How to vet a candidate: the conditional offer letter

To vet a candidate without losing them to a faster offer, make the offer conditional in writing and name the two checks it waits for. Then file the result of each check against the person, with a date. The two checks are a criminal record check and a qualification verification. It takes a paragraph in the letter and a folder per hire, and the checks cost less than one bad month of salary.

The reason to do it this way arrived from government in September 2026. The Department of Higher Education and Training told SAnews on 17 September that its appointment letters to SETA board members "include conditions requiring the completion of criminal-record checks and qualification verification". The department is now answering the Auditor-General's questions on exactly those appointments, on selection, eligibility and the documentation of decisions, and says it will fix whatever gaps in record-keeping the review finds. The letter was the easy part. The file is what is being audited.

Three banked pieces on this site cover vetting: the debarment register, the candidate whose ban is under appeal, and the "not charged" answer. None of them is the letter. This is.

Before you start

• The candidate's written consent to both checks. Under POPIA a person's criminal behaviour is special personal information, and section 27 allows you to process it with their consent or on a short list of other grounds. For a hiring check, written consent for a stated purpose is the ground to rely on.
• The candidate's ID number and the exact qualification claimed, including the institution and the year, copied from their CV into the file before anything is submitted.
• One person who owns the file. In a 40-person business it is usually the owner's PA or the bookkeeper, and their name goes on the folder.

Step 1: write the condition into the offer, not into an email afterwards

The offer letter carries a paragraph that says the appointment is subject to a satisfactory criminal record check and verification of the qualification named in the letter. It names the qualification. "Subject to reference checks" is not the same clause, because a reference is an opinion and a check is a record.

Step 2: state what "satisfactory" means before the result arrives

Write the standard into the file, not the letter. A conviction for what, how long ago, and does it matter for this job. A driver with a fraud conviction is a different question from a bookkeeper with one. Deciding the standard after the result comes back is how a business ends up in front of the CCMA explaining why one person was withdrawn and another was not.

Step 3: vet the candidate's record on the day the letter goes out

The check runs through the South African Police Service directly, or through a registered agency that does the fingerprinting and the submission for you. The cost and the turnaround are on the provider's page and both change, so read them on the day and write them into the file. The file records the date submitted, the reference number and the date the result came back.

Step 4: verify the qualification with the institution or an agency

A qualification verification asks the institution, or a verification agency working from the institution's records, whether the person holds what they claim. Foreign qualifications go through SAQA for evaluation. The file records the qualification as claimed, the qualification as verified, and the date. If the two differ in any word, that is the record, and the difference is what you decide on.

Step 5: set the start date after the earlier of the two results, or before it, in writing

If the person must start before the checks return, the letter says so, and it says what happens if a check fails after they have started. That clause is the one to have a lawyer read once and reuse for every hire. A person who has started work is an employee, and ending it when a check fails is a termination the CCMA can test for fairness, whatever the letter called it.

Step 6: file the results against the person, dated, with the decision

The folder for the hire holds the signed letter, the consent, both submissions, both results and a one-line decision with a date and a name. "Both satisfactory, appointment confirmed, 3 October 2026, N. Dlamini." That line is what an inspector, an auditor or a customer's supplier-vetting team asks for, and it is what DHET is now being asked to produce for every SETA appointee.

Step 7: repeat the check on a schedule for the roles that need it

A driver, a cash handler or a guard is checked again on a cycle you set, and the cycle is in the file. Our banked piece on continuous vetting sets out why, in South Africa, that is a diary and not a feed.

What breaks here

The offer that went out by WhatsApp. The candidate was told "you've got the job" in a message and the letter followed a week later with the condition in it. The condition arrived after the offer. Whether it binds is now an argument, and the file shows the message came first.

The result that never came back. The clearance was submitted, the person started, the result was not chased, and nine months later nobody knows whether it was ever satisfactory. The file has a submission date and no result date, which is the same as no check.

The qualification that is real but different. A diploma from the institution named, in a different year, or in a related subject. The verification says "differs" and the person says it was a typo. The standard from Step 2 decides it, not the conversation.

When this stops being enough

A folder per hire works to about thirty hires a year. Past that, the folders sit in three drives, the re-check diary lives in someone's head, and the one check that was never chased is the one the customer's auditor picks. At that point the check is a dated record on the person in the system that holds the roster and the payroll, with the re-check date carried forward automatically.

That is how Zorah builds it: vetting as a record per hire inside the recruitment and onboarding chain, so the people record shows the check, the date and the decision without anyone opening a folder.

On Monday, pull the file for your last three hires and look for the date each check came back. If there is a submission date and no result date, you have a letter and no check.