“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.