Privacy Notice
for Candidates
Status: 01/04/2026
Introduction
This Candidate Privacy Notice explains how Hays collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal data when you engage with us or are contacted by us in connection with work related opportunities.
This Privacy Notice is effective from 01. April 2026
Who is this notice for
This Candidate Privacy Notice applies to you if you engage with Hays as a candidate for permanent or temporary employment, or as a freelancer/contractor. It also applies if your profile or application has been introduced to Hays by another recruitment supplier, agency, or similar intermediary.
If you are seeking employment with Hays internally, you should refer to our Internal Recruitment Privacy Notice.
Who we are
What personal data we collect
- Name and contact details
- CV/resumé, work history, qualifications, education
- Skills, certifications, professional memberships
- Current and expected renumeration and benefits, or pay rate
- Cover letters, questionnaires, assessment responses
- Interview notes, meeting and call transcriptions, or recordings (if applicable)
- Bank account information
- Other information you may choose to share with us, such as photograph, date of birth, nationality, next-of-kin
- Health or disability information (used to provide adjustments)
- Diversity information [e.g., ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, etc.] (only where permitted by law and subject to your explicit consent)
- Vaccination or health screening data (only for roles requiring it)
- Criminal background checks (only where permitted by law and for roles requiring it)
- References and employment verification
- Background screening (including right to work, education/qualification verification) from providers we contract with (where legal and appropriate)
- Interview or role-specific feedback from our clients
- Your published professional profile (e.g., LinkedIn)
- CV/resumé or employment details provided to us by another recruitment agency, managed service provider, or recruitment outscourcer
- IP address and device identifiers
- Log data (dates/times you access our platform)
- Cookie or tracking data if you browse our website, apps, use our online recruitment systems or interact with our marketing emails
- Behavioural insights (e.g., jobs viewed, interaction history)
Where we obtain personal data from
- Recruitment suppliers, agencies or other intermediaries who introduce your profile to us in connection with potential work opportunities
- Your current or former employer, referees, or professional contacts, where you have asked them to share your details with us or where this is appropriate in the recruitment context
- Publicly available sources, such as professional networking platforms, job boards, talent pools, company websites or other online sources, where your personal data is made publicly accessible for professional or recruitment purposes
- Third-party service providers we work with in the recruitment process, for example providers of skills assessments, background checks (where permitted by law), or similar services
How we use your personal data
- identifying and matching suitably qualified candidates with relevant job opportunities;
- maintaining an up to date candidate database to enable timely and efficient recruitment activities;
- improving the quality, accuracy and efficiency of our recruitment technology, services and processes;
- meeting the expectations of our clients by presenting suitable candidates for roles they are seeking to fill;
- preventing fraud, misuse of our services and ensuring the security of our systems; and
- establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
Purposes & Legal Bases
| Purpose | What We Do | Legal Basis |
|---|---|---|
Pre recruitment activities |
Determine whether you might be interested in or benefit from our recruitment services. Our legitimate interest is to proactively identify and approach potential candidates in order to offer relevant career opportunities and recruitment support. |
Legitimate Interests |
Process your application |
Review your CV, assess suitability, conduct interviews & tests. Our legitimate interest is to assess your suitability for roles and to efficiently match qualified candidates with relevant job opportunities. |
Legitimate Interests; Contract |
Communicate with you |
Schedule interviews, request info, send updates, manage our relationship with you. Our legitimate interest is to manage the recruitment process effectively, keep you informed, and maintain an appropriate and ongoing candidate relationship. |
Legitimate Interests; Contract |
Post recruitment relationship |
Maintain an ongoing relationship with you or support you in your next role. Our legitimate interest is to maintain an ongoing professional relationship with you and support you in identifying future career opportunities. |
Legitimate Interests |
ID/Background/reference checks/compliance checks/sanction list checks |
Verify your ID, qualifications, work history, right to work, criminal checks (only where legally permitted), compliance and sanction lists checks. |
Legal Obligation; Legitimate Interests; Consent where required |
Skills or psychometric assessments |
Run role specific tests with human review (only where legally permitted). Our legitimate interest is to assess role relevant skills, competencies and suitability in order to improve the accuracy and fairness of candidate matching and to support informed recruitment decisions, always with human review. |
Legitimate Interests |
Provide reasonable adjustments |
Use health/disability info to adapt our recruitment process. |
