⚠️ I NO LONGER ANSWER QUESTIONS & ACCEPT MESSAGES ⚠️

As one of the PREVIOUS verifiers, this post is to address FAQ I usually see in this platform re STERLING BACKGROUND CHECK. This is for EDUCATION and EMPLOYMENT verification (for those who applied in the U.S.)

SO READ THE POST AND COMMENT SECTION.

• Clear = Pass | Consider = Discrepancy/Unable To Complete

• NEVER lie about your reference. Sterling always figures out and it will be a red flag to your application.

• NEVER list an employment/education reference if you cannot provide any documentation (i.e. W2/Paystub, Diploma/Transcript).

• As per PROOF, Sterling does not accept handwritten proofs. We only accept proofs that contain the printed company/school’s name and the applicant’s name on it (e.g. W2/Paystub/Contract Letter/Employment Letter/Invoice/1099/other tax documents).

• Acceptable proofs contain start and end date. For example: start date was Jan 2021 and end date was Jan 2022. You must provide two (2) W2s/paystubs/employment letters dated 2021 and 2022, otherwise, incomplete proofs (discrepancy).

• As per VOLUNTEER, Sterling knows that you cannot provide the “default” proof W2/Paystub but you can provide other documentations like contract/volunteer letter to prove your volunteer work.

• As per SELF-EMPLOYMENT, the default proof being asked is 1099 but you can still provide either of the sample proofs mentioned above, as long as it contains the company and applicant’s name.

• Most of the time, listed employers DO NOT RESPOND. When they do not respond, that is when the verifiers resort to proofs from the candidate. Well, it depends on the workflow provided by the client. Sometimes, verifiers do not ask for proof, it is automatically “Considered”.

• You can tick DO NOT CONTACT (for previous and current employers) if you are not confident with how the reference would adhere to the verification process, or if you think your previous employment record with them will be a red flag to your application (i.e. terminated, poor performance, and the like). This is just a friendly advice.

• Every client has their own instruction. Some require proof, some not; some allow DO NOT CONTACT, some not. But the standard (to be followed by Sterling if no instructions from the client) is DNC is allowable & proof is required if no verification was obtained.

• Speaking of SOP, the standard workflow is: 3 attempts to the employer and 2 attempts to the candidate (for either proof/additional information).

• Typically, we ask for proofs if the employer indicated that they cannot locate your records. It still depends on the workflow provided by the client. Some requests for proof, some don’t.

• Sterling uses third-party verification systems for both employment and education verification IF the company/school use it as their fulfillment method. So, Sterling will not resort to third-party without the GO signal of the company.

• Sterling verification are purely HUMAN work, not AI, except The Work Number (for employment) and National Student Clearinghouse (for education) which are automated verification systems — they store the data of the previous and current employees or students. Some third-party services are also automated, most especially for employment verifications.

• When you were asked to fill-out a Wet Signed Consent Form, SCAN it and input your signature, then send it back to the sender of the form.

• The default turnaround time is 5-7 days but it can be shorter/longer depending on the advised turnaround time of the reference itself. Some references take 10-15 days to provide verification (w/ notice).

• Do not put GAP IN EMPLOYMENT. It is automatically considered as Unable To Complete - Missing Information. Waste of time. Lol.

• Sterling verifies international files. Same procedure but may take a longer time because most overseas employers do not respond right away or provide a longer turnaround time.

• Sterling contacts the survey number you provided if it is PUBLISHED. To check if it is published, go to Google and search the phone number. If the phone number showed that it’s affiliated with the company, then it is published.

• In some cases, clients allow unpublished contact number. It always depends on the client’s instructions.

• Sterling will first attempt to the published contact number then the main company line. Take note that Sterling contacts ALL possible company listing simultaneously.

• Sterling ONLY verifies the information you put in the background check form. If they did not ask you to fill-out a background check form, then most likely, the client forwarded your resume to Sterling and it automatically lists all those information to be verified.

• You can amend the information in the background check form/resume by calling Sterling.

• Call Sterling for any query, update, or complaints. Just provide the Request ID. But I do not usually recommend this. It’s taxing, lol. Just be patient and wait for the result. If no result in two-week time, call for updates.

• Whether CLEAR/CONSIDER, it is upon the discretion of the client if they will pursue your employment or job offer. But one thing’s for sure, it will definitely affect your application or job offer. So, we do not tolerate concealment, misinterpretation and the like, if you do not want to be screwed.

• If you are still in contact with the HR or management, inform them ahead of time that a verification will be conducted. It will make the verification process quicker if they respond right away.

That’s it for my post. I’m in indefinite hiatus. Again, read the post & comments. You can also help each other.

PS: AGAIN, I am a PREVIOUS verifier. I am no longer affiliated with the company. The SOP of Sterling may change over time. These are the only processes I encountered and practiced during my employment with them.

