The candidate is ready. The school is waiting. Somewhere in a headteacher's inbox is an email that hasn't been opened in five days.
Reference chasing is one of the most frustrating parts of education recruitment. Not because it's difficult, but because it's completely outside your control. You can do everything right and still spend two weeks waiting on someone who has no idea your placement is on hold.
I spent seven years on the agency side chasing references manually. Here's what I learned.
Why references don't come back
Most referees aren't ignoring you. The email got buried, they meant to do it, or they're not quite sure what you want from them.
There's also something that doesn't get talked about enough: a referee for a popular candidate might be getting the same request from two or three agencies at once, all in different formats, all from people they don't know. From where they're sitting it looks like the same task asked multiple times with no clear reason to do any version of it. The whole thing goes in the "deal with later" pile.
School-based referees (which in education recruitment means most of them) are managing this on top of a full school day. A headteacher who hasn't responded to your email isn't being obstructive. They're teaching, or covering, or in a meeting that ran over. Their inbox isn't organised around your placement timeline.
The way you chase should account for all of this. If you go in treating the referee like a problem to solve, you'll get worse results than if you treat them like a busy professional who needs a reason to prioritise your request.
What the first request should include
Most reference requests fail before they've started. "Please provide a reference for [candidate name]" is easy to defer because there's no cost to deferring it today.
What gets better results: name the candidate and the specific role. Give a real deadline — not "at your earliest convenience" but something like "by [date] to allow us to complete safer recruitment checks before the placement begins." Be specific about what you're asking them to do. A form with clear questions takes five minutes; a blank email asking for a letter is a task for another day. And make it easy to respond. A link to a form beats an attachment, which beats a reply-to-this-email.
The request that mentions safeguarding obligations and names a specific date gets faster responses. Education professionals know what safeguarding means. A concrete reason to act makes a difference.
How to chase references: when and what to do
Day 1: send the request. Day 3, if nothing: first follow-up. Short, assumes good intent. "Just checking this reached you" rather than "you haven't responded." One sentence and a re-link to the form.
Day 5: second chase. Name the candidate, note the deadline, offer to help if the form is unclear or if there's a better person to send it to. Day 7 is when you pick up the phone. A two-minute call shifts more than a fourth email. Most headteachers will either fill it in on the spot or tell you who you should have been contacting all along.
If you're past day ten and nothing is moving, get the candidate involved. They have a relationship with this referee that you don't. A message from the person who requested the reference often lands differently than another email from the agency.
How many times should you chase a reference before giving up? There's no hard rule, but after four attempts across two weeks with no response at all, not even an acknowledgement, it's reasonable to go back to the candidate and discuss whether this referee is likely to respond. That conversation is easier to have earlier than later.
Log every chase: date, method, what happened. You need it for your audit trail and you need it so you're not reconstructing the sequence from memory every time you pick up the thread.
Chasing school referees specifically
The school's main office number is often more useful than a direct email. If the headteacher hasn't responded, a quick call to ask whether the reference request has been received can move things in a way a fifth email won't. It's also worth copying the school's general admin inbox on follow-ups. If the named referee is hard to reach, someone in the office may be able to nudge them.
Some schools have dedicated HR or admin functions that turn these around more quickly than going direct to the head. Worth asking on first contact whether there's a better route.
Stay pleasant and easy to deal with throughout. That headteacher is probably going to be a referee for another one of your candidates in a few months.
When the reference just isn't coming
Sometimes it isn't going to. The referee has left the role, the school has a policy against providing references, or the contact details you have are out of date.
KCSiE allows for an alternative referee when the most recent employer genuinely can't be contacted, but you need to be able to show you tried. "We made three attempts over two weeks and received no response" needs to be documented somewhere, not just remembered.
When you're stuck, go back to the candidate. Can they give you a direct contact? Is there someone else at the school who could provide the reference? Is there something happening with the previous employer they can explain?
What isn't an option: starting the placement while references are still outstanding because the school needs someone on Monday. Anyone who's worked in supply recruitment knows that conversation. The pressure is real. But the compliance trail is what determines where liability sits if something goes wrong, and a missing reference is a very exposed place to be.
What reference chasing actually costs
A consultant actively placing candidates can easily spend 3-5 hours a week on reference chasing. Emails, calls, logging, re-sending forms, asking candidates to nudge people on your behalf. Across a team of ten, that's a significant amount of consultant time every week that doesn't directly place anyone.
Then there's the delay. A reference that takes twelve days instead of five is a delayed start date and a delayed fee. In supply recruitment especially, that adds up quickly.
PassQ handles the sending, the chasing, and the audit trail automatically. If you want to see what that looks like, book a demo.
The short version
Referees are busy. Some of them are getting the same request from more than one agency and don't know whose to prioritise. Give them a clear deadline, make it easy to respond, and don't wait a week before following up.
A consistent process gets references back faster than hoping for better luck.
Frequently asked questions
How long should I wait before chasing a reference? Three working days, not five or seven. Short message, assumes good intent, re-links the form. The agencies that get references back faster don't chase more aggressively. They start earlier.
How many times should you chase a reference before giving up? Four attempts across two weeks with no response is where I'd go back to the candidate. Before that, try calling the school. A two-minute call on day seven moves more than a fourth email.
What should a reference chase email include? Name the candidate. Give a specific date: "We need this by [date] to complete safer recruitment checks." Re-link the form. Two sentences. The referee doesn't need your context. They need to be able to do it in under a minute.
Can the candidate help chase their own reference? Yes, and from day ten it's often the right move. The candidate has a relationship with that referee you don't. A message from the person whose placement is on hold lands differently than another email from an agency they don't know.
What do you do if a referee simply won't respond? Log every attempt with date and method, then go back to the candidate. Is there a direct contact, or someone else at the school? Under KCSiE you can use an alternative referee when the most recent employer genuinely can't be reached, but you need the paper trail first.
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