Most employers do not run one giant search. They order specific checks from a screening company, and what appears depends on what they ordered and what your state allows.
The usual components
Identity and Social Security verification. Confirms the number is valid and matches your name and history.
Criminal records. County, state and federal searches for convictions. Many states limit reporting of non-conviction records, and several restrict how far back convictions can be reported for some jobs. Arrests that never led to conviction are barred from consideration in a number of states.
Employment verification. Typically confirms dates and titles with previous employers. Most companies confirm only those facts and decline to discuss performance.
Education verification. Confirms the degree and institution. Inflated credentials are among the most common findings.
Credit history. Used mainly for finance-adjacent roles. Employers see a modified report without your score, and roughly a dozen states restrict employment credit checks to specific jobs.
Driving record. For roles involving vehicles.
Your rights under federal law
When an employer uses an outside screening company, the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies, and it gives you a specific sequence of rights.
- Consent first. You must authorize the check in a standalone disclosure, not buried in the application.
- Pre-adverse action notice. If the employer intends to reject you because of the report, they must first give you a copy of it and a summary of your rights.
- Time to respond. You get a reasonable window, commonly around five business days in practice, to dispute errors before the decision is finalized.
- Final notice. If rejected, you must be told which screening company produced the report and how to dispute it with them.
That pre-adverse step exists because screening reports contain errors: records belonging to someone with a similar name, expunged cases still showing, or one charge reported twice. Disputes go to the screening company, which must investigate, generally within 30 days.
What generally does not appear
Standard employment screening does not include your credit score, your medical records, or the content of your social media accounts unless the employer separately searches those. Sealed and expunged records should not appear, though errors happen and are disputable. Salary history is now off limits for employers in many states, which have banned asking for it or using it to set pay.
Screening yourself first
If you have reason to expect a problem, look before an employer does. You can request your own file from the large screening companies under the same federal law that governs employers' use of them, and you are entitled to a free annual credit report from each nationwide bureau. Checking a few weeks before a job search gives you time to correct errors, which take up to 30 days to investigate, rather than discovering them mid-hiring.
Where an accurate record exists, the practical approach is a short factual explanation offered at the right moment: what happened, when, and what has changed since. Employers reject people for surprises more often than for records.
Timing questions
Many states and cities have "ban the box" laws that delay criminal history questions until after an interview or a conditional offer. Employers in those places order the check late in the process, which is why a background check request usually signals that an offer is close.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publish the dispute process for background report errors, which mirrors the credit report dispute process.