From offer to start date: vetting, screening and the checks nobody mentions

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Between accepting an offer in March and starting in September there is a stretch of months that feels empty. It isn't. Somewhere in it, an organisation you've never met is checking who you are, and depending on the employer that process ranges from a fortnight of tickboxes to a security clearance that takes longer than the summer.

Almost nobody warns applicants about this, so it arrives as a confusing pile of forms in June asking for addresses going back three years and the name of someone who taught you in Year 10. Here's the shape of it, roughly in the order it happens, plus the parts that actually catch people out.

Right to work: the one that's non-negotiable

Every employer must verify your right to work in the UK before you start. Not after, not in week one — before.

For most British applicants that's a passport. If yours has expired or you've never had one, the alternative is usually a birth certificate plus an official document showing your National Insurance number. If you're relying on immigration status, you'll typically be asked for a share code generated through the government's online service.

Two practical points. Check your passport now, because renewals take weeks and a peak-summer application competing with everyone's holidays is not a queue you want to be in. And you need your National Insurance number, which arrives automatically before your 16th birthday and which a striking number of eighteen-year-olds cannot locate. If you can't find it, it's on a payslip from a part-time job, in your personal tax account, or you can ask HMRC.

References

Usually two, and for a school leaver that means your school or college plus any employer you've had.

Ask your referees before you list them, and ask before the end of term. A form emailed to a sixth-form address in the second week of August, when the building is shut and your head of year is on a beach in Spain, is the single most common cause of an otherwise pointless delay. Get a personal email address for whoever's writing it.

If you've had a Saturday job, use it. An employer reference from a supermarket carries more weight than a second teacher, because it speaks to turning up on time.

Criminal record checks

Not every employer runs one; plenty do, particularly in finance, health, education, public sector and anything involving vulnerable people.

There are three levels and they're not interchangeable:

• Basic — unspent convictions and cautions only. Anyone can be asked for one, and you can apply for it yourself.
• Standard — spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings. Only for eligible roles, and only an employer can request it.
• Enhanced — everything in a standard check plus any relevant information held by police, and for some roles a check against the barred lists. Regulated activity with children or vulnerable adults.

The minimum age for any of them is 16. Fees run from roughly £21.50 for the lower levels to about £49.50 for an enhanced check, and while most employers pay, they aren't legally obliged to — check the offer letter rather than assuming.

If you have something to disclose, disclose it, early, in writing, to the recruitment contact. Two reasons. The first is practical: a conviction that would have been fine on its own becomes a serious problem when it turns up on a check you didn't mention, because you've now demonstrated the thing they were actually screening for. The second is that the rules on what has to be disclosed are genuinely complicated — spent convictions, filtering rules for old and minor offences, and youth cautions all work differently — and the recruitment team deals with this regularly and unemotionally. Nacro runs a free confidential helpline on criminal records and employment if you want advice before you say anything.

Security clearance, if you're going into defence, government or infrastructure

This is the one that can genuinely eat your summer, and it applies to a lot of engineering, defence, aerospace, nuclear, rail and civil service programmes.

BPSS — the Baseline Personnel Security Standard — is the entry level, and it's not a clearance so much as a documented identity and history check: who you are, your nationality and immigration status, a three-year employment or education history, and a basic criminal record check. Straightforward cases clear in one to two weeks; complicated ones take considerably longer.

Above that sit SC (Security Check) and DV (Developed Vetting), which are proper vetting processes involving detailed financial and personal history, and in DV's case interviews. SC commonly runs to a couple of months; DV can take the better part of a year. Higher clearances are generally transferable between employers, BPSS is not.

What this means for you in practice:

• Fill the forms in immediately. The clock starts when you return them, and the single biggest delay factor is candidates sitting on paperwork.
• The three-year history has to be continuous with no unexplained gaps. For an eighteen-year-old that's school, plus any jobs, plus every address you've lived at. Dig out dates before you start.
• Don't omit things. Vetting is substantially an exercise in checking whether what you said matches what they find. An undeclared caution, a debt, or a foreign national relative is rarely disqualifying on its own; a discrepancy is a much bigger problem.
• Your start date may move, and if clearance is pending, some employers will start you in a non-sensitive role in the meantime. Ask what happens if it isn't through by September, so you're not finding out in late August.

Credit checks, and why a bank cares

Regulated financial services employers routinely credit-check new joiners, including eighteen-year-olds with essentially no credit history. That surprises people, and it's covered along with the rest of the compliance apparatus in your contract: confidentiality, compliance and the rules that surprise people.

The short version: they're looking for undisclosed bankruptcy, county court judgments and significant financial distress, because those are considered a fraud risk in a job with access to money. Having no credit history at all is normal at your age and is not a problem. If you do have something — a defaulted phone contract, a catalogue account that went wrong — say so up front.

Occupational health, and what they can and can't ask

You'll often get a health questionnaire, sometimes an occupational health appointment, and for safety-critical roles in rail, aviation, nuclear and similar, a medical and possibly drug and alcohol testing.

The legal point worth knowing: under the Equality Act 2010, employers generally cannot ask health or disability questions before making a job offer, with limited exceptions — including where they need to know about adjustments for the assessment process itself, or where a function is intrinsic to the job. Health screening after a conditional offer is legitimate; being asked about your health at application stage generally isn't.

And the useful practical point: this stage is your opportunity to get adjustments in place for the actual job. Dyslexia software, a specific chair, adjusted hours for a medical condition, quiet space — occupational health exists to recommend those, and having them arranged before day one is far better than raising it in month four. Disclosing to occupational health does not mean disclosing your diagnosis to your manager; they advise on adjustments, not diagnoses.

Qualification checks and the results-day loop

Your offer is conditional on grades, so expect to send certificates or grade slips. Some employers verify directly with the exam boards or use a screening agency.

Keep the original certificates. You'll need them again for university enrolment, and for professional exam exemptions later — professional certifications alongside the degree covers why that matters. Scan everything the day you get it.

If your results don't land where they need to, that's its own article: missing your grades when you're holding an apprenticeship offer.

If you're still 17 on day one

Two things apply. Under-18s are "young workers" in law, with tighter limits than adults — broadly a maximum of 8 hours a day and 40 a week, longer daily rest, and a rest break after four and a half hours. Employers running school-leaver schemes know this, but it's worth being aware of if your team's culture is casual about hours.

And a handful of legal and practical things need you to be 18: some tenancy agreements can't be enforced against a minor, which is the snag covered in renting your first house at 17 or 18, and some regulated roles have their own age requirements.

The realistic timeline

For a September start, the pattern is roughly:

• March–May — offer, acceptance, contract issued
• May–June — screening pack arrives: right to work, references, DBS, history forms
• June–July — checks run; clearance-heavy employers start much earlier
• August — results confirmed, checks completed, joining instructions
• Late August — laptop, IT accounts, start-date logistics

The two things that delay people are late paperwork and unreachable referees, and both are entirely within your control. Do the forms the week they arrive, in one sitting, with your documents on the table.

Then use the rest of the summer for the thing that actually matters, which is somewhere to live — the housing scramble starts the moment results land, and it moves fast.

The one-line version

Between offer and start you'll need proof of right to work, two referees, and — depending on the employer — a DBS check, a credit check, occupational health, or full security vetting that can take months.

Check your passport is valid now, find your National Insurance number, ask your referees for personal email addresses before term ends, and assemble a three-year address and education history. Return every form the week it arrives.

And disclose anything awkward early and in writing. Almost nothing on a criminal record or a credit file is automatically disqualifying. A discrepancy between what you said and what they find very nearly is.