Consent; Employment law obligations |
Diversity & equal opportunities monitoring |
Use diversity data in aggregated, anonymous form only. |
Consent; Legal Obligation |
Including you in our Candidate/Talent Pool |
Retain your CV to match you with future roles we may believe are suitable. Our legitimate interest is to maintain an organised and searchable database of candidates in order to efficiently match individuals with current and future job opportunities, reduce repeated data collection, and provide ongoing recruitment support. |
Legitimate Interests |
Administration |
Make records, including transcriptions of meetings with you, to allow our consultants to focus on their relationship with you, to ensure our information is accurate and up to date, and improve the quality of our systems and processes. Our legitimate interest is to accurately document recruitment related conversations, improve the quality and consistency of our recruitment processes, and allow our consultants to focus on meaningful engagement with candidates rather than manual note taking. |
Legitimate Interests; Consent |
Other recruitment related services |
Offering you a related service, such as CV writing guidance, trainings, carreer coaching. Our legitimate interest is to provide additional recruitment related support that may enhance your employability and career prospects. |
Legitimate Interests |
Service improvement |
Improve your experience and develop or optimise our recruitment technology, to analyse how our recruitment services are used and to build new, or to improve the quality, effectiveness and reliability of our processes, tools and candidate experience. Our legitimate interest is to ensure that our recruitment services remain accurate, efficient and relevant, and that candidates are presented with suitable opportunities in a timely manner. |
Legitimate Interests |
Marketing |
To contact you about future opportunities, networking events, industry insights, or about vacancies we believe we can help you to fill. Where we rely on our legitimate interests for recruitment related communications, this is limited to communications about similar roles or services that are relevant to your professional profile and expectations. |
Consent; Legitimate Interests |
Advertising |
To present you with adverts and other content that we think are relevant to you, on other digital channels. Or to use your data to create profiles we may use to promote our services. |
Consent |
Analysis |
Use insights to better understand employment trends and insights across industries. Our legitimate interest is to analyse recruitment trends and outcomes in order to improve our services and better understand labour market developments. |
Legitimate Interests |
Anonymisation of data |
Process personal data in order to anonymise it, thereby enabling its further use for lawful purposes such as testing, statistical analysis, and the improvement or development of our products and services, without identifying individuals. Our legitimate interest is to anonymise personal data in order to enable its further use for statistical analysis, testing, and the improvement or development of our recruitment services, while no longer identifying individuals. |
Legitimate Interests |
Legal, regulatory & compliance |
Keep necessary records, respond to authorities, prevent fraud, establish, exercise or defend ourselves from legal claims. Respond to and participate in client audits and fulfil our client compliance obligations. Our legitimate interest is to fulfil client audit and compliance requirements, ensure transparency and accountability in the provision of our recruitment services, and maintain trusted business relationships with our clients. |
Legal Obligation; Legitimate Interests |
Customer satisfaction |
Assess and improve customer (client and candidate) satisfaction, including through surveys and feedback analysis. Our legitimate interest is to assess and improve the quality, effectiveness and reliability of our recruitment services for candidates and clients. |
Legitimate Interests |
Investigation/Whistleblowing |
Investigate or respond to any incidents, complaints or grievances involving you and prepare reports in relation to the same. Our legitimate interest is to investigate and respond to reported incidents, complaints or suspected misconduct, and to protect the integrity of our business, our candidates, and other stakeholders, including by establishing, exercising or defending legal claims. |
Legitimate Interests Legal Obligation |
Business relationship |
For freelancers/contractors, process: personal data necessary for the provision of services including, performance monitoring and billing. |
Contract, Legitimate interests, Legal Obligation |
Profiling / automated tools |
Use automated tools to help screen or match applications (never fully automated final decisions), building profiles to enable us to provide the best possible service and maximise the relevance of opportunities and content we provide to you. Our legitimate interest is to support our consultants by improving the relevance of job matching, reducing administrative workload, and ensuring that candidates are considered for roles aligned with their skills and experience. Automated tools are used only to support human decision making and never to make fully automated final hiring decisions. |
Legitimate Interests; Consent where required |
What is the candidate pool and how do we use it
If you object we will record and respect your objection and, where needed, work with you to understand which processing you no longer want us to carry out.
