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Job portals and the general data protection regulation (GDPR): Personnel consultant Hans Ulrich Gruber provides helpful tips

Career areas are one way to apply online. Hans Ulrich Gruber is in the know what companies now have to bear in mind with the new GDPR.

Job portals and career sites are a common way of transmitting information about the candidate to the enterprise. The new data protection regulations and the decreasing number of applicants are strong reasons to address this topic. Personnel consultant Hans Ulrich Gruber has followed up, what businesses need to comply with for legally certain and appealing job portals.

An even more attentive handling of personal data. This is important for the businesses with the new data protection regulation coming into force. Especially in the application processes it goes without saying that businesses keep the application documents of their applicants – for example through job portals within the own corporate website. “With companies being in need of the permission of applicants to save the data, the question of asking for this permission should be placed at the beginning of the job portal”, advises Hans Ulrich Gruber. “Good portals are characterized by confirming a consent form”, describes the personnel consultant. Furthermore, they are easy to use to prevent causing additional work for the application and frightening the applicants off.

Job portals are in the ideal situation only one of the many ways for companies to receive applications. “With a great employer branding, the applicants usually reach out themselves to the businesses.” Other proven ways are also recommendations, Xing and Linked-In or head hunters. No matter which way an application of a prospective specialist or manager might take, the question of how an enterprise must handle the personal data, is now modified through the GDPR.  It has the consequence that companies must rethink their processes in the areas of data recording.

“The right to forget is an integral part of the new data protection regulation”, says personnel consultant Hans Ulrich Gruber. This topic would be especially difficult to implement in the application process. This would mean, that with the wish of the applicant, all personal data, including copies, within the enterprise would need to be deleted. In a good job application system, this would usually be no issue, so Gruber: “However, what should I do with my data security and blocks of data, which I can’t reach that easily?” Here, personnel consultant Hans Ulrich Gruber suggests a periodic solution und steady deletion of the relevant data. At least, as long as a binding specification was developed through the jurisdiction.