PPS. Each Sterling verifier handles 75 files per day. So be patient and understanding. It is not easy to contact all those references in a day via emails, mails, fax, but mostly calls. They work 8 hours a day and the management sucks. They only get paid $400 a month (with overtime pay). They are also tasked to work during weekends if it’s peak season. Peak seasons are during graduation and first quarter of the year.

I WISH YOU ALL LUCK ON YOUR APPLICATIONS!!!

I recently accepted an offer for a new role at a big company, and like many people here, I was worried when my Sterling background check was flagged as 'consider', especially since I already quit my job. If you're in this position, I'm making this post to calm your nerves and tell you you shouldn't worry at all, and explain how my experience went

First and foremost, I was absolutely honest on my background check and you should be too if you haven't submitted it yet. Regardless of what you put as your job title/dates on your resume, be honest to Sterling. HR will almost never cross-check your resume with what you put into Sterling, so in order to avoid any flags on the check and get a 'clear' status, just be honest even if it doesn't match your resume.

Now, despite being honest, I ended up with 3 huge flags on my check:

1. They couldn't get in touch with a company I used to work for and therefore couldn't verify my title, dates, or even employment with them at all

2. My job title from my most recent job was reported completely wrong by my old company. The company reported a job title to Sterling that's not even in the same field as what I work in

3. My field is one you need a degree for, and Sterling said I had no college degree lmao

Now, these are what I'd consider being some pretty big flags, definitely ones I would think HR would have an issue with. But after the check was complete, I got a notification that HR approved the check with no problem. This wasn't an overlook either, this is a big company with a big, experienced HR team. I'm 90% sure they opened the check results, scrolled through the criminal history to make sure it was clean, and closed it. I never got any questions about the discrepancies and am now working this new job

So, please don't stress about small job title or date discrepancies in your Sterling background check, as you can see, even huge flags don't set off any alarms. Most employers are probably just checking they're hiring good people with clean records. Now go celebrate your new job!

My friend was fired from his last job for performance issues, however there are a number of us from there (supervisors included) who agree that his performance was fine and are willing to provide good references. The problem is that he has had several job offers fall through because new employers are only interested in what HR has to say when they call to confirm prior employment. This job provided a lot of important experience, which is why he wants to keep it on his resume.

He has had another offer come through, and this time the employer is using Sterling to conduct a criminal background check and possibly check employment history. The Sterling site requests a "complete" employment history be provided, but in the next line also states "do not list employers or people you don't want to be contacted". I've done some searching into the Sterling process and it seems like they will call the applicant to verify any discrepancies, and that usually they will request paystubs and tax forms (we're in Canada btw).

My question is: would it make sense to leave this job off the background check sheet and hope either:

A) they don't care and use his other job for reference (which he has been continuously employed at so there's no employment gap)? or

B) that they ask about the job and he can verify it with paystubs so that they don't need to contact HR?

I will say now that the HR staff at this new job aren't exactly the most attentive; they have repeatedly made mistakes when relaying information and providing documentation, and have generally slowed down the hiring process. I'm sure they're just looking to check the boxes and likely aren't too concerned with the content of the report.

Asking for a friend -- In a previous life, I had J1, J2 and J3. I still have J1 but no longer do J2 and J3. I recently got offered my dream role and they use Sterling. I applied for a role where I listed all 3 but with no overlap. How should I navigate the background check? I have it set up where I list the truth. However, will my new employer be aware if I list out the truth in my background check because I don’t want to get flag?

I have a state position which requires constant security monitoring for financials, potential criminal activity, etc..QUARTERLY!

My background is sparkling clean! Years upon years of verifiable employment!

Got a decent offer in the private sector, company is moving fast!

All I have to do is get through a Sterling background check. A mess ensues, Sterling doesn't seem to be reading the documents submitted. They ask for more information in the form of multiple W-2's.

I submit all the forms no response, days pass.

I get in touch with what must be some huge call center sweat shop. All types of random conversations going on. I'm told there was an issue with the W-2's. The employer is not identical to my department. The W-2 forms only show the States financial agency is paying me. Completely normal for the department, since its under the financial umbrella.

A completely separate state form is required to show how the financial department has oversight and why the W-2 is printed as it is! Something I submitted with the W-2's. Sterling also mentioned I need to submit proof I was promoted X times as I stated on my resume! News flash that entire official record of promotions and titles was submitted at the start!

Rather than dealing with Sterling further I sent an email to the recruiting team stating I can't deal and will apply to their competitor. A competitor that simply sends two emails verifying the last quarterly check was good and if im still employed! "Yes to both?! Welcome aboard!"

If Sterling can do this to me, it must mean they're a nightmare for people without highly verifiable positions!

