University of Nottingham

The Challenge

One of the leading employment screening providers First Advantage, first partnered with the University of Nottingham in 2016, when the higher education provider sought our expertise in student and employee vetting.  

The University welcomes thousands of new domestic and international students and staff every year, all of whom require background and DBS checks, and required nearly 4000 screens in 2024. However, the manual processes historically used for these checks were heavily reliant on paper documentation. Not only did this limitation create a significant administrative burden, but it also left exposed the institution to fraud and excessive risk.  

This was particularly challenging when managing vetting for the approximately 100 overseas students that the University hosts every year. Applicants had to provide certificates of good conduct, or equivalent documentation, from their home countries to verify their identity, background and credentials, much of which was often in foreign dialects and required translation.  

Ultimately, in this situation, the University’s recruiting teams would not know if any issues occurred, unless additional secondary processes and checks were completed, which was often a lengthy process and required juggling cross-jurisdictional red tape.  

The University’s teams were also heavily reliant on international documentation arriving by post. In certain circumstances and within specific jurisdictions, students also had to return to their home country to obtain the correct documents, which was expensive, laborious, and only added to delays in processes. Nor did this process serve to provide a positive or seamless experience for the students, which was a core focus for the University. Ultimately, this decentralised and often manual approach led to fragmentation and a lack of unity in student and staff screening processes.  

The Solution

The University of Nottingham initially partnered with First Advantage through its finance department. 

The first HR users of First Advantage’s Know Your People platform were employee-facing teams, who started running DBS checks using the online disclosure system. 

Following this, the platform was also adopted by student admissions teams operating within individual schools, with the Health Science and Medicine department being the first adopters, followed shortly after by the Dietetics department.  

The Impact

Both student administration and employee HR teams across all schools and departments have seen major improvements since the adoption of First Advantage’s Know Your People solution.  

The initial migration process to Know Your People was far smoother than University staff anticipated, despite the initial transition taking place in the summer, just ahead of the peak season for the admissions team, when they face the heaviest workloads.  

Since the platform’s adoption, users report receiving far fewer queries, and it has also sped up response times, giving students instant reactions to various queries and freeing up administrative time to be spent on other tasks. More broadly, staff have described the new process, which offers one solution for all required checks, as far ‘slicker’ and streamlined. It has enabled staff to complete more robust vetting, at a faster pace, with student checks being processed automatically once their details have been input.  

Student administration staff across the University can now also track student progress and identify any validation errors more effectively, enabling them to communicate what is required to students earlier in the process. This prevents users, particularly from overseas, from submitting information only to find that additional details are required further down the line, which can lead to delays.  

The Know Your People solution has also removed the challenges staff faced when waiting for documents to arrive in the post, while also allowing paperwork and other information to be verified automatically and online. Consequently, this makes for a more transparent process, enabling colleagues to support one another in someone’s absence. 

Linda Kelly, Placements Allocations Manager (Health Sciences), Registry and Academic Affairs at the University of Nottingham, said: 

“We have transformed our student screening by adopting First Advantage’s Know Your People solution and have gone from largely manual, paper-based processes to a far more unified, coherent, and secure system. We can now monitor checks and identify any issues earlier in the vetting process and have found the organisation to be helpful every step of the way.”