Checkr Content Style Guide

The content of our guide was adapted from the Mailchimp Content Style Guide, which they have generously provided as an open source reference under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For those outside of Checkr, we also invite you to use and adapt this style guide as you see fit, with the only requirement being crediting Mailchimp and Checkr.

Our brand is a strategic framework that helps us connect emotionally with our audience. It guides how we want to sound to people, and how we want them to feel about us in return.

We invite you to reference these brand tools when writing for Checkr.

We build a fairer future by designing technology to create opportunities.

It’s a single idea that serves as the foundation of all creative content for our brand.

As an adjective it means simple, transparent, unclouded. As a verb it means removing unwanted objects.

Everything we do is accessible, transparent, and open.

Our approach is to unlock potential and remove unwanted obstacles.

To us, it’s more than a word—it’s a philosophy—one that informs every decision we make, from how we look to how we speak and how we act.

Our industry needs rethinking. Background checks have traditionally been inefficient, biased, and overpriced for both u;'sers and candidates. We’re here to fix that.

We remove obstacles and unlock potential. Our products help customers be more productive, and create new opportunities for people who’ve been unfairly or unjustly kept out of the workforce.

Our platform provides customers with the competitive advantage of knowing they’ll make fairer decisions, faster, and with more clarity.

Different situations call for different approaches to communication.

We use this spectrum to help us figure out who we’re talking to, where and when we’re talking to them, and what we’re talking about.

When our goal is to engage with people’s emotions, we are more expressive—our style of communication is warmer and personal. It can even be inspiring and witty.

When our goal is to inform people or help them accomplish a task, we're more functional—our style of communication is clear, simple and direct.

We strongly believe in the principle of fairness, and we act accordingly. We believe we can contribute to making the world a fairer place.

We are built on intelligence. It powers our products, streamlines our customer’s work processes, gets them better results, allows them to make more informed hiring decisions, and guides us to acquire the knowledge necessary to create a fairer future of work.

We seek clarity in everything we do. We’re transparent about why we exist, what we value, and what our goals are. The benefits of our products are clear and we are honest when we communicate.

We are easy to talk to. Behind the innovative technology and software are the efforts of real people dedicated to disrupting and bringing a sense of humanity to an industry that is often impersonal.

What’s the difference between voice and tone?

When we speak, we always use the same voice. That’s who we are.

But our voice doesn’t always sound exactly the same: our tone changes depending on the situation.

For example, we might use a different tone of voice when chatting with a close friend than we would in a professional setting. We take people’s needs into account and adjust our tone to fit. When we speak with someone who’s happy we’ll likely use a different tone than if they were upset.

Our voice doesn’t change much, but our tone is always adapting to ensure our message is clear.

We speak with one voice. Everywhere we interact with people, at all touchpoints, our voice remains consistent.

It’s an integral part of our brand, and an accurate reflection of our brand values. Not just in how we speak, but what we speak about.

Checkr’s voice springs from our brand attributes. When we speak, these four foundational brand attributes should always be present—fair, intelligent, transparent, approachable.

“This is who we are. This is what the future of work can be.”

Content buckets are how we organize the subjects that we talk about. Each bucket is an overarching idea, inspired by our attributes (how we want people to perceive us). We use these buckets to help us come up with ideas for content.

Keeping our attributes in mind—fair, intelligent, transparent, approachable – here are some examples of content buckets for Checkr:

We want to seem: Approachable

Examples

We want to seem: Intelligent

Examples

We want to seem: Intelligent, Transparent

Examples

We want to seem: Fair, Transparent

Examples

We want to seem: Fair, Approachable

Examples

We write and build products with a person-first perspective. Being aware of the impact of your language will help make Checkr a better place to work and a better steward of our values to the world.

Whether you’re writing for an internal or external audience, it's important to write for and about other people in a way that’s compassionate, inclusive, and respectful.

Adhering to certain rules of grammar and mechanics helps us keep our writing clear and consistent.

We use a few different forms of capitalization.

