A recruitment agency in the Midlands recently calculated that 23% of their candidate drop-offs happened after the offer stage — when the right-to-work check finally revealed a visa issue, a sponsorship requirement, or an expired document. Each failed hire cost them an average of 11 working days and over 2,000 pounds in wasted effort.
They thought their process was solid. It wasn't. They just hadn't looked closely enough.
Here are five signs your hiring process has the same problem.
1. You ask "Do you have the right to work in the UK?" verbally
This is the most common — and most dangerous — shortcut in UK recruitment. A recruiter asks the question on a screening call. The candidate says "Yes." Everyone moves forward.
The problem: that verbal confirmation has zero legal standing. Under the GOV.UK right-to-work checks employer guide, employers must conduct prescribed checks before employment starts. When the Fair Work Agency turns up for an audit, "they said yes on the phone" is not a compliant check. It is not a document. It is not a record. It is a liability.
Worse, candidates frequently misunderstand their own status. A graduate visa holder may genuinely believe they have full right to work. A dependent visa holder may not know their work restrictions. They're not lying — they just don't know. And your process relies entirely on them knowing.
2. You check documents after the offer stage
Many businesses treat right-to-work verification as part of onboarding — something that happens after the interviews are done, the offer is made, and the start date is set.
By this point, you've invested weeks of interviewing, internal alignment, and candidate engagement. If the check fails, you absorb the full cost: recruiter time, hiring manager time, opportunity cost of a delayed start, and the emotional cost of starting over.
Moving verification to the earliest possible stage — at application or first screening — eliminates this risk entirely. If a candidate doesn't have the right to work, you find out before you've invested a single hour.
3. You've never calculated your cost-per-failed-hire
Most businesses track cost-per-hire. Almost none track cost-per-failed-hire: the total cost of candidates who enter the pipeline but can't be hired due to compliance issues discovered too late.
The number is almost always larger than people expect. Include recruiter hours, hiring manager interview time, assessment costs, background check fees, and the delay to backfill the role. For a mid-level hire, the cost of a late-stage compliance failure typically runs between 3,000 and 8,000 pounds.
If you don't know this number, you can't manage it. And you're almost certainly absorbing more of it than you realise.
4. Your audit trail is a spreadsheet
Somewhere in your business, there is a spreadsheet. It has columns for candidate name, date of birth, document type, and "checked by." It may have scanned passport copies saved in a shared drive. It may have handwritten notes.
This is not an audit trail. It's a record that you once looked at a document. It doesn't prove when the check was performed, whether the document was valid at the time, who performed the check, or whether the person presenting the document was the person it belonged to.
When the Fair Work Agency launches in April 2026 with walk-in audit powers and civil penalties of up to 60,000 pounds per illegal worker, a spreadsheet will not survive scrutiny. You need timestamped, tamper-proof, system-generated records that can be produced on demand.
5. You've never heard of the Fair Work Agency
If this is the first time you're reading about the FWA, that itself is a warning sign.
The Fair Work Agency consolidates HMRC National Minimum Wage enforcement, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority into a single body. It launches in April 2026. It has walk-in audit powers. It can issue civil penalties of up to 60,000 pounds per offence and pursue criminal prosecution with sentences of up to five years.
This isn't a distant regulatory change. It's weeks away. Businesses that haven't prepared — that are still running verbal checks, post-offer verification, and spreadsheet audit trails — are exposed.
Read our full breakdown: The Fair Work Agency: What Every UK Business Needs to Know Before April 2026.
Closing the Gap
Every one of these signs points to the same underlying problem: right-to-work verification happens too late, relies too heavily on trust, and produces records that won't survive scrutiny.
Certifyd moves verification to the front of the process. Pre-screen compliance status at application stage. Get audit-ready records automatically. Know before you invest — not after.
See how Certifyd transforms right-to-work compliance for recruiters.