What Does Decisional Mean on a Background Check? Everything You Need to Know
Evelyn Sanderson - December 12, 2025
When you apply for a job, a firearm, or sometimes even a loan or volunteer position, you’ll need to go through the background check process. Background checks focus on ensuring that someone meets the requirements and qualifications of a job. Moreover, background checks ensure that someone doesn’t have a criminal history that can impact their ability to maintain or handle the job.
That said, if you’ve gone through the background check process, you may have had it come back to you saying Decisional. While this may sound alarming at first, the good news is that it doesn’t have to be. So, what does decisional mean on a background check? Well, stick around and read this guide to find out exactly what it means.
What Is a Background Check?
Before we can even cover what a decisional might mean on a background check, it’s important to understand what a background check actually is. You’ll find that background checks are common when applying for a job, firearm, or even some volunteer roles. All that said, background checks are more of a process than a specific thing.
Essentially, the purpose of a background check is to comb through information about someone to determine if they’re a good fit for the job. Background checks will also ensure that someone has the necessary qualifications, no crimes that make them a good fit, and sometimes a good credit history to ensure that they’re trustworthy.
Of course, every background check is different, so keep this in mind. For example, some background checks may require fingerprints, while others may only seek to ensure that someone is who they claim to be through Social Security Number (SSN) verification.
What Does a Background Check Show?
It’s also important to understand what shows up during a background check. You’ll find that background checks show a lot of information about someone, and it can vary based on the individual. After all, some people have more accessible records than others.
Examples of information that may show up on a background check include:
- Criminal records
- Civil court records
- Employment history
- Drug screening
- Educational background
- Identity verification
- Reference checks
These are only a few examples, and you’ll find that this may vary based on the organization. For example, some organizations may reveal credit scores or even driving records, which can be common during an FCRA background check. Ultimately, it depends on the type of background check.
What Does Decisional Mean on a Background Check?
On a background check, decisional means that someone has to manually review the background check before offering employment. Essentially, the background check comes back from the background check company or any organization that ran the check, and then someone from the company has to review it to ensure that it meets company standards. Therefore, if your background check comes back as decisional, that doesn’t always mean you’re in trouble.
For these reasons, decisional just means that your background check was completed. So, you can rest easy knowing that you haven’t automatically failed.
What Is Reviewed During the Decisional Part of a Job Interview?
If your background check is going through the decisional process, you’ll find that the interviewer is reviewing your information. Typically, this means that they’re looking over results from your criminal background screening and ensuring that you meet company standards.
However, this part of the process may also involve comparing the requirements of the job with your previous employment history. Therefore, during the decisional portion of a background check, the interviewer is looking over a large portion of your information.
How Long Does a Decisional Take on a Background Check?
If your background check says Decisional, you may be curious about how long this will take, especially if you want to know if you got the job sooner rather than later. Luckily, background checks that are in the decisional part of the process are almost done. This is due to the fact that most of the information is already collected and simply has to be reviewed.
Therefore, the decisional part of the process should only take a few days. If it’s taking more than a few days, unfortunately, it may be time to worry or reach out to the organization.
How to Prepare for a Background Check
We know that a decisional on a background check isn’t the end of the world, but what if you knew that everything was fine? If you want to avoid waiting until you get a more concrete answer, it’s not a bad idea to check your public records, online activity, and credit history to determine if a decisional is likely to mean you’re in trouble.
Luckily, we offer a comprehensive background check tool that can help. Plus, you can run a search with Google and check your credit history with tools like Equifax.
Run a Background Check on Yourself
The best way to prepare for a background check is to run one on yourself. We offer a comprehensive background check tool that will help you learn more about your public record history. You can find criminal records, civil court records, location information, and much more. In fact, when you run a background check with our tools, you’ll find social media profiles, information about websites, sex offender status, and just about anything that can relate back to you.
If anything seems a bit off, you can take action prior to the background check. This can prevent you from worrying throughout the decisional process because you’ll know that there is nothing wrong with the information you provided.
What’s more, if you find that something will show up, you can speak with employers before going through the process to prevent it from being a surprise.
Check Your Credit History
Another good way to prepare for a background check is to check your credit history. This ensures that you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, especially if you’re applying for a role in financial services. Credit checks are also common for police work and other jobs that require a lot of trust between employees and the public. For this reason, knowing what your credit score is will give you an advantage going into the check, or at least it will help you rest easy.
If you want to check your credit history, it’s a good idea to check with all three bureaus. While we mentioned Equifax earlier, you should also check with TransUnion and Experian.
Also, make sure you dig pretty deep. After all, it’s not just your credit score that interviewers look at. They’ll also take bankruptcies, derogatory marks, and other credit problems into account. As long as you cover all your bases, you shouldn’t have to worry about a shocking credit score or a change ruining your chances of being hired.
Check Google and Social Media
When it comes to Google and social media, it’s important to ensure that you have an inoffensive profile. This doesn’t have to be the case and largely depends on what you’re applying for, but if you have a social media profile that’s filled with inappropriate content, a job may choose not to hire you.
In fact, this is something that interviewers tend to look at separately from the initial background check. Therefore, something like a social media profile may be the difference between a decisional resulting in being hired or not being given a second look.
Aside from social media, it’s also a good idea to keep your eye on what shows up when you run a search on yourself with Google. Sure, you might not find anything, but you may find something that seems strange or inappropriate. Once you find it, you can try to have it removed.
What Does Decisional Mean on a Background Check? Our Final Thoughts
So, what does decisional mean on a background check? At the end of the day, a decisional is not the end of the world. In fact, it’s not even a reason to panic. All it means is that your information is being reviewed by your interviewer, hiring manager, and the rest of the team. What’s more, you’ll find that this means that you’re towards the end of the background check process, so you shouldn’t have to wait for an answer too much longer.
While a decisional on a background check isn’t always something to worry about, that doesn’t mean you should go into your next background check unprepared. Instead, we always recommend working with Information.com to learn more about your public records and what may appear in them. It’s always better to catch any inconsistencies sooner rather than later.
