ACCSC gets most of the attention in conversations about third-party placement verification, but it’s far from the only accreditor that cares about the integrity of employment outcomes. If your institution is accredited by COE, ABHES, or ACCET, here’s how to think about verification requirements across the three — and what they have in common.
The common thread: outcomes must be substantiated
All three accreditors tie accreditation to student achievement outcomes, with placement (or licensure/completion) rates among the headline metrics. And all three expect those rates to be supported by documentation that would survive scrutiny during an on-site evaluation or annual-report review. The practical implication is the same everywhere: if a rate is reported, the records behind it must be verifiable — and independent verification is the strongest form of substantiation available.
COE (Council on Occupational Education)
COE-accredited institutions — largely occupational and technical schools — report completion, placement, and licensure rates by program. Placement must be related to the field of instruction, which means verification needs to confirm not just that a graduate is working, but that the work relates to their training. Documentation supporting reported outcomes must be maintained and producible.
ABHES (Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools)
ABHES focuses on health education programs, where placement definitions can be nuanced — think per-diem clinical roles, registry work, and positions that require licensure. Verification for ABHES schools needs care in classifying whether employment is in the field or a related field, and the supporting documentation must align with ABHES’s annual reporting.
ACCET (Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training)
ACCET-accredited institutions document placement outcomes as part of ACCET’s completion-and-placement framework, again with the expectation that reported outcomes are accurate, documented, and verifiable on review.
Where a single verification partner fits
Schools holding multiple accreditations — or campuses across accreditors — shouldn’t run three different verification processes. A single independent partner that qualifies as an independent third party under ACCSC, COE, ABHES, and ACCET standards can verify once, to the strictest applicable standard, and produce reports formatted for each accreditor’s requirements.
Keep one eye on the standards themselves
Each accreditor publishes and periodically updates its standards, definitions, and reporting instructions — details like reporting windows and rate formulas do change. Treat this article as orientation, verify specifics against the current published standards, and lean on a verification partner that tracks those updates as part of the service.
Auxicent verifies placements for schools across all four accreditors, with year-round continuous verification and customized reporting for each. Request a demo to see how it would work for your programs.
“Verified placement” gets used loosely, but behind a defensible placement rate is a specific, repeatable process. Here’s how graduate placement data actually gets verified when it’s done properly — step by step.
Step 1: The school submits the record
It starts with the placement record from career services: graduate name, program, graduation date, employer, job title, start date, and contact information for the graduate and employer. Clean records at this stage make everything downstream faster — which is one reason submitting records soon after placement (rather than months later) matters so much.
Step 2: An auditor prepares the outreach
Before anyone picks up a phone, the auditor reviews the record: does the job title plausibly relate to the program of study? Is the contact information complete? Is the employer reachable? Preparation is what separates one respectful, successful contact from a barrage of failed attempts — it’s the idea behind Auxicent’s Single Connect™ methodology, which aims to complete the entire verification in a single well-prepared contact.
Step 3: Direct contact with the graduate and/or employer
The auditor contacts the graduate, the employer, or both, and confirms the specifics: that the graduate is (or was) employed, in what role, and how that role relates to their training. In a compliant program, every voice, chat, and SMS interaction is recorded, and supervisors monitor contact attempts for quality and compliance.
Step 4: The disposition is recorded
Every record ends up in one of a small set of dispositions, and the categories matter:
- Verified as correct — the details the school reported were confirmed.
- Verified but different — employment was confirmed, but a detail (title, employer, dates) differed and was corrected.
- Verified as not correct — the reported placement could not be substantiated.
- Unable to verify — the graduate and employer could not be reached, or the employer routes verification through a third-party service.
Honest categories — including the uncomfortable ones — are exactly what make the verified numbers credible.
Step 5: Signature capture
Where required, the verification is sealed with an attestation: an electronic signature on a custom form, or an IVR voice signature captured during the call.
Step 6: Reporting
Finally, individual dispositions roll up into detailed and summary reports that tie every percentage in an accreditation report back to a documented, auditable record. With a real-time dashboard, school leadership can watch these numbers move throughout the year instead of discovering them at reporting time — the core advantage of a Continuous Verification Program.
Curious what this looks like for your campus? Request a walkthrough of the Auxicent dashboard.
