Who we are

We are Optitude Business Solutions Ltd. We represent the businesses that trade as Optitude360 and Optitude-OCC. Details of Optitude Business Solutions firms are set out at the end of this policy document. Optitude Business Solutions (“we”, “us”) is committed to keeping your information secure and managing it in accordance with applicable data protection laws including the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EC) 2016/679 (“GDPR”) in the European Union (“EU”) and the United Kingdom, the Data Protection Act 2018 and all successor legislation.

We keep this Privacy Policy under regular review and update it from time to time. This policy was last updated in July 2020. Please review this policy periodically for any changes.

Who does this policy apply to?

We provide executive search, assessment and leadership services, interim managers and independent consultants (“our services”) to a range of clients throughout the UK and Europe. Details of our services can be found elsewhere on this website. This policy applies to you whether you are a candidate for one of our clients, an individual we are assessing as an employee of one of our clients, a client or whether you are a source or a referee in respect of a candidate or an employee of one of our clients.

Additionally, this policy will apply to you if you attend one of our events or have subscribed to receive information about our services or any of our marketing materials such as our regular newsletter.

For the purposes of this policy:

candidate(s) means an individual who is a candidate, applicant, potential candidate, employee of a client;

client(s) means any, business, firm, organisation, government body or individual that mandates us to perform any of our services;

a referee is a person who provides a personal or work reference in respect of a candidate and;

a source is a person who provides us with information or intelligence about a candidate.

Gathering information

Our clients expect us to identify the best individuals to fill roles within their organisations. So, we need to research our networks, online databases and other information sources, and talk to a wide range of individuals. Besides our clients, these will include referees and sources to help inform our decision-making process.

The nature of our work means we are required to process personal data quickly, confidentially and often without reference to the data subject. Accordingly, we process such data in accordance with applicable data protection law, regularly using our legitimate interest where it is not possible or feasible to speak directly with the data subject. Beyond this, we will seek consent in the circumstances explained later in this policy document.

We collect information from candidates directly when you upload your CV or resume into our candidate portal or when you send it to us via email or post. We also collect information from you when you interact with an Optitude Business Solutions employee.

How we use your personal data

Candidates

We use the personal data we collect from you for a number of purposes:

Processing job applications, in partnership with our clients, on whose behalf we are instructed to help fill a job vacancy. This means that if you apply for a specific job, we may pass your details to the relevant client to proceed with the application. As a result, you may receive further direct correspondence from them.
Searching for relevant candidates for confidential recruitment assignments where our client is not initially named. This means that if we believe you are suitable for a specific role, we may pass your basic details on to the relevant client. If that client agrees that you might be suitable, we will then discuss this with you in more detail. You may be interviewed for the role by one of our consultants. If successful, you may be shortlisted for an interview by our client. At this point, we will pass further details to the client and you may receive further direct correspondence from them.
From time to time, we conduct mapping or research exercises on behalf of our clients. This is to enable them to understand a particular market. Here, we may include certain aspects of your personal data.
For the performance of a contract, we have entered into with you as an individual, including assessment and coaching programmes.
For equality monitoring purposes, to understand the diversity of our applicant pool, but only if permitted by applicable law. (This information is anonymised and aggregated).
Improving the service, we offer. For example, you may be asked to complete one of our online satisfaction surveys.
For marketing purposes to send you information on our services, white papers, newsletters, events, and so forth. Please note you may opt-out from receipt of marketing materials at any time by writing to us.
We will only use your information in accordance with this Policy, or where we are required or authorised by law to disclose your information to others or have your permission to do so.

Please be aware that we are not responsible for the data processing activities of others, such as our clients.

Client

We will use client data to perform our services to you and other legitimate business purposes such as marketing.

Sources and Referee’s

We will use source and referee data to perform our services, in particular, to enable us to obtain your opinions on a candidate. We may also use this information to enable us to market our services to you as a potential client. We may invite you to become a candidate in respect of the provision of our services. The type of personal data we collect and process In all cases we collect and process personal data about you, including your name, address, telephone number, and email address.
Candidate

If you proceed with a job application, or should we consult you about a role, you may be required to submit additional personal data. For example, date of birth, education and career history and curriculum vitae (CV), or resume. Your CV or resume may contain employment history, education, professional qualifications, memberships, details of papers written, references and referees, amongst other things.

Based on your explicit consent, we will also process any relevant psychometric assessments, psychological tests, or results from such assessments or tests. From time to time, we may ask you to provide information relating to protected characteristics, such as your race or marital status. We do this for equal opportunity monitoring purposes and from time to time online, but only if permitted by law. This information is always anonymised and aggregated. We may also collect personal data from third-party databases and other public sources.

Client

As well as basic contact information we will also collect information about your role and other information provided to us by your organisation.

Source and Referee

As well as basic contact information we will also collect information regarding your credentials as a source, details of your relationship/knowledge of a candidate, and your opinions of that individual. We may obtain this information directly from you or via publicly available information.

What we do

For certain roles, we may publish an advertisement to which you may respond, either electronically or via mail. Other roles may involve one of our researchers or consultants calling you to discuss the details. Both will direct you to this Privacy Policy. Besides filling particular leadership vacancies, we also process personal data when we conduct market intelligence exercises to map out particular business sectors or functions to help clients understand the available talent.

Sensitive data

From time to time, we will seek your consent to process personal data in respect of certain specific and limited purposes. We will always do this before processing any sensitive personal data: racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning health or sex life and sexual orientation, genetic and / or biometric data. We encourage you not to provide us with sensitive personal data unless it is specifically requested, and we have your consent.

