Recruitment activities

Introduction

This section of our privacy statement describes how and why we collect and use personal data in connection with our recruitment activities. It applies to individuals making applications for employment directly with us or those on behalf of whom an application is made (e.g. through recruitment agencies).

If your application is successful, we carry out pre-employment screening checks as part of our onboarding process and your personal data will be further processed as an employee of the firm. Depending on the role you have applied for, these employment screening checks may include criminal records checks.

Collection of your personal data and data categories

We will collect personal data about you at various stages in the recruitment cycle, including:

Basic details (name, address, email, telephone number, right to work status);
CV, experience, education, academic and professional qualifications, and areas of interest;
Photographs and documents to verify your identity;
Recruitment platform login information;
Information provided as part of virtual campuses, interviews and assessments (including reasonable adjustments information);
Social mobility data (where you choose to provide this); and
Diversity and equal opportunities data (where you choose to provide this).

We also create personal data in the course of our recruitment activities with you, including:

Interview recordings and results, including from video interviews and video assessments;
Assessment results and feedback from online and face-to-face assessments/tests; and
Employment offer details.

We may collect your personal data from the following sources:

Directly from you: where you have directly applied for a position with PwC.

Recruitment agencies, platforms and websites: where a recruitment agency with your information puts you forward for a role
Publicly available sources: where you are a member of social media boards and/or job websites, including professional networking sites e.g. LinkedIn.
Third party sources: results of background, screening and reference checks (including DBS checks).
Information from social media sites: where you are a member of the site to gather information about your engagement with our recruitment campaigns (please see our Cookies Statement for further information).

If your application with us is successful, we will collect:

Additional information as part of our pre-employment screening process (proof of right to work, background checks, qualifications and professional status, employment history and referencing for example);
Information about your and your immediate family’s financial relationships for Independence regulatory compliance purposes; and
Bank account details, national insurance number (or similar) and tax status.

You will receive further information about the processing of your personal data as a member of PwC’s personnel should your application be successful.

Use of personal data

Your personal data will be used for the following purposes:

To attract talent and market opportunities at PwC including by arranging, hosting and participating in events, marketing and advertising our job opportunities, and using recruiters to help find talent for us.
To identify and source talent including by searching our existing talent pool and publicly available sources (such as social media and job websites of which you are a member).
To process and manage applications for roles at PwC, and evaluate you for open positions that match your interests and experience throughout the PwC network.
To manage your candidate profile, send you email notifications and other announcements, request additional information or otherwise contact you about your application.
To screen and select talent by evaluating your suitability for employment with PwC, including through face-to-face interviews, video interviews, and online and video assessments, and conducting appropriate background checks.
To hire and onboard talent by making offers of employment and carrying out pre-employment screening checks (which vary from role to role).
To conduct statistical analyses and create internal reports, for example regarding usage of our careers websites, demographic analysis of candidates, our recruitment activities, and analysis of candidate sourcing channels.
To administer and manage our careers websites, virtual campuses and other recruitment tools and solutions.
To communicate with you about careers at PwC.
To make reasonable adjustments to our selection processes (including using health and other special category data as outlined below).
Any other purposes stated when you provide your personal data information to us.
To understand current skills and use machine learning for some types of recruitment to suggest possible additional skill sets which individuals may be interested in acquiring.
To send you, by email or post, welcome information or items once an offer is made.

Legal grounds:

Legitimate interests
- This processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests to manage our recruitment process, including to assess and confirm suitability for employment.
Substantial public interest
- This processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests to manage our recruitment process, including to assess and confirm suitability for employment.

For collection and use of information about race and ethnicity, religious and philosophical beliefs and health data we rely on the following legal grounds:

For reasons of substantial public interest, including to identify or keep under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment.

For carrying out our obligations and exercising our specific rights under employment, social security and social protection law and for health and social care purposes, including to comply with our legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments (for example, as a result of the outcome of a pre-employment medical assessment), and, if your application is successful, to provide information on relevant PwC support and access to relevant PwC networks.