Here are some words we never capitalize in a sentence:

They’re great! They give your writing an informal, friendly tone.

A fun way to add humor and visual interest to your writing.

Consider the use case, tone, and audience. Emoji may be an appropriate addition to a social media post but never use them in more functional mediums like blog or website content. Use emoji only in our most expressive tone. Use them sparingly and deliberately to support the copy, not replace it.

Spell out a number when it begins a sentence. Otherwise, use the numeral. This includes ordinals.

When starting a sentence with a percentage, temperature, time, year, or address, you don’t need to spell out the number. This same exception applies to content titles and headlines where starting the sentence with a numeral makes more sense.

Sometimes it feels weird to use the numeral. If it's an expression that typically uses spelled-out numbers, leave them that way.

Numbers over 3 digits get commas and are written in full. Abbreviate them if there are space restraints, as in a tweet or a chart:

Generally, spell out the day of the week and the month. Abbreviate only if space is an issue.

When a date appears after a month, don't add st, nd, rd, th. Only use add-ons when they precede the month (the event is on the 12th of August.)

Spell out fractions.

Use the % symbol instead of spelling out "percent."

Use a hyphen (-) to indicate a range or span of numbers.

When writing about currency, use the symbol before the amount. Include a decimal and number of cents if more than 0.

Use hyphens without spaces between numbers. Use a country code if your reader is in another country. Don't use the obsolete style with parentheses (555) 123-4567.

Use the degree symbol and the capital F abbreviation for Fahrenheit, or the capital C abbreviation for Celsius.

Use numerals and am or pm, with a space in between.

Use a hyphen between times to indicate a time period.

Specify time zones when writing something people would need to schedule.

Abbreviate time zones within the continental United States as follows:

Abbreviate decades when referring to those within the past 100 years. Use a lowercase s, and don’t use a comma.

When referring to decades more than 100 years ago, be more specific.

The apostrophe’s most common use is making a word possessive. If the word already ends in an s and it’s singular, you also add an ’s. If the word ends in an s and is plural, just add an apostrophe.

Use a colon (rather than an ellipsis, em dash, or comma) to offset a list.

You can also use a colon to join 2 related phrases. If a complete sentence follows the colon, capitalize the 1st word.

When writing a list, use the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma).

Otherwise, use common sense. If you’re unsure, read the sentence out loud. Where you find yourself taking a breath, use a comma.

Use a hyphen (-) without spaces on either side to link words into a single phrase, or to indicate a span or range.

Use an em dash (—) without spaces on either side to offset an aside.

Use a true em dash, not hyphens (- or --).

Ellipses (...) can be used to indicate that you’re trailing off before the end of a thought. Use them sparingly. Don’t use them for emphasis or drama, and don’t use them in titles or headers.

Ellipses, in brackets, can also be used to show that you're omitting words in a quote.

Periods and exclamation marks go inside quotation marks. Question marks go inside quotation marks if they’re part of the quote.

All 3 go outside parentheses when the parenthetical is part of a larger sentence, and inside parentheses when the parenthetical stands alone.

Leave a single space between sentences.

Use exclamation points sparingly, and never more than one at a time. Never use exclamation points in failure messages or alerts. When in doubt, avoid!

Use quotes to refer to words and letters, titles of short works (like articles and poems), and direct quotations.

Periods and commas go within quotation marks. Question marks within quotes follow logic—if the question mark is part of the quotation, it goes within. If you’re asking a question that ends with a quote, it goes outside the quote.

Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes.

Go easy on semicolons. They usually support long, complicated sentences that could easily be simplified. Try an em dash (—) instead, or simply start a new sentence.

Don't use ampersands as a substitute for "and." Use an ampersand only when it’s part of a company or product name, or when connecting two words that are always paired together and are meant to be read as one thing.

When referring generally to a file extension type, use all uppercase without a period. Add a lowercase s to make it plural.

When referring to a specific file, the filename should be lowercase:

The first time you mention a person in writing, refer to them by their first and last names. On all other mentions, refer to them by their first name.