What a hot mess and I'm disappointed because I really wanted to work with my former mentor, I hope she understands!

TLDR:

Sterling Background Services did a employment, criminal, and resume verification (at least from what I gather.) They kept asking for documents they didn't read or know how to make sense of. I emailed the recruiting team stating "Sterling sucks, I'm going apply to your competitor who takes a day to verify records!"

I'm sad I wont reunite with my mentor!

What does this mean? I'm really excited to start work but I'm just nervous about this one.

I listed my own business (online startup) as one employment history as it's most relevant for my job (vs side gigs I did). I told the hr person this over the phone and she said it should probably be ok and they just check if people actually work where they say they did. Sterling couldn't verify employment, because I was not an employee and though I listed letters from the secretary of state to prove it was my business.

The following is listed as result comments:

No record of the candidate's employment could be located by this service. Contact was made with the candidate requesting proof of employment. The candidate provided all the required documents to verify the claim. Document is not attached for your review as candidate has not redacted information as requested. No further information is available. Result Message: Contact was made with the candidate/client requesting proof of employment. The attached documentation was provided.

Will I be good to go or should I anticipate issues? No clue if "consider" is usually ok or not. Thanks

I accepted a job at a large bank and their protocol requests a background check. I graduated college in 2020 and worked for another large bank until mid-2024. On my resume, I placed “Present” indicating that I currently still work at that bank. This experience is one of the reasons they are hiring me. Now when filling out the Sterling background check and after reading some posts on here I am not sure what is the best route:

Option A) aligning with my resume indicating I currently work with that other bank and putting “Do Not Contact”. It sounds simple, but what worries me is what Sterling will ask for. Will they ask for W-2 or first and last paystubs? My latest paystub is from mid-2024 and I wouldn’t be able to provide one from this year. I do have a W-2 for that bank since I worked there in 2024, but pay is less than 2023 since I left mid-2024, but I think that would be fine as long as they only ask for latest W-2. What would Sterling ask for? Does future employer find out about prior saalry with W-2 or is it confidential?

Option B) diverting from what is on my resume and uploading correct dates for that bank to Sterling. I have seen on posts that this can work, but what worries me is that the HR recruiter will dig in and see the different dates or that something else will cause a “Consider” causing them to look into the report a bit instead of just seeing a “Cleared” and moving on. I feel Option B only works best if everything comes back “Cleared” because then recruiter will most likely move on, meaning I will have to avoid gaps in employment history and other. Fun Fact: I will add though that I left that other job around this same exact time last year, July 20th. I could also take this option B and if asked by HR recruiter I could say I placed incorrect year and meant to put 2025 since she knows I’m excited about this opportunity. I doubt she will go through the whole procedure again unless she could ask me for updated paystubs, but at least Sterling verified I worked there or maybe I am wrong.

Up until now, I was strongly considering Option A and doing my best to provide the files they need, but I wanted any advice of anyone that knows these procedures or works/worked at Sterling about what they think would be the best route. Thank you.

I am essentially going for my dream job, I nailed 3 interviews and the team at the company seems very excited for me to start. I accepted their offer and was told I needed to complete a background check through Sterling. I don’t have any prior experience with this company, here’s the issue. One of my previous jobs that I put on my resume says I was employed for 4 years when I was really employed for two…I was going for longevity I realize now that was dumb. Sterling will verify and my company will now know I lied about the two years on my resume. Is this typically an automatic disqualification? Criminal history and everything else will be 100% clean.

I was contacted by a recruiter on Linkedin, went to one interview and was offered the job later that day. From there I was instructed to formally apply to the job on their HR portal, after accepting a verbal offer. I got an email from Sterling to fill out my employment history. The problem is, the resume I uploaded to the company's HR portal doesn't show any gaps in my employment.

I was laid off this past February but listed that company as my current employer. Also, I was unemployed from Sept 2022 to August 2023 for health reasons, and was laid off from this comany. That is also not listed on my resume.

I entered the same exact information from my resume, that shows zero gaps, into Sterling. Basically, my employment dates that I put into Sterling aren't 100 percent accurate.

Do they actually check full employment dates? Or just find some proof that you've actually worked there.

I'm am so worried that they're going to pull my offer. Does anyone have any information they can share. Thank you!

So I’ve received a much delayed Sterling check, and the only thing they didn’t tick off was 1 past employer for which I gave them p60 and the place went out of business when covid hit so 💁‍♂️. Is this check more likely to pass if most of the things are marked passed and the important things like uk criminal and international check.

Hi!

So basically I got let go from my previous job. I had a great interview with this new job that i applied for and they really liked me and wanted to move forward. So on my resume i wrote down i was still currently working for my previous employer( which im not ). So the recruiter said i will need to do a background check from sterling. From today, its been about 8 months since I was let go.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, how should i go about this for a positive outcome?