How long we retain your personal data for
- Aufbewahrung von Aufzeichnungen über Einstellungsentscheidungen
- Sie für zukünftige Stellen in Betracht zu ziehen
- Erfüllung von Audit- oder Compliance-Anforderungen
Who we share your personal data with
| Recipient | Why We Share |
|---|---|
|
Clients |
When you apply for a role with them or a role they sponsor |
|
Recruitment technology providers |
To manage applications, assessments, and storage |
|
Background check providers |
When role appropriate and legally permitted |
|
Group companies |
When another group entity participates in the hiring process or supports our operations |
|
Legal or regulatory authorities |
When required by law |
|
(IT/cloud) service providers |
Secure storage, hosting and support our operations |
|
Managed Service Providers |
To support Hays or Hays’ clients in our resourcing and/or recruitement services |
|
Auditors |
As strictly necessary to conduct or participate in Internal or External Audits |
|
Other Organisations |
As strictly necessary during a Merger or Acquisition involving Hays Group or its legal entities |
Where we transfer your personal data
- Adequacy decisions (countries officially recognised as having strong data protection laws)
- Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or similar safeguards
- Other legally approved mechanisms
What are your rights
- Access your personal data
- Request correction of inaccurate personal data
- Request deletion (with lawful exceptions)
- Restrict certain processing
- Object to processing based on legitimate interests
- Data portability
- Withdraw consent at any time (where processing is based on consent)
- Right to not be subject to an Automated Decision
- Right to complain to our Data Protection Team regarding our processing of your personal data
- Right to complain to your local data protection regulator
How to exercise your rights and contact us
We provide a full list of the relevant Hays entities and their contact details, including data protection contact points, in Appendix 1 below.
How we use automated decision-making and AI
How we protect your personal data
Updates to this policy
Appendix 1
In the event that more than one of the Hays entities listed above jointly determines the means and purposes of processing your personal data, the Hays entities will process such personal data as joint controllers for the purpose of Article 26(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
- Hays (Switzerland) Ltd.
- Hays Talent Solutions (Schweiz) GmbH
We adhere to the requirements imposed by the GDPR in relation to the establishment of joint controller relationships between Hays entities.
If you wish to exercise your rights under the GDPR in relation to the processing of your personal data by Hays entities operating on a joint controller basis, please contact us using the channels set out above.
You can reach the Data Protection Team and the responsible Data Protection Officer via email datenschutz@hays.ch
You can also contact us via mail:
Hays (Switzerland) Ltd.
z. Hd. Datenschutzbeauftragter / DPO
Beethovenstrasse 19
8002 Zurich
Suisse
We will keep your personal data on our system for a period of up to three years from the point that we collect such personal data or subsequently have meaningful contact with you (or, where appropriate, the company you are working for or with). After this period, it is likely your data will no longer be relevant for the purposes for which it was collected. We may keep your personal data on our systems for a longer period than this if we believe in good faith that we need to do so, for example, because of our obligations to tax authorities or in connection with any anticipated litigation.
We will consider there to be meaningful contact with you in this context if you, for example, submit a CV to us via our website, take part in any of our online training, communicate with us about potential roles (either by verbal or written communication) or click through from any of our marketing communications. Your receipt, opening or reading of an electronic message from us will not count as meaningful contact for these purposes, only where you click-through or reply directly – we will only deem that we have had meaningful contact with you if there is positive action on your part.
For those Candidates whose services are provided via a third party company or other entity, meaningful contact with you means meaningful contact with the company or entity which supplies your services. Where we are notified by such company or entity that it no longer has that relationship with you, we will retain your data for no longer than three years from that point or, if later, for the period of three years from the point we subsequently have meaningful contact directly with you.
For Candidates who only wish for us to process their personal data in relation to a specific application for a role and have objected to be part of the candidate pool, we will only retain your personal data for as long as we need to in connection with our legal and regulatory requirements.
In certain circumstances, we rely on your consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data, including in particular:
- where required under applicable law for specific processing activities;
- for certain marketing or advertising activities;
- for the processing of special categories of personal data, where no other legal basis applies.
