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 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:

• 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). Please note that references received and provided by PwC are done confidentially.

• 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 (background checks, qualifications and professional status, employment history and referencing for example);
• Information about you and your immediate family’s financial relationships; 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

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, 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.
• 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.

Legal grounds: 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.

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:

Colleges, tuition providers and universities

• If you apply for the trainee 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.
• 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.

• 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.

Back