Capitalize the names of departments and teams (but not the word "team" or "department").

Capitalize individual job titles when referring to a specific role. Don't capitalize when referring to the role in general terms.

Spell out all city and state names. Don’t abbreviate city names. On first mention, write out United States. On subsequent mentions, US is fine. The same rule applies to any other country or federation with a common abbreviation (European Union, EU; United Kingdom, UK).

Capitalize the names of websites and web publications. Don’t italicize.

Avoid spelling out URLs, but when you need to, leave off the http://www.

Honor companies’ own names for themselves. Go by what’s used on their official website. Refer to a company or product as “it” (not “they”).

Write in plain English so your message is clear. If you need to use a technical term, briefly define it so everyone can understand.

Use italics to indicate the title of a long work (like a book, movie, or album) or to emphasize a word.

Use italics when citing an example of an in-product Checkr element, or referencing button and navigation labels in step-by-step instructions:

Don’t use underline formatting, and don’t use any combination of italic, bold, caps, and underline.

Use positive language rather than negative language. One way to detect negative language is to look for words like “can’t,” “don’t,” etc.

Every piece of content we publish has multiple supporting pieces. This section lays out our style for these web elements.

Alt text is a way to label images, and it's especially important for people who can’t see the images on our site. Alt text should describe the image in a brief sentence or two.

CTA (button) copy should always include verbs. Keep things clear and concise, and use sentence case. Brevity is important.

Standard website buttons include:

Use sentence case for checkboxes.

Use title case for menu names and sentence case for menu items. Use all caps sparingly for qualifiers or tags where applicable.

Headings and subheadings organize content for readers. They should include the most relevant keywords and cover/highlight the main point(s) of the page.

Provide a link whenever you’re referring to something on an external website. Use links to point users to relevant content and trusted external resources.

Don’t include preceding articles (a, an, the, our) when you link text. For example:

If a link comes at the end of a sentence or before a comma, don’t link the punctuation mark.

Don’t say things like “Click here!” or “Click for more information” or “Read this.” Write the sentence as you normally would, and link relevant keywords.

Links should look different than regular copy, strong text, or emphasis text. They should have a hover state that communicates they’re interactive, and should have a distinct active and visited state. When setting the hover state of links, be sure to include focus state as well, to help readers using assistive technologies and touch devices.

Use lists to present steps, groups, or sets of information. Give context for the list with a brief introduction. Number lists when the order is important, like when you’re describing steps of a process. Don’t use numbers when the list’s order doesn’t matter.

If one of the list items is a complete sentence, use proper punctuation and capitalization on all of the items. If list items are not complete sentences, don’t use punctuation, but do capitalize the first word of each item.

Use title case for main or global navigation. Use sentence case for subnavigation. Navigation links should be clear and concise.

Titles organize pages and guide readers. A title appears at the beginning of a page or section and briefly describes the content that follows. Titles also tell search engines what a page is about, and show up in search results.

Titles are written in title case. Don’t use end punctuation in a title unless it is a question, or it consists of two or more sentences.

We’re always working to make our content more accessible and usable to the widest possible audience.

Writing for accessibility goes way beyond making everything on the page available as text. It also affects the way you organize content and guide readers through a page. Accessibility includes users of all mental and physical capacities, whether situational (broken glasses!) or more permanent.

We write for a diverse audience of readers who all interact with our content in different ways. We aim to make our content accessible to anyone using a screen reader, keyboard navigation, or Braille interface, and to users of all cognitive capabilities.

As you write, consider the following:

Many of the best practices for writing for accessibility echo those for writing educational content, with the added complexity of markup, syntax, and structure.

Avoid directional instructions and any language that requires the reader to see the layout or design of the page. This is helpful for many reasons, including layout changes on mobile.

Headers should always be nested and consecutive. To help group sections, be sure the page title is H1, top-level sections are H2s, and subsequent inside those are H3 and beyond. Avoid excessive nesting.

Put the most important information first. Place similar topics in the same paragraph, and clearly separate different topics with headings.