Your right to object and to have your data erased

You are not obliged to provide any personal data to us. However, please note that this may mean we will not be able to consider you in respect of any of our services. Remember, you may withdraw any consent you have previously given, at any time, although this will not impact the legality of any processing already carried out with your consent. Also, you have the right to ask us to stop processing any personal data and to have it erased. In these circumstances, we reserve the right to retain basic personal data such as your name and address. This is to ensure your personal data isn’t processed by us in the future. Please note that no automated decisions, such as computerised candidate profiling, are made on the basis of the information we collect.

Newsletters and other communications

If you would like to receive one of our newsletters, we will ask you to provide us with your name, email address, job title, company name, and country of residence. When you have indicated you would like to receive newsletter(s) from us, we may send email alerts and bulletins about our services and any roles that might interest you. You can unsubscribe from our electronic marketing messages by following the “unsubscribe” instructions included in our communications. From time to time, we may contact you with updates on our services, terms of business or simply to ensure that the data we hold is current, relevant and up to date. Satisfaction surveys If you take part in a user satisfaction survey, we may ask you to provide us with personal data, including your name, email address, and your views and opinions.

Third parties

We may provide information to third-party service providers who process the information on our behalf. This is to help run some of our internal business operations, including email distribution, IT services and customer services. As part of our agreements with them, these third parties are required to process such data securely and only in accordance with our instructions. Your information may also be shared with organisations located in other countries. As their privacy laws may not match your home country’s standards, we’ll only make a transfer data if adequate levels of protection are in place to protect any information held in that country. For transfers of personal data out of the UK/EEA, we will rely on adequacy decisions by the European Commission, or for transfers to countries where there is no adequacy decision, we will rely on model clauses issued by the European Commission.

We may sometimes be required to disclose information about you to law enforcement bodies, agencies, or third parties, under a legal requirement or court order. We will act responsibly and take account, where possible, of your interests when responding to these requests. If you are concerned about these arrangements to disclose or share personal data with third parties, you should contact us and ask us not to process your personal data.

Keeping information secure

We invest significant resources to protect your personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. However, no system can be 100% secure, and so we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our reasonable control.

Information about others

If you provide us with information about other individuals, such as details of a referee or personal contact, you must ensure they’ve agreed to this. We would advise you to keep a record of their agreement and provide them with a copy of, or link to, this Privacy Policy.

Keeping your records

We keep your personal data for as long as required to provide our services, and in accordance with legal, tax, and accounting requirements. We may retain your data for longer periods if required for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims. When your personal data is no longer required, we will ensure it is disposed of in a secure manner.

Access rights

In some jurisdictions, you may have the right to request copies of your personal data held by us. If you think any of that data is inaccurate, you may also ask us to correct it. You may also have a right, in certain circumstances, to require us to stop processing your personal data. Also, you have the right to ask us to transfer your personal data to someone you nominate for your own purposes in a commonly used and machine-readable format.

To get in touch with us about any of this, please email or write to us at the address below. Please note that we may request proof of identity. We will respond to your requests within the time frame that applies in the country concerned. In certain circumstances, in countries where it is required or permitted by law, we might not be able to provide you with access to some of your personal data. Wherever possible, we will notify you of the reasons for this.

About our websites

This Privacy Policy also applies to this website and our partner website optitude-occ.org

The primary purpose of our websites is to provide you with information regarding the services provided by the Optitude Business Solutions Group of companies and consultants. We use the personal data we collect from you on our website for additional purposes such as personalising the look and feel of the website to fit the personal preferences inferred from how you’ve used the site. (See the “Analytics” and “Cookies” sections for more information.)

We may disclose or share personal data with third parties as outlined above to operate the website and provide our executive search services, as well as assessment services in certain countries. If you are concerned about these arrangements, you should not use the website and contact us to ask us not to process your personal data. Finally, we might also use your data to help our clients understand who is making use of our website and how their job vacancies are being viewed.

Analytics

We use analytics tools and cookies on this website to help deliver our online services, identify any service issues, improve our services, provide content tailored to users’ personal preferences, and to monitor site traffic and usage.

These tools may be provided by third-party service providers and may include the collection and tracking of certain data and information regarding the characteristics and activities of visitors to our website. We may disclose data, including personal data, to certain third-party service providers in order to obtain such services. One of these providers is Google Analytics. More information about the ways in which they collect and process your personal data can be found here: www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners You can opt-out of Google Analytics here: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Cookies

Cookies are small computer files that are downloaded onto your device when you browse the web. They collect information about the way in which you navigate and use this website and the wider web. This information may allow us to identify you or your approximate location. Cookies also help us provide you with more personal experience, like a local version of the website in a local language. Information from cookies also allows us to make improvements to our services. You may delete and block all cookies, or just certain types of cookies, via your browser settings. However, if you choose to block or delete cookies, this may affect the functionality of the website.

More information about Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Third party websites

This Policy only applies to both Optitude360 and Optitude OCC Websites. If you land on our site from other websites or move to other ones from our website, you should read their separate privacy policies. Complaints procedure If you have a complaint about how we have handled your personal data, you can contact us using the details below, and we will investigate your complaint. Please use the same contact details to instruct us to cease processing your personal data. If you are located a UK or EEA country and are not satisfied with our response to your complaint or request, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner at their website www.ico.org.uk.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or would like to exercise your rights with respect to your personal data, please contact us at data.admin@test.optitude360.com or write to:

Data Administrator

Optitude Business Solutions

Kemp House

152 -160 City Road

London

EC1V 2NX

United Kingdom