Does The Home Depot hire people with felonies?

What The Home Depot has said

The Home Depot is a member of the Second Chance Business Coalition and was one of the companies named when the coalition launched in 2021. We found no Home Depot page describing its own policy on applicants with records. Its associate and candidate privacy statement says candidates may be asked to submit to background checks or drug screenings, run with outside background check providers.

• Second Chance Business Coalition member

  Listed as a member of the Second Chance Business Coalition.¹

• Founding member of the Second Chance Business Coalition

  The Home Depot was among the 29 companies the coalition named as having joined when it launched on April 26, 2021.²

Does The Home Depot do background checks?

The Home Depot runs background checks. Home Depot's associate privacy statement, which also covers candidates, says people may be asked to submit to background checks or drug screenings and that it works with background check providers. It doesn't say what the check covers or when it happens.³

• Drug screen

• How long a background check takes

Does The Home Depot drug test?

The Home Depot hasn't published a drug testing policy. Home Depot's privacy statement says candidates may be asked to take drug screenings and lists drug test results among the data it collects, but we found no Home Depot page saying which roles are tested or what is tested for.³

Rules for specific jobs

• Delivery drivers, technicians and mechanics

  Home Depot's driver careers page says these workers must be at least 21, and that it has both CDL and non-CDL driving jobs.⁴

• Temco Logistics technicians (a Home Depot subsidiary)

  One Temco Logistics posting on Home Depot's careers site (Technician, Kennesaw, GA) requires a clean driving record and the ability to pass a background check and a DOT physical.⁵

• Commercial drivers in DOT-regulated jobs (CDL delivery and yard drivers)

  Federal rules require a negative pre-employment drug test before a CDL driver first performs safety-sensitive work for an employer.⁶

Your rights, and how far back a check can go

• Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer must get your written permission before it gets a background report about you from a background screening company.^11,12,13
• Before an employer decides not to hire, keep, or promote you because of something in a background report, it must give you a copy of the report and a document called "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act."^11,12
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^11,14
• The FCRA's seven-year limit does not apply to criminal convictions, so under federal law a conviction can show up on a background report no matter how old it is.^15,16
• Under the FCRA, background and credit reports generally cannot include arrest records, civil lawsuits, or civil judgments that are more than seven years old (or older than the statute of limitations, if that is longer).^15,17

Your full background check rights

Before you apply

• You can ask a background screening company for the information it has on you, and the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, including employment screening companies, with their contact details.^11,14,18
• According to the Clean Slate Initiative, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed Clean Slate laws that meet its criteria for automatically clearing eligible records: Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, and Missouri, plus D.C.¹⁹
• The Federal Bonding Program, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, lets states give employers free fidelity bonds that protect them against losses from a newly hired worker's dishonest acts, for job seekers with past justice involvement or in recovery from substance use.^20,21

See whether you can clear your record in your state