Where we rely on your consent, such consent is given freely, is specific, informed, and unambiguous, and may be withdrawn at any time with effect for the future. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out prior to the withdrawal.
Soft Opt In Consent for Recruitment Related Communications
Where permitted by applicable law, Hays may contact you with recruitment related communications without obtaining separate consent where:
- we obtained your contact details in the context of providing recruitment or placement services to you; and
- the communications relate to similar work related opportunities or services; and
- you were given the opportunity to object to such communications at the time your data was collected and in each subsequent communication.
DSARs
If you request information from us about whether personal data about you is being processed (DSAR), you must do so in writing or via the electronic channels we offer. We do not agree to receive your requests verbally (Art. 16 para. 1 DPA).
Consent to cooperation based on the Federal Act on Employment Services and Hiring of Services (AVG)
The candidate acknowledges and accepts,
- that Hays provides its services throughout Switzerland and will therefore pass on his details to all Hays branches in Switzerland;
- hat Hays may verify the references provided by him/her with former employers and other reference providers or have them verified by third parties;
- that based on his or her preferences Hays will offer him/her all services in Switzerland, as well as beyond the country's borders, and will help him to find the right project or job. Therefore, Hays will also share his/her data with other Hays group companies in Switzerland and the European Economic Area, as well as with Hays parent company in the UK for the provision of recruitment services;
- that the personal data collected from him, including sensitive personal data, may be transferred to (a) other group companies and third parties to be processed under their own responsibility for legitimate purposes (e.g. group-wide personnel statistics, employee programmes, compliance, IT operations, directories) and (b) third party service providers to enable the employee to benefit from services co-financed or supported by Hays. These recipients may be located in Switzerland or abroad;
- that based on his or her preferences Hays may also process his/her data for the purposes described in this privacy statement beyond the end of the agreement or an successful placement (which significantly increases the chances of finding further employment with Hays).
When you consented to the transfer of data to our advertising partners we send your data (e.g. your email address, your name, your phone number) in an encrypted and pseudonymised way (so called “hashed”) to our advertising partners (for a list of our advertising partners, see below). They compare this data with the data they already process about you and if they match, the partners enable us to run targeted advertising on those matches or on similar groups of people like you, which means the partners display on their platforms Hays advertising which are specially designed for you or for people like you. After the creation of the matches, your encrypted data is automatically deleted again at our partners. The partners do not gain new addresses as a result of this. We think this is a great benefit for you as you get only those advertising which suits your needs.
Hays group companies & Hays advertising partners
When we mention Hays group companies in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland in the context of our advertising consent wording, we mean the following legal entities:
- Hays AG, based in Germany
- Hays Professional Solutions GmbH, based in Germany
- Hays Talent Solutions GmbH, based in Germany
- Emposo GmbH, based in Germany
- Hays Holding GmbH, based in Germany
- Hays Beteiligungs GmbH & Co.KG, based in Germany
- Hays Vorrat 01 GmbH, based in Germany
- Hays (Schweiz) AG, based in Switzerland
- Hays Talent Solutions (Schweiz) GmbH, based in Switzerland
- Hays Österreich GmbH, based in Austria
- Hays Professional Solutions Österreich GmbH, based in Austria
- Hays Specialist Recruitment Denmark A/S, based in Denmark
Transfer outside of Switzerland and the EWR
Where we have asked you for your marketing consent regarding our advertising partners and where those parties are located outside of Switzerland or the European Economic Area, you consent (Art. 6 VI FADP) to a transfer outside of Switzerland and the European Economic Area, and you are aware that there might be a lower level of data protection with these providers/countries than it is the case in Switzerland and the European Economic Area.
There might be in particular a risk that your data may be accessed through authorities for surveillance purposes, even without legal redress procedures. Exercising data protection rights, you know, and you are familiar with under the FADP may be more difficult or even impossible.
Market Research Purposes
When you consented to the use of your personal data for market research purposes, this means that we will run surveys regarding satisfaction, NetPromoterScore, personnel topics, wishes, offers, socio-demographic characteristics, new platform testing, test groups, UX testing and brand panels.
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