If necessary, for the establishment, exercise and defence of legal claims.

We carry out criminal records checks for the following purposes:

To comply with our legal obligations to ensure an individual is eligible to work in the UK and to report relevant information to the Home Office as part of PwC sponsored visa applications.

For our legitimate interest or that of a third party to carry out pre-employment screening including a full background and criminal records check, depending on the role: (i) to establish whether an applicant has committed an unlawful act or been involved in dishonesty, malpractice or other seriously improper conduct; or (ii) to comply with government and public sector clearance requirements.

For reasons of substantial public interest, including complying with regulatory requirements relating to unlawful acts and dishonesty.

Automated decision-making

Algorithms that have been designed to automate some of our recruitment assessment decisions are used during the stages of the recruitment and assessment process as follows:

Making an online application
Responses to online questions are compared with our predefined requirements set for the relevant roles. Where the predefined requirements for the role are met, the application will progress automatically to the next stage of our recruitment process. We use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help link you to relevant job postings based on your CV or information you provide us, and also to highlight CVs which match our job postings.

Online assessments
For some roles, we utilise online assessments which involve automated decision making. This stage includes a series of online assessments which involve solely automated decision-making. The online assessments you are asked to complete have pre-determined correct or incorrect responses set, which relate to requirements needed in order to perform the role. The predefined responses are based on data that indicates what good job performance at PwC looks like (informed by job analysis conducted with PwC staff and partners) in relation to these assessments. Your responses to the online assessment questions and overall assessment score will be compared to the predefined responses and scores set for the relevant role(s). If you have an overall assessment score that meets or exceeds that required for the relevant role your application will progress automatically to the next stage of our recruitment process.

Assessment centres
These form part of our School and College Leaver, Undergraduate and Graduate recruitment process. It comprises a series of activities, for example written and group exercises with other candidates, together with an interview.

Review of an automated decision
You can ask for us to review the outcome of any solely automated decisions by contacting our Student Recruitment team via our recruitment queries webpage. Please include your candidate ID and your recruitment process stage when emailing.

When and how we share personal data and locations of processing

In addition to the information set out in our general privacy statement, personal data processed by us in connection with our recruitment activities may also be transferred to:

Other PwC member firms
- Your personal data will be provided to the PwC firm that has posted the position for which you are applying. It will also be provided to other PwC member firm(s) where (i) the role you are being considered for involves working with other PwC member firm(s) and (ii) it assists with their recruitment and employment activities (for example, if they are recruiting for a role that matches your interests and experience). For details of our member firm locations, please click here.
Colleges, tuition providers and universities
- If you apply to the Apprenticeship programme, your personal data will be provided to the respective college, tuition provider or university, where you will study once you have expressed an interest in one of PwC's apprenticeship programmes.
- When applying to our Flying Start Programme, your university will share your personal data (including name, personal email address and UCAS number) with PwC so that we can monitor the status of your PwC Flying Start Programme application process. The status and outcome of your PwC application will then be shared with the university(s). If you are offered a place on the PwC Flying Start Programme your personal data including your academic details and immigration information will be shared between PwC and the respective university to assess your eligibility for the relevant programmes.
Third party organisations that provide background checking and pre-employment screening, applications/functionality, data processing or IT services to us
- We use the products and services of third party organisations as part of the recruitment processes. The products and services we use differ depending on the role. Further details are listed below.

