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 to us or those who are making an application on behalf of a candidate (such as recruitment agencies).

If your application is successful, we carry out pre-employment screening checks as part of our onboarding process. Depending on the role you have applied for, these checks may include criminal records checks.

Use​ ​of​ ​personal​ data

We process personal data to attract and secure the best talent to work with us as follows:

• 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, on 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.

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.

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.

We collect and use information about race and ethnicity, religious and philosophical beliefs and health data for the following purposes:

• For our legitimate interests to manage our recruitment process, including to assess and confirm suitability for employment
• 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.

Automated decision-making

For Experienced hires

On occasion, we may utilise online candidate testing and assessment. The results of these assessments are reviewed by recruiters who then manually progress or reject the application. We do not use solely automated decision making for recruitment of experienced hires.

For School and College Leavers, Undergraduate and Graduate recruitment

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. This stage includes screening related to academic performance. 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.

Game-based psychometric assessments. 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.

Video interview. This stage includes a video interview that may use automated decision making by applying an artificial intelligence algorithm. Automated decision making is required in order to cater for the large volumes of candidate applications the firm receives every year. After you have recorded your video interview responses, the algorithm evaluates your answers by studying your video responses - word choice, voice inflection, emotion, language patterns and facial expression - to provide a fair and objective score recommendation..

If you obtain a high recommended score, your application will progress directly to the next stage of our recruitment process. Where you do not obtain a high recommended score, your video interview will be reviewed by PwC recruiters to determine whether your application should progress. The algorithm has been designed and tested to be objective, and to focus only on the things that are important to the particular job role for which you have applied. Additionally, the video interview technology is used to detect any technical issues, which may have impacted the candidate during the interview, such as: loss of connection or recording and playback issues. It facilitates a process to reset tests where required.

Career Focus Day/Assessment Day - This stage is an ‘immersive’ day in the life experience. It comprises a series of tests, for example numerical, written and group exercises with other candidates, together with an interview.

Automated decision making is not involved in this stage of the recruitment process. Candidate performance is assessed on the day by the host and assessors facilitating the relevant assessments at the event.

Review of an automated decision

You can ask for us to review the outcome of any solely automated decisions by emailing PwCStudentRecruitment@hccs.pwc.co.uk. Please include your candidate ID and your recruitment process stage when emailing.

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 employee 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.