Does Staples hire people with felonies?

What Staples has said

Staples is not a Second Chance Business Coalition member and we found no company statement about hiring people with records, but the 77 store job postings we read, in 67 towns and cities, all say applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in line with the Los Angeles County and California fair chance laws and any other state and local fair chance laws. Postings for its warehouse, fulfillment and delivery jobs don't carry that line; they say applicants must be able to pass a drug screen, and one fulfillment center manager posting also requires a criminal background check. We found no Staples applicant notice describing background checks.

• Fair-chance statement in a job posting

  All 77 store postings we read on the Staples retail careers site end with a line saying applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the California Fair Chance Act and any other state and local fair chance laws. We saw it on postings in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Lansing, Michigan; Savannah, Georgia; Hamden, Connecticut and Palm Desert, California, among others, and on the site's equal opportunity page. It points to legal compliance rather than a Staples-specific program.¹

Does Staples do background checks?

Staples hasn't said publicly whether it runs background checks. We found no Staples applicant notice, FAQ or hiring-process page describing background checks. Of 153 corporate, distribution and delivery postings we read, one (a Lithia Springs, Georgia fulfillment center operations manager job) says the candidate must pass a criminal background check and a drug screen; none of the other 152 and none of the 77 store postings mention a background check. Staples doesn't say whether other jobs are screened, when screening happens, who runs it or how far back it looks.^2,3,4

• How long a background check takes

Does Staples drug test?

Staples drug tests for some roles. All 45 delivery and driver postings and 31 of the 45 warehouse, supply chain and logistics postings we read on the Staples Inc. careers site list an ability to pass a drug screen, to the extent legally permitted. A Charlotte delivery driver posting also asks for a DOT physical and a screen with no THC. The sales, marketing, technology, merchandising and finance postings we read, and the 77 store postings, don't mention a drug screen.^2,5,6,7

Rules for specific jobs

• Store jobs (retail sales associates, supervisors, managers, print and copy)

  The fair chance line appears on every store posting we read, but we found no Staples page describing store screening, so we can't say whether stores run background checks or drug screens.⁸

• Warehouse, fulfillment and delivery jobs (Staples Inc. careers site)

  These postings list a drug screen requirement but not the arrest-or-conviction line; the postings we read from the Staples Inc. site (153) never carried it, and the equal opportunity page on that site doesn't either.⁹

• Delivery drivers

  A Charlotte, North Carolina delivery driver posting asks for a valid license with a safe driving record acceptable to the company, a DOT physical, a drug screen with no THC 'to the extent legally permissible' and a 6-month DOT medical card. Nine of the 45 driver postings we read mention a DOT physical.⁵

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.^16,17,18
• 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."^16,17
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^16,19
• 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.^20,21
• 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).^20,22

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.^16,19,23
• 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.²⁴
• 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.^25,26

See whether you can clear your record in your state