Starting with a simple outline that includes key messages can help you create a hierarchy and organize your ideas in a logical way. This improves scannability and encourages better understanding.

Make true lists instead of using a paragraph or line breaks.

Label inputs with clear names, and use appropriate tags. Think carefully about what fields are necessary, and especially which ones you mark as required. Label required fields clearly. The shorter the form, the better.

Links should provide information on the associated action or destination. Try to avoid “click here” or “learn more.”

Write short sentences and use familiar words. Avoid jargon and slang. If you need to use an abbreviation or acronym that people may not understand, explain what it means on first reference.

The alt tag is the most basic form of image description, and it should be included on all images. The language will depend on the purpose of the image:

Each browser handles alt tags differently. Supplement images with standard captions when possible.

Closed captioning or transcripts should be available for all videos. The information presented in videos should also be available in other formats.

Aim for high contrast between your font and background colors.

Images should not be the only method of communication, because images may not load or may not be seen. Avoid using images when the same information could be communicated in writing.

You’ll find the following terminology, abbreviations, and acronyms used often in our language. To make sure they’re used consistently, we’ve included our definitions and usage guidelines.

This section is organized into groups:

Below are the list of abbreviations and acronyms that are used within the background check industry. Except where noted, in most cases, we should spell out upon first use with abbreviation in parentheses, and then can use abbreviation or acronym in subsequent uses. If first use is in a headline and the abbreviation or acronym is well known (i.e. HR), we can use the shortened version).

*Always use acronym
**For a full list of HR acronyms and definitions that might be used, please refer to https://www.liveabout.com/human-resources-acronyms-1918214.

We’ve provided a ton of detail in our “How to Write for Checkr” section, but we understand not everyone needs all that, so we’ve combined the summaries from each section here.

We realize not everyone needs the level of detail we’ve included in our “Using Brand for Writing” section, and some may even find it a bit confusing. So here are the most important things you need to know about using brand for writing for Checkr:

Above all else, we are clear. Everything we say and do should be accessible, transparent, and open.

This is our core creative concept.

These are our brand attributes.

This is our tone.

This is our brand voice.

This is our brand purpose.

Rules for writing inclusively about people:

Rules for language and style. Our writing do’s and don'ts:

Rules for writing digital content:

Rules for writing inclusively for and about accessibility:

When writing for the Checkr brand, there are 4 audience groups your work could fall into. Each group has its own intended audience, tone, and messaging hierarchy.

Messaging for brand could include writing for the hero headline on our website, or a billboard. These are attention catching messages that deliver emotion, introduce us to potential new customers, and strengthen our relationship with present ones.

Who is writing?

Who is being written to?

This audience is at the awareness stage of the brand journey.

How we should sound:

Messaging for sales and marketing could be the general content on our website, one-pagers, or promotional posts. These are pieces of content that inspire as well as inform. This audience is primed to buy our service, and needs practical information and reassurance before converting.

Who is writing?

Who is being written to?

This audience is at the consideration and conversion stages of the brand journey.

How we should sound:

Messaging for help and support is to guide users through solving problems. It uses compassionate language, and can be found mostly in the help center, or learning center.

Who is writing?

Who is being written to?

This audience is at the nurturing stage of the brand journey.

How we should sound:

Messaging for product is how we communicate with people who’re already using our services. This includes content like in-product notifications, instructions, and transactional emails.

Who is writing?

Who is being written to?

This audience is at the nurturing stage of the brand journey.

How we should sound:

Customer-facing, in-product writing:

Our content guide was adapted from the Mailchimp Content Style Guide, which they have generously provided as an open source reference under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

We’d also like to acknowledge the resources Mailchimp found helpful when writing their own guide.

18F Content Guide

Buzzfeed Style Guide

A List Apart Style Guide

Accessibility Cheatsheet

18F Accessibility Guide

Designing for Screen Reader Compatibility

Accessible Color Combinations

WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

The Conscious Style Guide

GLAAD Media Reference Guide