Candidate privacy notice

This notice explains how People HQ Ltd handles information about candidates, applicants and people identified as potentially suitable for employment opportunities.

It should be read alongside our general Privacy Notice, which explains your data-protection rights, how we protect information and how to contact us.

During the recruitment process, we may collect:

• Your contact details, CV and employment history
• Qualifications, skills and professional experience
• Salary, notice period, location and work preferences
• Interview notes, assessments and correspondence
• References and information from former employers
• Right-to-work, visa, sponsorship and relocation information
• Information about health or reasonable adjustments
• Equality-monitoring information, where appropriate
• Information required for relevant background checks

We may obtain your information:

• Directly from you
• Through job boards and professional networking platforms
• From publicly available professional sources
• Through referrals and recommendations
• From referees, former employers or recruitment partners
• From clients involved in a recruitment process

Where we identify you through another source, we may contact you about an opportunity that appears relevant to your experience.

We use candidate information to:

• Assess your suitability for current or future opportunities
• Discuss relevant vacancies with you
• Present your details to prospective employers
• Arrange interviews, assessments and feedback
• Support offers, onboarding and relocation
• Verify references, qualifications and right-to-work status
• Support sponsorship, work-permit and immigration processes
• Maintain appropriate recruitment records

We will normally discuss a specific opportunity with you before sharing your CV or identifiable information with a prospective employer.

We normally process candidate information because:

• It is necessary to take steps towards a potential employment contract
• We have a legitimate interest in providing recruitment services and identifying suitable candidates
• We must comply with a legal obligation
• You have provided consent for a particular use

Sensitive information will only be used where it is relevant, necessary and legally permitted, for example, to arrange reasonable adjustments or complete required checks.

Where relevant to your application, we may share your information with:

• Prospective employers and hiring managers
• Recruitment and international talent partners
• Referees and verification providers
• Immigration advisers and government authorities
• Organisations supporting sponsorship, work permits or relocation

We will only share information that is reasonably necessary for the recruitment process.

For international opportunities, candidate information may be shared with authorised organisations outside the UK.

Where this happens, we will use an appropriate legal transfer mechanism or safeguard. You may contact us for more information about the arrangements applying to a particular transfer.

Candidate information will normally be retained for up to 24 months following our last meaningful contact so that we can consider you for other suitable opportunities.

We may retain information for longer where you are involved in an active placement, sponsorship, immigration or relocation process, or where a legal or contractual requirement applies.

You may ask us to remove your details from our candidate records, subject to any information we are legally required to retain.

People HQ does not make final recruitment decisions based solely on automated processing.

Technology may help us organise information or identify potential matches, but candidate assessment includes meaningful human involvement.

Please read our general Privacy Notice for information about:

• How we protect personal information
• Your data-protection rights
• How to update or remove your information
• How to contact People HQ
• How to make a data-protection complaint