Can a Felon Get Hired at a Car Dealership?

As I’ve covered elsewhere, car dealerships are always advertising for workers. There is huge turnover in car dealerships. This is why it’s not prestigious to work at one, and why it doesn’t look good on a resume to have worked at a car dealership.

The pay is low, the environment is not pleasant, and the caliber of employee is quite low. For anyone working in the service sector, there are many, many other be areas to work where the environment is more tolerable.

That is one reason why there are always jobs being advertised for work at car dealerships. This is especially true of roles in the customer service department.

Because of this, and because there are no educational requirements, it’s a job that many ex-offenders look to. But is it somewhere a person who has a felony can find work? Or will there be a prejudice against them.

Let’s review and see if a felon can get hired at a car dealership.

Are Car Dealerships Allowed To Do Background Checks?

First off, let’s dive into how a car dealership would know that the person applying is a felon. Can a car dealership do a background check on their potential employees?

Yes, of course they can. However, truth be told most don’t.

And that’s because many people who work for car dealerships have felonies. While you might think that it’s the mechanics who have criminal records, it’s often times the customer service agents or even sales team that have felonies.

These felonies might range from aggravated robbery to drug felony charges. But even then, it’s not going to be an issue for a car dealership management.

The fact is that the pickings are slim. The pay is low, the environment is terrible, and the car dealership business is dishonest. Car dealerships routinuely upcharge, cheat, and behave in unethical ways towards their customers.

The average person who could work elsewhere would work elsewhere. So, what you are left with are people who are unable to find work for a multitude of reasons.

Most people who work at a car dealership, especially in large urban cities, are not educated and have no skills which would allow them to work elsewhere.

Also, if they were to apply to a more respectable service sector job, they would likely be turned down due to their inability to show a good work history and a presentable demeanor.

Which is a long way to say that the management of car dealerships take what they can get.  They don’t run background checks because they don’t care who is a criminal.

Car dealerships are allowed to run background checks, but unless they are hiring for an accounts payable person, they don’t care what the person’s background is.

What Kind of Jobs Might a Felon Get At a Car Dealership?

The only type of job that would be off limits for a felon at a car dealership would be a finance role. Anything having to do with the funds. These roles often are handled by family members or relatives of the owners.

The majority of the workers in a car dealership are paid minimum wage and have poor schedules. This is one more reason why worker turnover is so high.

The most common role for a felon at a car dealership is in the customer service department. The people who great you when you arrive, take your information down, and accept your payment when you’re leaving.

There are more of these people than any other role. Next comes the actual mechanics. Mechanics make more money than the office staff, so some of them are men and women who have training. Although, as we will see later, quite often that training is from non-profits that are designed to assist felons with reentering society and landing jobs.

And of course the cleaning staff and all of the low skilled labor roles in the car dealership can and often are staffed by felons.

The sales floor is usually not staffed by felons, though sometimes the sales team are felons.

It has nothing to do with legal reasons, but more that the sales team is expected to dress slightly more professionally then the client support and front end team who are low paid, low skilled, and interchangeable workers who perform menial tasks such as answering phones and alerting mechanics when a customer arrives.

The fact is that car dealerships do not require even a GED from their employees. The customer care service agents who work for dealerships often can’t even compose grammatically correct sentences.

One only has to search Reddit and see the endless questions such as : “Getting hires as a felon at a car dealership”.

That sort of glaring grammatical mistake is common in non-professional roles such as the auto sales support team.

Non-Profits and Felons: Get Your Foot in The Door

One way that many felons get hired at car dealerships is that they go straight from jail to a non-profit that helps in establishing a work history.

Non-profits that help men and women returning to civilian life can pad resumes with jobs to build a persons work history.

However, as most recruiters who have worked with non-profits will attest, these jobs are often fabricated or embellished by case managers whose job it is to create a impressive work history.

In some cases individuals will have not worked for years. Take for instance a woman who might have been a drug addict for years. Then she was arrested for a robbery and sent to jail. Her case manager might set her up with a non-profit job upon release which has very few if any responsibilities.

That woman can then use that resume to find work at a large dealership as a customer care agent. And her experience is virtually non-existent and her work history fabricated.

The real issue with non-profits is that while they can aid in creating a semi-legitimate work history with a series of no-responsibility jobs, they do not often spend time helping the felons learn proper professional behavior.

This is the real stumbling block to a felon reentering the workplace. And why car dealerships are an ideal place for the ex-offender. Their gruffness, and non-professional behavior will not be a strike against them like it would in even an entry level job such at a grocery store or big box retailer. Car dealerships are notorious for rude and uncivil behavior, so a felon is not going to be unfairly penalized for not having proper professional behavior.

Turn it into a positive. Use this job to get a job and get back into the workplace.