How to Fill Out and Submit the Sterling Background Check Form

The Sterling background check form is an online questionnaire your prospective employer sends you by email so Sterling can verify your identity, work history, and other credentials before your start date. You reach it through a secure link, create a candidate account, fill in your personal and background information, sign the required federal disclosure and authorization electronically, and submit. Most people finish in 15 to 20 minutes once they have their documents in front of them. The part that trips candidates up is almost never the form itself. It’s sitting down to fill it out without the exact dates, old addresses, and employer contact numbers the form asks for.

Finding the Email and Opening the Form

Sterling does not offer a blank form you can download on your own. The form only exists once your employer triggers an invitation through Sterling’s platform, and that invitation arrives as an email with a unique link to your personal screening. The sender is Sterling, not your employer, so check your spam folder if a day or two goes by after your conditional offer and nothing has landed in your inbox.

Clicking the link opens Sterling’s candidate portal. You’ll create an account with your email address and a password. Hold onto those credentials. You’ll use the same login to check status later and to view results once the screening is complete.¹ If the original email is gone or the link has expired, ask your employer’s HR contact to resend the invitation. You can also submit a support request through Sterling’s candidate help page.²

What to Have Ready Before You Start

Gathering a few things before you open the form saves you from bailing out halfway through:

Your full legal name as it appears on your birth certificate or other legal documents, plus any former names or aliases you’ve used.
Your date of birth and Social Security number.
Every residential address for the past seven to ten years, with move-in and move-out dates. Sterling uses this to decide which county courthouses to search, and a missing address can mean an entire jurisdiction gets skipped.³
Your résumé, so employment and education entries line up on dates. Company names and school names should match how those organizations actually refer to themselves, not the shorthand you use casually.
Phone numbers for the HR department or a direct supervisor at each previous employer the check will cover.
License numbers, issuing body, and state for any professional licenses your role requires.

Old leases, utility statements, tax records, and pay stubs are useful backups when your memory on exact dates gets fuzzy.

Filling In Your Information

The fields vary a bit based on what your employer ordered, but almost every Sterling screening opens with the same identifying data: full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, and any prior names.³ Don’t shorten your name or drop a middle name that appears on official documents. If you’ve ever gone by a maiden name or a previous legal name, list it. Aliases help the screener find records filed under a name you no longer use.

Next comes address history. Enter each residence for the past seven to ten years with accurate dates. Gaps or wrong ZIP codes are a common source of delay because they change which court jurisdictions get searched.

If your employer requested employment verification, you’ll enter each covered position with the company name, your job title, month-and-year start and end dates, and a contact number for HR or your supervisor. Education verification asks for the institution, the dates you attended, and the degree or certification you received. Keeping your résumé open next to the form helps you avoid mismatched dates, which can flag the report for follow-up.

Some employers add professional license verification, motor vehicle record checks, or credit history checks, depending on the role. Your employer picks the package before sending you the invitation, so you won’t be asked to choose. What was ordered will be spelled out on the disclosure forms you’ll see next.

Signing the Disclosure and Authorization

Before Sterling can pull any records, federal law requires two things from you: written notice that a background check will be run, and your written permission to run it. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, that disclosure has to appear in a standalone document with nothing else in it — no employee handbook language, no job application content mixed in. Your authorization can sit on the same page, but no other content is allowed alongside.⁴

Sterling handles this step inside the form. After the personal information section, the portal shows the disclosure and authorization on-screen for you to read and sign electronically. The form will not advance until both signatures are in, so you can’t accidentally skip it.¹ If a credit check is part of the package, expect a separate authorization for that search.

Reviewing and Submitting

Once every section is complete and the authorizations are signed, the portal shows a summary of everything you entered. This is your only chance to catch mistakes before your data goes to the screening team, so read carefully. A transposed digit in a Social Security number, a wrong ZIP code on an old address, or a company name that doesn’t match official records are the small errors that cause big delays.

When the summary looks right, the portal asks for a final electronic signature, usually by typing your full legal name. Clicking submit sends everything to Sterling and starts processing. The form becomes read-only after submission, so confirm before you commit.

What Happens After You Submit

A standard Sterling screening runs about three to five business days.¹ More complex reports take longer, especially when they involve multiple counties, international records, or verifications with slow-responding institutions. Unresponsive former employers are the single most common source of delay, and school verifications can drag during summer and holiday periods.⁵

If it has been more than a week and you haven’t heard anything, use Sterling’s Check My Status tool. Enter the email address you used during the screening and the last four digits of your Social Security number, and Sterling will email you a status update.⁶ The tool is currently available only for candidates screened in the United States. If Sterling needs anything from you to resolve a discrepancy, they’ll reach out by email, so watch your inbox and spam folder throughout the process.

If Something on the Report Is Wrong

You have a right to dispute anything on your Sterling report that you believe is inaccurate. Submit the dispute directly to Sterling, and federal law requires them to investigate free of charge and resolve it within 30 days of receiving your notice. That window can extend by up to 15 more days if you provide additional relevant information during the investigation. If Sterling cannot verify the disputed item, it must be deleted.⁷

If your employer intends to rescind the offer based on something in the report, they cannot do it without warning you first. They must send you a copy of the report and a written summary of your FCRA rights before taking that step, giving you a chance to review and dispute anything wrong before the decision is final.⁸ You are also entitled to a free copy of your file from Sterling once every 12 months on request, and within 60 days of receiving an adverse action notice.⁹

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Sterling. My Background Check – Help for Sterling Job Candidates
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Sterling. Sterling Logins for Background Screening Solutions
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Sterling Volunteers. Volunteer FAQs
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
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Sterling. How Long Does a Background Check Take
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Sterling. Candidate Order Status
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681j – Charges for Certain Disclosures