With the possibility to automatically remove candidates’ data after they meet a set of criteria, you can ensure that your database is not filled with candidates or applications that you don't have a clear purpose for storing. Automate your compliance!
Once a candidate or an individual job application meets any of the specified rules, it is flagged for deletion. Following a one-week grace period from the flagging date, it will be removed from your company account.
❗ Note! Once you delete a candidate or an individual job application, the profile is immediately deleted from your company account and cannot be restored.
Set it up
To enable automatic candidate deletion, head over to Settings → Data & Privacy → Automatic data deletion. Here you will find the four different parameters for deleting the candidate's data. You can choose to work with as many options as you see fit.
To enable a specific parameter, toggle it on and select the time frame. The time frame tells you when a candidate will be flagged for automatic deletion.
The setup of automatic deletion will run on every single candidate, and once the candidate is deleted you will not be able to restore their profile. We therefore recommend you talk to your legal team when setting this up, to make sure all is in order.
Deletion rules
There are a few different rules/criteria you can enable for automatic deletion. Your candidates will only be flagged with one deletion parameter, even if they qualify for several. This will be the first parameter met by the candidate. If you choose to clear that delete reason (by following the steps under Keep the candidate in this article), another deletion parameter might apply.
Let’s look at the different deletion rules:
Delete inactive candidates
An inactive candidate is a candidate profile without any activity during X amount of days. An activity is any type of action taken by you or the candidate (including sending messages, writing notes, moving the candidate in the process, rating, etc). Note that automatic Connect emails aren't counted as an activity.
Delete rejected job applications
This option will delete only the Job application record along with related data. When deleting a job application, all associated data such as notes, interviews, messages, and other related information are also removed, offering a comprehensive cleanup process.
💡 The data listed as Job data is removed and the rest of the candidate's profile is saved.
Delete candidates without active purpose
A “purpose” is defined as a) Applied to a job b) Connected and c) provided “Future jobs consent”. This setting will flag candidates for deletion if they don’t meet any of these 3 criteria. Please note, sourced and referred candidates added to a job are counted as having an active purpose.
Delete candidates who submit removal requests
A candidate can request to be removed from your candidate bank at any time. Decide if you want to automatically remove them after X amount of days. Learn more about this feature here.
Delete candidates with missing or expired permission
If a candidate is marked as permission missing or expired permission, you can choose to automatically delete the candidate.
Exclude hired candidates from deletion rules
If you want to prevent hired candidates from being deleted by the automatic deletion rules above the following setting can be enabled:
Once enabled all candidates with an application status Hired will be excluded from the deletion rules.
If a candidate was previously hired but their status is later reverted, they will be included in the deletion rules. The current status is always used as the reference.
Potential rejected job applications will be deleted if the corresponding deletion rule is enabled. However, the candidate profile itself, along with any other active or hired applications, will remain intact.
Please note that enabling this feature means it will be applied to candidates already flagged for deletion. Meaning that potential Hired candidates flagged for deletion will be excluded.
How it works
When you enable this feature, you decide how long the candidate's data will be stored after meeting the criteria for automatic deletion. After the allowed time has passed, the system will notify you that a candidate is flagged for deletion. When a candidate's profile is flagged, it will be deleted one week later. This means you have one week to take action if you want to keep the candidate's data (more on that below).
💡 According to the settings you see above, candidates are scheduled for deletion if they haven't had any activity in 90 days. Once 90 days have passed, the system will flag the candidate for deletion. One week later, the candidate will be automatically removed and can't be restored.
How to know if a candidate is flagged for deletion
When the candidate is flagged for deletion, this will be displayed in several places on the platform as Deleting soon.
1. In the Candidate card
If a candidate is about to be deleted, an orange shield indication will appear on the candidate card in the action bar under ⋮ More. Click on Data & privacy to see when the candidate is due to be deleted, along with the reason for the deletion.
2. Tag in Candidate bank
In your candidate bank, you will also notice a Deleting in x days tag next to the candidates flagged for deletion.
Use the Will be deleted filter in your candidate bank to find all candidates flagged for deletion, related to a specific time. In the example above, Will be deleted: Any date , we list all candidates that have been flagged for deletion, disregarding where they are in the 7-day deletion period.
3. Data privacy digest
Your assigned Data & privacy managers with the Data & privacy activity daily digest notification enabled will receive this email. The email includes a summary of all candidates that were flagged for deletion that day, and when they will be deleted (7 days after being flagged).
❗️Make sure to keep an eye on the number of candidates flagged. If the number seems higher than usual, head over to the automatic deletion rules to ensure they are configured as intended.
4. Data privacy widget in the dashboard
In your Teamtailor dashboard, you can choose to add a Data privacy widget. In this widget, you will see if you have any candidates scheduled for deletion. Clicking Will be deleted will take you to a list of all candidates flagged for deletion.
Stop the deletion / Can I keep the candidate?
If a candidate is flagged for deletion, and you for some reason want to keep this profile, this is what is required for the different delete parameters.
Inactive - perform an action in the candidate's profile. An example of this could be to write a note saying "I want to keep this profile".
Rejected candidates - if the candidate hasn't been rejected within the job process, their application won't be deleted. Therefore, to keep the data from a specific job application, you will need to unreject them to prevent automatic deletion.
Removal requested - a candidate can at any time request to be removed if they no longer want to store their data. If you need to keep this candidate's data, click the Dismiss warning button you see in the candidate's profile. This candidate's removal request will now be ignored and their profile won't be automatically deleted.
Missing/Expired permission - collect the permission from the candidate. If the permission is missing, you can request permission, or click "I have permission" in the candidate’s Data & privacy center. For candidates with expired permission, you can renew it by informing the candidate about the data storage.
Stop deletion for all candidates
When you have candidates that are flagged for deletion, you will see a red box on the automatic deletion settings page. This informs you of the number of candidates that are pending deletion, allows you to view all flagged candidates, as well as the option to Don’t delete these candidates. By doing so you cancel all scheduled deletions and reset the settings. Please note that the prior settings can't be restored, so handle with care!
Changing the time frame settings
If you adjust the time frame settings for automatic deletion, candidates already flagged for deletion will not be affected. All other candidate profiles will be stored according to the updated time frame.