Provider name	Level and type of vacancy/role	Service provided to us	Address
Amberjack	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates	Manual video interview assessment, software used to conduct and manage activities as part of the Career Focus Day/Assessment Day Artificial Intelligence used to review answers for plagiarism that are submitted during Career Focus (Assessment) Day.	Amberjack, Newbury House, 20 Kings Road West, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 5XR, UK
Arctic Shores	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates	Candidate testing/assessment	Lowry House, 17 Marble Street, Manchester M2 3AW, UK
Beeline	Contractors	Payroll for contractors and temporary staff	Kean House 6 Kean Street London WC2B 4AS, UK
Conduent Process Solutions Limited	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates Experienced Careers Contractors	Provision of administration services for various stages of the recruitment process, including: candidate application, event scheduling and onboarding.	160 Queen Victoria Street, London, EC4V 4AN, UK
Experian	School and College Leaver Careers Undergraduate and Graduate Careers Experienced Careers	Provider of pre-employment screening services	80 Victoria St, Westminster, London, SW1E 5JL
HireVue	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates Experienced Careers	Video interviews platform and event scheduling software for Career Focus Day/Assessment Day.	Riverbank House, 2 Swan Lane, London, EC4R 3TT, UK
Kenexa Brassring (provided by IBM)	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates Experienced Careers	Candidate application tracking, offer, rejection and onboarding (prior to 7 June 2021) and maintenance of legacy records	North Harbour Portsmouth Hampshire, PO6 3AU, UK
Leoforce (Arya)	Experienced Careers	Automation of CV finding and collection	500 W Peace St, Raleigh, NC 27603, USA
Phenom People	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates Experienced Careers Contractors	Powers PwC job board and posts opportunities. Used for talent pooling, sending emails, direct sourcing of talent and analysis of talent.	300 Brookside Avenue Building 18, Suite 200 Ambler, PA 19002
Pure Recruitment Group Limited	Contractors	Conducting interviews on behalf of PwC	20 St Dunstan's Hill, London, EC3R 8HL, UK
Randstad	School and College Leavers Undergraduate and Graduates Experienced Careers Contractors	Sourcing of candidates and hiring and onboarding of some work experience candidates	450 Capability Green, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 3LU, UK
SHL	School and College Leaver Careers Undergraduate and Graduate Careers Experienced Careers	Candidate testing/assessment	Victoria House, 37-63 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4DR, UK
Smashfly Technologies	School and College Leaver Careers Undergraduate and Graduate Careers Experienced Careers Contractors	Powers PwC job board and automatically posts opportunities to third party job boards. Used for talent pooling, sending emails, direct sourcing of talent and analysis of talent. Used for event marketing and logistics	9 Pond Lane, Suite 3A3, Concord, MA 01742, USA
VirBela	School and College Leaver Careers Undergraduate and Graduate Careers Experienced Careers	Facilitation of virtual campuses for student recruitment, school leaver recruitment and experienced recruitment events	2219 Rimland Dr suite 301 Bellingham WA, USA 98226
Workday	School and College Leaver Careers Undergraduate and Graduate Careers Experienced Careers	Candidate application tracking, offer, rejection and onboarding	6230 Stoneridge Mall Road Pleasanton, CA 94588, USA

Employment agencies or recruiters acting on your behalf

Government and regulatory agencies as required by, and in accordance with, applicable law or regulation

Data retention

We retain personal data processed in connection with our recruitment activities as follows:

If your application is successful, we retain relevant personal data as part of your personnel record.

If your application is unsuccessful, we will retain and use the information you provided to PwC as part of your application for a reasonable period of time to deal with any matter which may arise in connection with your application or future applications. In addition, we will use it to contact you (unless you have asked us not to) about any other relevant employment opportunities that may arise, and for our legitimate business purposes (for example, to make sure we do not contact you about a role for which you have already applied).

Interview recordings are held for two years after the tests and then deleted. The retention of this data is necessary to support our processes of retrospective review, challenge and quality assurance.

If you choose to join our talent pool, we will retain your personal data for as long as you are a member of it.

If you have breached PwC’s recruitment policies, PwC retains the right to hold information about this breach and your application for a period which it believes reasonable to safeguard the integrity of the firm and its recruitment processes.

Where we sponsor a person from outside the UK we are required by the Home Office to keep personal data about the other applicants to evidence that we are complying with applicable law and regulation.

PwC does not knowingly collect or maintain personal data from recruits who are under the age of 16. If you are under 16 years of age, please do not submit a recruitment application to PwC. If PwC learns that we have collected personal data below the age of 16, we will delete this information from our records.

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