records appear

You can set whether and how Eligible records appear. Assess Standard hides these records by default.

Effective 6/27/23, the Positive Adjudication Matrix (PAM) will be discontinued and replaced with a new and improved adjudication product called Assess Standard. Current PAM customers will be migrated automatically to a free trial of Assess Standard.

Assess Standard brings an easier-to-use interface, more granular control, and the addition of 13 templated guidelines to maximize candidate throughput. Assess Standard also reduces reports requiring review up to 70%, getting your team the results they need even quicker.

The Checkr team will be migrating all current customer PAM settings directly to Assess Standard so existing adjudication processes will not be impacted. There is no action required by Checkr customers.

Read below for answers to common questions about the migration.

Why is this migration from the Positive Adjudication Matrix (PAM) happening?

The new adjudication solution, Assess Standard, addresses feature gaps in the PAM product and provides a superior self-service user experience.

Is this migration going to mess up our existing adjudication settings?

No, not at all! Our team will be careful porting over all existing settings for a seamless transition. As the migration date gets closer, we will also provide educational resources to make sure you feel equipped with the new product.

I have a question about the migration; who should I contact?

Reach out to your assigned Customer Success Manager (CSM). The initial email you received announcing the migration came from your CSM, so simply reply to that email with any questions. If you don’t have an assigned CSM, contact Checkr Customer Support.

What happens when my free trial of Assess Standard expires?

You will receive a head’s up 30+ days before your trial ends with details about the cost of Assess Standard and your options to continue or opt out of the product.

What’s better about Assess Standard?

It’s the future of your adjudication at Checkr and built off the Assess Premium framework, which has been our gold standard adjudication optimization offering since 2020.

Customers with Assess Standard are seeing 20% fewer reports requiring review compared to PAM, meaning you’re spending less time looking at reports and more time getting candidates through the funnel. Overall Standard users see a 70% reduction in reports requiring review over no adjudication solution.

Assess Standard also brings 13 templated guidelines with turn-key, fairness/compliance settings. These guidelines will not only help you expand your top-of-funnel but also increase fairness through your policies. We recommend you discuss with your legal counsel what fits your compliance needs. With Asses Standard, your team will be able to hone in on their adjudication settings significantly more effectively than PAM.

Approaches to mitigate Clean Slate-related data limitations

Clean Slate + government policy

Michigan implementation of Clean Slate

Inaccessible Counties