Privacy policy.
Confidentiality is at the heart of our business. We take the privacy of both clients and candidates very seriously.
Who are we?
Natural Selection provides search services to clients seeking to hire senior talent for their businesses. Additionally, Natural Selection undertake talent mapping exercises that help us and our clients understand the candidate universe in a particular industry or sector.
What does this Policy cover?
Sets out the types of personal data that we collect about you.
Explains how and why we collect and use your personal data.
Explains how long we keep your personal data for.
Explains when, why and with who we will share your personal data.
Sets out the legal basis we have for using your personal data.
Explains the effect of refusing to provide the personal data requested.
Explains the different rights and choices you have when it comes to your personal data.
Explains how we may contact you and how you can contact us.
What personal data do we collect about you?
We collect the information necessary to be able to consider possible career opportunities for you and further information needed to assess your eligibility for specific roles through the different stages of the search process. This information includes CV’s, identification documents, educational records, work history, employment and references.
In the course of our interaction, we may also collect sensitive personal data about you, in the form of gender, ethnicity, family, religious beliefs, sexuality. We only collect sensitive personal data from you, and further process this data, where you have shared this direct with us and given your explicit consent.
Where Natural Selection is engaged in a talent mapping exercise on behalf of our clients we will only collate publicly available data (such as that provided on a LinkedIn profile) and will link to the source of that data to ensure data always remains current.
Where do we collect personal data about you from?
The following comprise the different sources where we may collect personal data about you:
Directly from you. This is information you provide while searching for a new opportunity and/or during the different recruitment stages
Through publicly available sources. We use the following public sources:
LinkedIn
Google or other search engines
Company website
Subscripted industry journals
By reference or word of mouth. For example, you may be recommended by a friend, a former employer, a former colleague or even a present employer.
How and why we use your personal data?
We use your personal data to match your skills, experience and education with an opportunity at a potential employer. We will initially collect basic information on you such as contact details, job role and experience and then with your consent, pass this on to the client in the context of an executive search. If you are chosen by the client and go through to the next stage we will then be collecting more information from you at the interview (or equivalent) stage and onwards in that manner.
How long do we keep your personal data for?
We keep your information for no longer than six years.
With whom do we share your personal data?
Your personal data is shared with the client who retains us to initiate a search for personnel. This is done to see if you are a good fit for the available position and whether you would be interested in such a role. We may also conduct checks on you to verify the information you have provided and where we do this we may share your information to validate it.
What legal basis do we have for using your information?
For prospective candidates, referees and clients, our processing is necessary to serve our legitimate business interests, in that we require the information in order to be able to assess suitability for potential roles, to find potential candidates and to contact clients and referees.
If you are shortlisted as a candidate then this may involve the processing of more detailed personal data including sensitive data such as health information that you or others choose to provide about you. In that case we always ask for your consent before undertaking such processing.
For clients, we may also rely on our processing being necessary to perform a contract for you, for example in contacting you.
What happens if you do not provide us with the information we request or ask that we stop processing your information?
If you do not provide the personal data necessary or withdraw your consent for the processing of your personal data, we may not be able to match you with available job opportunities.
Do we make automated decisions concerning you?
No, we do not carry out automated profiling.
Do we transfer your data outside the EEA?
To better match your employee profile with current opportunities we may transfer your personal data to clients and partners in countries outside the EEA. These countries privacy laws may be different from those in your home country. Where we transfer data to a country which has not been deemed to provide adequate data protection standards we always have security measures and approved model clauses in place to protect your personal data. To find out more about how we safeguard your information as related to transfers contact
What rights do you have in relation to the data we hold on you?
By law, you have a number of rights when it comes to your personal data. Further information and advice about your rights can be obtained from the data protection regulator in your country.
1. The right to be informed:
You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your information and your rights. This is why we’re providing you with the information in this Policy.
2. The right of access:
You have the right to obtain access to your information (if we’re processing it), and certain other information (similar to that provided in this Privacy Policy).
This is so you are aware and can check that we’re using your information in accordance with data protection law.
3. The right to rectification:
You are entitled to have your information corrected if it’s inaccurate or incomplete.
4. The right to erasure:
This is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and, in simple terms, enables you to request the deletion or removal of your information where there’s no compelling reason for us to keep using it. This is not a general right to erasure; there are exceptions.
5. The right to restrict processing:
You have rights to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your information. When processing is restricted, we can still store your information, but may not use it further. We keep lists of people who have asked for further use of their information to be ‘blocked’ to make sure the restriction is respected in future.
6. The right to data portability:
You have rights to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. For example, if you decide to switch to a new provider, this enables you to move, copy or transfer your information easily between our IT systems and theirs safely and securely, without affecting its usability.
7. The right to object to processing:
You have the right to object to certain types of processing, including processing for direct marketing (i.e. if you no longer want to be contacted with potential opportunities).
8. The right to lodge a complaint:
You have the right to lodge a complaint about the way we handle or process your personal data with your national data protection regulator.
9. The right to withdraw consent:
If you have given your consent to anything we do with your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (although if you do so, it does not mean that anything we have done with your personal data with your consent up to that point is unlawful). This includes your right to withdraw consent to us using your personal data for marketing purposes.
We usually act on requests and provide information free of charge, but may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative costs of providing the information for:
baseless or excessive/repeated requests, or
further copies of the same information.
Alternatively, we may be entitled to refuse to act on the request.
Please consider your request responsibly before submitting it. We’ll respond as soon as we can. Generally, this will be as soon as possible and certainly within one month from when we receive your request but, if the request is going to take longer to deal with, we’ll come back to you and let you know.
How will we contact you?
We may contact you by phone and email or social media. If you prefer a particular contact means over another please just let us know.
How can you contact us?
If you are unhappy with how we’ve handled your information or have further questions on the processing of your personal data, contact