Does Olive Garden hire people with felonies?

What Olive Garden has said

Olive Garden is owned by Darden Restaurants. We found no Olive Garden or Darden statement on hiring people with criminal records, and neither is a Second Chance Business Coalition member. Darden's privacy notice for team members and applicants, which the Olive Garden careers site links to, says hiring can include reference or background checks and lists background check services among its sources of information, but it doesn't say what is checked, for which jobs, or when. We found nothing published on drug testing, and the Olive Garden job postings we read have no screening language.

We didn't find a public statement from Olive Garden about hiring people with records: not on its careers site, in its reports, or in its announcements. That doesn't mean it won't hire you. It means there's nothing on the record to point to.

Does Olive Garden do background checks?

Olive Garden runs background checks. Darden's Privacy Notice for Team Members and Applicants (updated May 24, 2023), which covers Darden and its restaurant brands, says recruitment can include reference or background checks and lists background check services among its sources of information. It doesn't name a vendor, say what the check covers, which jobs get one, or whether it happens before or after an offer.¹

• How long a background check takes

Does Olive Garden drug test?

Olive Garden hasn't published a drug testing policy. We found no Olive Garden or Darden page, notice or job posting that mentions pre-employment drug testing.

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.^12,13,14
• 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."^12,13
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^12,15
• 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.^16,17
• 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).^16,18

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.^12,15,19
• 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.²⁰
• 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.^21,22

See whether you can clear your record in your state