How do i explain that my resume is slightly altered in my favor (that i wrote i currently still work for my previous employer even though i dont anymore)?

Do i even have a chance since i was terminated from my previous job? Will they even find out?

The recruiter said i had an option to opt out of sterling contacting my previous employers, which im going to do.

thanks in advance

Got my J2 offer - amazing opportunity and am super excited, if it was not for this community I would have never even had the courage to consider OE. That said, I am going to sign and they are doing a "criminal background check" with Sterling but I am pretty sure they will ask employment dates and companies. in June I was employed with FAANG (contractor) I then took another contract role with another FAANG company (J1), essentially I am a FTE for a vendor.

I had a 3 week overlap - the new contract role is not on my resume; new job thinks I am still at old FAANG role, how do I navigate this background check situation? Do I tell them I am still at FAANG role and I switched contract companies? I have only been at J1 for 3 months and only had 1 month of overlap. Or do I play stupid and not even include current J1 on the background check? Please be kind - I have searched the sub, but still am confused.

I just received the email in my inbox no discrepancies found on any of my past seven employers that I listed on my résumé…. I didn’t think this was possible, but nonetheless now I know that it IS!

Edit: I will no longer be answering any questions about how you can pass a sterling background check. So you can save yourself time messaging me about it unless you’re willing to pay $100 through PayPal

Hi, I received and signed an offer with a great Fortune 500 company. I had to submit info for a Sterling background check, however, there was no option to opt out of contacting my previous employer who I left on bad terms with.

I resigned from my last position because it was a toxic workplace and after I filed a harassment/retaliation claim against my leadership chain. My lawyer negotiated a settlement, out of court, which included a non disparagement clause, neutral reference, and to report it was a mutual separation. My last employer is not a huge company and they’re very unprofessional, protecting these guys from multiple similar claims and settlements. They have lost lawsuits over sexual harassment and discrimination.

Will this come up on the background check? Obviously I didn’t tell my new employer the reasons why I left. There was no option for a W2 check for employment history so I just provided the contact info for the most senior HR who I had good rapport with. I expect he’s professional enough to stick to the settlement agreement but I’m paranoid.

Anyone have experience with this or knowledge of similar situations?

I got the results from my background check with Sterling and the report said it “passed,” but there my employment verification is under review. Does anybody know what this means?

My employment was in my family business and so we don’t have any official documentation, which is the reason for the red flag. How should I proceed?

Long story short, I was offered a role as a software engineer and was then asked to complete the background check.

Problem, I lied during the interview stating that I am currently working for my ex employer. Truth is that I left that job 2 months ago and started working for another company right now. I didn't tell them that I was currently working for this particular company because it might make me look "disloyal".

In the Sterling background check form, there is a portion related to employment. I put my ex employer as current but I did check the "Do not call this employer" box.

If I am to be ready for my new job, I have to resign latest by Monday. I am afraid that if I do resign and the potential employer retract the offer, I might be jobless.

Now, how much trouble will I get into? Will the potential employer find out that I lied and potentially retract the offer? Will Sterling try to contact my ex employer even though I told them not to. What is the next step I should take?

Edit: I managed to get into my new jobs with no troubles and I realise they did not even do any references check prior to me joining as I received an email from HR asking for contacts of one of my previous employer. So far I have been in this job for 2 months and I don't foresee any problems.

i’ve been OE for going on four weeks now. I decided to look at my background check and at the bottom it says last request for background with date… There was no date for me because noone requested mine for over a year because this is my first time doing OE, but I did not see this on my last background check when I used Sterling. Maybe this is a request within the company that I am working in (but they did not request any confirmation that I quit. My last job either) . But I just thought it would be a helpful tip to know. It seems like all these companies are using Sterling now which is super annoying…

Sterlings Background Check Came Back Consider!!!!!!

I landed my dream job, they requested a thorough background check through Sterlings. Sterlings contacted me for providing proofs of employment in which I did. I didn’t lie in one word I wrote and I provided employment certificates, payslips, and copies of my bank statements.

A week ago, I am checking my Sterlings account and I find out that my report came back Consider!! They wrote that they tried to contact my previous employers and failed to receive a response then they contacted me to provide proofs and Sterlings don’t verify proofs provided by employees.

I called my previous employers and they both confirmed that no one from Sterlings contacted whether by phone or by email.

Now if they don’t verify proofs provided by employees why do they ask for it in the first place?! Now I am so extremely paranoid!!!

I sent my regional manager on Teams on something regarding my onboarding two days ago, she read my message, and never replied to my message!!

I received nothing from HR but my LinkedIn profile was viewed all of a sudden by my organization’s Recruitment Leader and my manager is not responding and my mind cannot help but obsessively think!!!