For schools accredited by ACCSC, placement rates aren’t just a marketing number — they’re a compliance obligation. And a placement rate is only as defensible as the verification behind it. Here’s a plain-English look at what ACCSC expects when a school uses a third party to verify graduate employment data.
Why third-party verification exists
Self-reported placement data has an obvious credibility problem: the school that benefits from a high placement rate is the same party collecting the evidence. Independent third-party verification solves this by putting a neutral party between the school and the data. The verifier contacts graduates and employers directly, documents what they confirm, and produces records the accreditor can rely on.
What “independent” means to ACCSC
ACCSC sets specific criteria a verification firm must meet to be considered genuinely independent — covering things like the firm’s relationship to the school, how it is compensated, how verifications are conducted and documented, and how records are retained. There are seven such requirements in ACCSC’s framework, and a school is responsible for confirming that its chosen verifier meets all of them. Auxicent meets all seven ACCSC independent auditor requirements, and also qualifies as an independent third party under COE, ABHES, and ACCET standards.
What a compliant verification looks like
- Direct confirmation. The verifier reaches the graduate, the employer, or both — not just a database lookup — and confirms the employment details behind the reported placement: employer, position, and how the role relates to the graduate’s program.
- Documentation of every attempt. Compliant programs record all contact attempts, including the ones that don’t connect. Auxicent records 100% of voice, chat, and SMS interactions, with supervisor and compliance monitoring on every attempt.
- Signatures where required. Electronic signature and IVR (voice) signature capture provide an additional layer of attestation for verified placements.
- Reproducible reporting. Detailed and summary reports must tie every number in your annual report back to individual verified records.
Common pitfalls schools run into
The problems we see most often: verification started too late in the reporting cycle (contact information has gone stale), incomplete documentation of unsuccessful attempts, and verifiers whose independence wouldn’t survive scrutiny. All three are avoidable with the right process — the first one in particular is the reason many schools move to a Continuous Verification Program that verifies placements year-round.
A note on staying current
Accreditation standards are updated periodically, and the details of reporting requirements can change between cycles. Always confirm the current requirements in ACCSC’s published Standards of Accreditation, and choose a verification partner that tracks those changes for you.
Want a verification program built around ACCSC’s requirements from day one? Talk to Auxicent’s audit team.
If your school reports placement rates to an accreditor, you already know the year-end scramble: pulling graduate records, chasing phone numbers that no longer work, and hoping every verification comes back before the reporting deadline. A Continuous Verification Program — CVP for short — replaces that scramble with a steady, year-round process.
The definition
A Continuous Verification Program is an ongoing engagement in which an independent third party verifies your graduates’ employment placements as they occur throughout the year, rather than in one batch at reporting time. Each placement your career services team records is submitted for verification while the information is still fresh, and every verification is documented with a complete audit trail.
Why timing matters so much
Verification success depends heavily on how quickly a graduate is contacted after placement. A few months after starting a job, a graduate’s phone number, email address, and employer contact are usually still accurate — and the graduate remembers the school fondly enough to pick up the phone. A year later, all of that decays. Batch verification at reporting time means working with the stalest possible contact information, which drives down completion rates exactly when the stakes are highest.
What a CVP looks like in practice
- Rolling submissions. Your placement team submits graduate records on an ongoing basis instead of once per cycle.
- Independent outreach. Trained auditors — not school staff — contact graduates and employers to confirm employment details, with every voice, chat, and SMS interaction recorded.
- Real-time visibility. A reporting dashboard shows exactly where every record stands: verified as correct, verified with differences, or still in outreach.
- Audit-ready documentation. Because verification happens continuously, an accreditor visit or annual report never catches you unprepared.
The compliance angle
Accreditors such as ACCSC, COE, ABHES, and ACCET require that placement data be verifiable, and several expect independent third-party verification. A CVP is not itself mandated — but it is the most reliable way to meet those requirements without deadline pressure, because issues are caught and corrected while they are small. You can read more about how Auxicent meets accreditor requirements, including all seven ACCSC independent auditor criteria.
Does continuous mean more work for my team?
Usually the opposite. Submitting records as placements happen spreads the workload across the year and eliminates the end-of-cycle crunch. Most schools find total effort goes down, while data quality goes up.
Getting started
Auxicent’s Continuous Verification Program is customized to each school’s programs, reporting calendar, and accreditor requirements, with dedicated auditors assigned to every campus. If you’d like to see how it works — including the live verification dashboard — request a demo.