Pull your own file before anybody else does
You are entitled to your own background file, and reading it is the single most useful hour in this process. It is where a mismatched record, an old case that should have aged off, or somebody else's history attached to your name actually shows up, and none of that is visible from a search. Our self-opposition checklist covers the request alongside the other three layers.
A dispute under the Fair Credit Reporting Act is a real mechanism, not an appeal to goodwill. Where a screening company is carrying something inaccurate, it has an obligation to investigate, which is a very different conversation from asking an aggregator for a favor.
Old coverage is usually the real obstacle
Most executive candidates do not have a record. They have a first page that stopped keeping up with them. A role from two companies ago, a company that did not work out, an interview that aged badly, and nothing recent competing with any of it.
That is an outranking job and it takes months, which our outranking guide covers. Starting it while a search is already running is starting too late to help that search.
A closed company is not the liability it feels like
Boards have seen ventures fail and most of them have been part of one. What reads badly is a search result that tells the story without you, or a version of events that does not match what you said in the room.
This one is worth being direct about rather than managing. Our own founder rebuilt his search results after a very public failure, which is on the about page rather than buried, and the reason it works is that the account is his.
Where to start, and when
Two or three quarters before you expect to be looking. Removals that have a clean basis can land in days, the rest runs in months, and our timelines guide has real numbers from our own engagements rather than a range.
The whole first two pages as one job is $2,488, one time, and it includes a website on a domain you own, the profile set, and both removal services. A bigger situation gets quoted on its own before any work starts.
Build a search audit before the conversation
Create a short inventory with five columns: query, URL, what it says, whether it is accurate and current, and the next action. Check your name alone and with the role, company, or location people use to identify you. Keep a public-search audit separate from a formal background check.
Prioritize the pages you control first: biography, current role, published work, and contact details. Then distinguish pages needing a factual correction from accurate pages you would rather not lead the results. Our professional reputation work brings those decisions together. Daily search monitoring can follow changes after an announcement.