Education verification
Confirm a candidate’s degree, diploma, or certificate directly with the institution that issued it. Every call, email, and response is recorded in dated notes on the report, so you always know exactly where a verification stands and why.
Education verification
What an education verification confirms
- The institution the candidate attended
- The credential awarded: degree, diploma, or certificate
- Field or programme of study
- Dates of enrolment, and date of completion or graduation
- Whether the credential was actually conferred, as distinct from attended but not completed
To start one, you need the candidate’s name and email address. The candidate supplies their own education details, so you do not have to transcribe anything off a résumé.
Education verification or credential verification?
These get confused constantly and they answer different questions.
Education verification
Confirms an academic credential with the institution that awarded it. A degree, a diploma, a certificate.
Source: a university, college, or school registrar.
Credential verification
Confirms a professional licence or certification with the body that issues and maintains it. A nursing licence, a security guard licence, a trade certification, a professional designation.
Source: a regulator or professional association, and it also tells you whether the credential is currently valid, which a degree never expires and so never needs.
If the role requires a licence to practise, you want credential verification. If the role requires a qualification, you want education verification. Some roles need both.
Credential verificationHow it works
You send the request
Candidate’s name and email. Under a minute.
The candidate supplies their education details
Institution, programme, dates, and any student or reference number the school will need. They also provide consent, and where the institution requires it, a signed authorization.
We contact the institution directly
Not a database lookup. The verification is made with the registrar or the institution’s designated verification service.
You get the result, and the record of how we got it
Degree, institution, and enrolment dates are each confirmed or not, and the report carries dated notes of every contact attempt and every response along the way.
Throughout, you can see where it is. Waiting on the candidate, waiting on the institution, or waiting on an authorization form is a different problem with a different fix, and you should not have to guess which one you have.
Called · Emailed · Faxed · Verified
We do the chasing.
You see all of it.
The credential is settled the day it is conferred. Reaching the registrar who can confirm it is the part that varies. Some institutions answer the same day. Some need a phone call in another time zone. One told us the only method they accept is a fax, so we sent a fax. Every attempt is dated on the report.
Confirmed at the source,
not inferred.
Any institution, anywhere
Wherever a candidate studied, we verify the credential with the institution that issued it. Not a database of Canadian and American schools with everything else returned as unverifiable.
That means the work looks different every time. Some institutions use an online verification service and confirm the same day. Some need a phone call placed into another time zone. Some have no verification system at all, so the check is completed manually with the registrar. One institution told us the only method it accepts is a fax, so we sent a fax.
This is why turnaround varies between one verification and the next, and it is why every attempt is written down on the report as it happens.
- A university in Adelaide, confirmed by a named records officer after the online database proved unreachable
- A college in Ontario, confirmed the same day through its verification service
- A university in Algiers, reached by fax after calls and emails went unanswered
Institution and candidate details omitted. Each of these appears in full, with dates, in the notes on the report the client received.
What we do when an institution is hard to reach
Education verification is the least predictable check in screening, and the reason is worth understanding: it depends on an institution responding, and institutions vary enormously in how they handle these requests.
Some universities return a confirmation the same day through an automated verification service. Others route it through a registrar’s office that processes requests weekly. That variance is not a platform problem and no provider can engineer it away. What we can do is tell you exactly what a verification is waiting on.
The wet ink signature problem
Some institutions will not release a student’s information without a signed authorization form from the former student. Not an electronic consent, not a checkbox. A physical signature, in ink, on their own form.
When that happens, the candidate has to print the form, sign it, scan or photograph it, and return it. Then the institution processes it. That can add days, occasionally longer, and it is entirely outside anyone’s control except the institution’s.
This is not a technology limitation. It is a small number of registrars who have not moved to electronic consent, and it is slowly changing. Until it does, it is a real part of how education verification works in Canada and abroad.
When an institution requires a wet signature, the candidate is told immediately with clear instructions, and your dashboard shows the verification as waiting on candidate authorization rather than sitting in a generic “in progress” state. You know why it is slow, which means you can decide whether to chase the candidate, proceed on other checks, or wait.
Institutional processing times
Even without a signature requirement, registrars set their own pace.
- Small institutions may have one person handling every verification request
- Convocation and enrolment peaks slow everything down
- Some will not begin until their fee is paid, which we handle rather than passing to the candidate
Closed institutions and archived records
Schools close, merge, and change names, so the record has to be traced before it can be confirmed.
