At Cover-Letters.org.uk (“we”, “us” or “our” for short) we are committed to protecting your personal information. Your personal information (also called ‘personal data’) is the information which identifies you as an individual that we get from you and others in various ways. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”) and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (“GDPR”) specific obligations are placed on us in the way we handle this type of information. The aim of this privacy policy is to let you know what personal information we collect from you when you apply for a job with us, when you use our website and when you contact us, how we store and use it, and how you can access and manage this information.
Your personal information may be stored online and therefore we take steps to ensure that our systems are well protected.
So, what personal information do we collect about you?
We process the following types of personal data about you:
Contact details
Identification information
Information about past and current employment
Education and qualifications
Information about your lifestyle
We collect the personal information requested on our application forms and contact forms together with any comments or remarks that you may provide in free text fields (such as personal statements) or CVs (where applicable). We may also keep a record of references received from third parties (including those you give us, credit reference and fraud prevention agencies) and of any other correspondence or communication between you and us, whether written, e-mailed, or as a result of visits, interviews or recorded telephone calls.
We also monitor site traffic, and like most websites, we use a Unique Visitor Cookie (which is supplied and managed by a carefully selected statistics provider) to identify your PC by a random number (e.g. #12489). More details about cookies and how you can disable them can be found below.
We will (unless it’s impractical) tell you if we obtain and store information from any other source and also how we intend to use it in accordance with this privacy policy.
Making sure your personal data is secure
Whilst we take steps to protect user privacy, no data transmission over the internet can be entirely secure. We therefore do not guarantee the security of personal information that you send to us, or your use of the site. Any personal information you do send is at your own risk but once we receive it we use strict procedures to safeguard it.
How do we use your personal information?
In connection with a contract between you and us or an employer…
We may use and process your personal information where it is necessary for us to do so to in connection with or anticipation of a contract between you and us, or an employer to:
process your job application and otherwise manage the recruitment process;
help potential employers assess and process your job application;
help potential employers check and confirm the references that you provide as part of your job application;
check with any necessary regulatory, industry and/or security authorities relevant to the position that you have applied for.
So, what are cookies and why do we use them?
Cookies are files that are recorded in temporary Internet folders on your PC. They’re a useful tool as, by recording the way you use our site, they enable us to get to know you better. For example, we’re able to recognise you when you return to the site, identify your preferences so as to provide you with a more personalised service and speed up searches that you conduct when visiting.
You don’t have to accept them. Most browsers allow you to refuse cookies by activating the relevant setting (please check the help menu of your browser for more details) however, selecting this setting may mean that you are unable to access certain parts of our site.
Please note that unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.
Further Detail on Cookies
Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently remembering your preferences, and generally improve your web site experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.