Recruitment Policy

You are provided with this copy of this Notice because you are applying for work with Energise (whether as an employee, worker, or contractor). The notice is for information only and you do not need to take any action. This notice is in addition to our Privacy and Cookies policy.

The purpose of this Notice is to tell you what information we collect from you, how, when, and why (namely for the purposes of the recruitment exercise) it may be collected and what happens to it. For the purpose of this Notice, “we”, “our” and “us” refer Energise as an organisation Energise is committed to complying with data protection law and principles. This notice provides you with information that must be provided under the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Energise is a data controller (a data controller is someone responsible for deciding how to hold and use personal information) and our Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the contact details below.

E-mail address: hr@energise.com

Postal address: Energise 8 Eaton Court Road, Colmworth Business Park, St Neots,

Cambridgeshire PE19 8ER

This Notice only applies to personal information processed by or on behalf of Energise in relation to the job application submitted by you. 

We may collect information from you when you visit our website, use our services, contact us by telephone or email or receive a communication from us relating to our services.

What information does Energise collect?

Energise will collect a range of information about you relating to our recruitment process.  This involves

  • Your name, title, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
  • Details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
  • Information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
  • Information about your desired level of remuneration, type of contract and working hours;
  • Whether or not you have a disability for which Energise needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process; and
  • Information about your entitlement to work in the UK;
  • Any other information provided by you via our online recruitment portal and the information you provide during an interview or other selection process.

Energise may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, CVs or resumes, cover letters, emails, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment including online tests.

Energise may also collect data from third parties; such as references supplied by former employers, recruitment agencies, background check providers but will do this at the point a job offer has been made and will only do so with prior consent from yourself.  These third parties will have their own privacy policy independent of us.

Data will be processed in a range of different places, including any online recruitment portal, HR management systems and on other IT systems (including email).

Why does Energise process personal data?

Energise will only use your personal information when the law allows it. Most commonly, Energise will use your personal information in the following circumstances.

The organisation needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It may also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

In some cases, Energise needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

Energise has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows Energise to manage the recruitment process, communicate with you about the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment, decide to whom to offer a job, and to carry out background and reference checks where applicable. Energise may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims and to comply with other legal or regulatory requirements.

Where Energise processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about gender, date of birth, racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religious, political, or philosophical beliefs (which is provided on a voluntary basis), this is usually done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring and reporting. Data that Energise uses for these purposes is anonymised or is collected with the express consent of individuals, which can be withdrawn at any time. You are entirely free to decide whether to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.

With your consent, Energise may also collect information about your health, including any medical condition and your disability status in order to consider whether any reasonable adjustments should be made for candidates during the recruitment process and/or if a certain standard of health is a requirement for the role you have applied for. Energise processes such information to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

For some roles, Energise is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where the organisation seeks this information, it does so because it is necessary for it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment / it to comply with a regulatory requirement to establish whether an individual has committed an 

unlawful act or been involved in dishonesty or other improper conduct/reasons of substantial public interest.

Energise will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of application. This includes members of the HR and recruitment team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, managers in the business area with a vacancy and IT, Facilities, Health & Safety and Finance staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.

Energise will not share your personal information with any third parties unless they are working directly with us as a recruitment or test supplier or contractor or as part of maintaining our activities, products or services.

We may be under an obligation to disclose your personal information by the law or regulation of a country in which we operate.

Energise will not otherwise share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment.

How does Energise protect data?

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need-to-know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

For how long does Energise keep data?

We will retain your personal information as indicated in the table below. This is so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. After this period, we will securely destroy your personal information.

Category of Records

Retention Period

Recruitment accounts (personal data including application forms and equal opportunity data) for external unsuccessful candidates

Up to 1 year. Applicants’ accounts are deleted if inactive currently and in the previous calendar year.

Recruitment accounts (personal data including application forms and equal opportunity data) for successful internal and external candidates and unsuccessful internal candidates

Applicants’ accounts are deleted if inactive (not involved in a job application workflow) currently and in the previous calendar year. Such purges are scheduled yearly in January.

Applications retained 7 years after employment ends.

Application related information for unsuccessful external candidates

Up to 1 year. Applicants’ related information is deleted. Deleted yearly in January.

Application related information for successful internal and external candidates and unsuccessful internal candidates

7 years after employment ends

Interview notes for unsuccessful external candidates

1 year

Interview notes for successful internal and external and unsuccessful internal candidates

7 years after employment ends

If your application for employment is successful, some personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and retained during your   employment. The data and periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new fair processing notice.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

  • Access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
  • Require Energise to change incorrect or incomplete data;
  • Ask Energise to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
  • Object to the processing of your data where Energise is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing;
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal information; and
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

Please contact our Data Protection Officer at the contact details set out above if you would like to exercise any of these rights or if you have any concern about how your personal information is processed and we will try to resolve your concerns.

However, if you consider that we are in breach of our obligations under data protection laws, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/). 

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no obligation to provide data to Energise during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, Energise may not be able to process your application properly or at all.

Changes to this Notice

While the content of this Notice is accurate at the date of issue, Energise may need to make changes in the future. You will be notified of any relevant changes.

If you have any questions about this fair processing notice, please contact our Data Protection Officer at the contact details set out above.