- Records transfer to a successor institution, a provincial ministry, or an archive
- Credentials from before digitisation may exist only on paper
- Where no record can be located, we report that rather than leaving it unexplained
Access fees, published in advance
Many institutions charge a fee to release verification information. This is not a Credibled charge, it is the institution’s, and it varies from school to school.
We publish these before you order rather than surprising you afterwards.
See published access feesWhere access fees apply
What the result actually says
An education verification checks three things independently, and the report tells you which of them came back:
Because they are separate, the outcome is not a simple yes or no.
All three confirmed by the institution: the degree, the institution itself, and the enrolment dates.
Some confirmed, some not. In one case the institution confirmed attendance and enrolment dates but said the credential title was different. You see which part did not match, and what the institution says it should be.
The institution responded and had no record matching the information provided. That is a finding, not a failure to reach them.
No answer. The institution did not respond, or the record could not be reached. Not the same as no record existing, and the report never conflates the two.
That last distinction matters more than any other on this page. An unresponsive registrar and a missing record are completely different findings, and treating them the same would mislead you about a candidate.
You see every step, not just the outcome
Every verification carries a running set of dated notes recording exactly what was done and when. Not a status bar. The actual actions.
Real examples of what appears in the notes:
- The date the institution was first contacted, and by what method
- Each follow-up: second call, follow-up email, message left with a callback number
- What the institution said when they responded, and who said it. Notes routinely name the person at the registrar’s office who confirmed the record.
- When an institution requires a different method entirely. On one international verification, after calls and emails went unanswered, the institution’s own stated requirement was a fax, so a fax was sent.
- When the institution has no accessible database and the verification has to be completed manually
- When we give up on the institution and go back to the candidate for documentation, and a note stating plainly that candidate-supplied documents have not been authenticated by us
When a hiring manager asks why a verification is taking two weeks, you do not have to guess or ask us. You can read what happened on each of those days. And if a hiring decision is ever questioned, the notes are the record of what was done to establish the facts.
Called the registrar’s office at +1 555 0184. No answer. Verification request emailed with the candidate’s signed consent attached.
Second call placed. Message left with a callback number. Follow-up email sent to the verification address on the institution’s website.
Institution advised that a signed authorization on their own form is required before any record can be released. Electronic consent not accepted. Form and instructions sent to the candidate.
Signed authorization received from the candidate and forwarded to the registrar’s office.
Credential confirmed by Sarah Connor, Records Officer, at the registrar’s office. Degree, institution, and enrolment dates all match the information provided.
Pricing
Pay per check. No subscription, no minimum volume, no platform fee, no annual contract. Your exact pricing appears in your account during signup, before you create anything.
Institution access fees are separate, published in advance, and appear on your invoice as pass-through charges.
Pass-through access feesRegistered non-profits and eligible Canadian startups get programme rates applied automatically at signup.
See your pricingSecurity and data handling
Credibled’s platform is hosted in Canada. Candidates consent before anything is submitted, and every verification is logged in your audit trail with who requested it, when, and who viewed the result.
For data processing agreements, subprocessors, retention periods, and certifications, see the Trust and Security Centre.
Trust and Security CentreWhat employers usually run alongside this
Education verification is rarely ordered on its own. Three checks come up most often with it, and each answers a different question.
Employment verification
The most common pairing by a distance. Education tells you what a candidate studied. Employment verification confirms where they have actually worked and in what role, directly with the employer. Most résumé discrepancies surface in one or the other.
Employment verificationCredential verification
If the role requires a licence to practise, a degree is not enough. Credential verification confirms the licence or certification with the body that issues it, including whether it is currently valid. More on the difference above.
Credential verificationCanadian criminal record check
Searched against the RCMP National Repository through an accredited police partner, returned in about 15 minutes, with identity verification included in the price.
Criminal record checksOne request, one dashboard, one invoice. Add or remove checks per candidate.
See all check typesEducation verification questions, answered
How it works
What is an education verification?
What do I need to start one?
Is this a database search?
Can you verify international qualifications?
Can I run education verification through the API?
How long it takes
How long does an education verification take?
Why do some institutions need a signed form from the candidate?
What happens if the candidate does not return the authorization form?
What happens if the institution never responds?
What happens if the institution has closed?
Reading the result
What are the possible outcomes of an education verification?
What if the result does not match what the candidate told me?
Can I see what was actually done to verify a credential?
Scope and cost
What is the difference between education verification and credential verification?
What other checks do employers usually run with education verification?
Are there extra fees?
Confirm the qualification with the people who issued it.
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