Data Privacy Statement for applicants (recruitment)

This Data Privacy Statement explains how Beiersdorf processes your personal data when you apply for a position advertised by us. It also describes your data protection rights, including the right to object to some of Beiersdorf’s processing operations. For more information on your rights and how you can exercise them, please refer to the section “Legal rights inrelation to personal data and how to exercise them”.

This Data Privacy Statement supplements our existing General Data Privacy Statement, which gives you specific information on how we process personal data obtained from you visiting our website and related to non-application-specific topics. 

2. Collection of personal data

Within the recruitment process, we collect and store the following categories of personal data about you:

  • Data which you have provided to us in your candidate profile, including first and last name, country, e-mail, phone number.
  • Data which you have entered on our candidate application form, including desired annual salary, your motivation, information about disabilities (if and to the extent that it is relevant for the job offered).
  • Data which you have provided to us in your application documents (curriculum vitae CV, cover letter) including work experience, qualifications and language skills.
  • Data from online assessments (e.g. personality tests, cognitive ability tests) and video interviews (if applicable).
  • Data provided to us by your referees (if applicable). These are reference points that you have given us to contact.                                               

We evaluate the results of cognitive ability tests using relevant reference groups considering your profession and level of experience.

We collect personal data directly from you or from our external partners, e.g. headhunters. We can also obtain information from professional social networks, such as LinkedIn, job boards such as Monster, and from other publicly accessible sources (only information relevant to your professional life) for the purposes of actively approaching you with job offers or for the purpose of confirming the accuracy of the information presented by you within the course of the application.

3. Use of personal data

Your personal data may be used for following purposes:

  • To assess your application for the job offered and to communicate with you within the recruitment process.
  • To contact you in case of an alternative career opportunity within the Beiersdorf group (you can restrict the visibility of your candidate profile to the team involved in your current application or grant it to Beiersdorf’s recruiters worldwide).
  • Based on your consent to ask you about your experience within the recruitment process.
  • To contact you following your unsolicited application.
  • Based on your consent to send you personalized information on current open job postings.

4. Legal basis for processing

Personal data within the recruitment process will be used for the assessment of your application and, if an employment relationship is established, also for the execution of the employment relationship. For specific positions this includes your participation in an online cognitive ability or personality test. The legal basis for the cognitive ability test is Section 26 (1) in conjunction with (8) Sentence 2 of the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) and Section 22 (1) b) BDSG. Providing your personal data as part of the application process is voluntary. However, the provision of personal data is necessary for the processing of your application or the conclusion of an employment contract with us.  The legal basis for the personality test is your consent pursuant to Section 26 (2) BDSG. Participation in the personality test is voluntary.

When we obtain information from your public profile on professional social networks, such as LinkedIn, we base this processing on our legitimate interest to build a decision base in order to establish an employment relationship with you. The legal basis is Article 6 f) GDPR in conjunction with Article 9 (2) e) GDPR.

When we invite you to participate in a survey on your satisfaction with the application process at Beiersdorf the relevant legal basis is your consent pursuant to Section 26 BDSG in conjunction with Article 7 GDPR. The same legal basis applies when you subscribe for our Job Agent to receive information on current open job postings.

Furthermore, we may process personal data about you where this is necessary to defend ourselves against legal claims arising from the application process that are brought against us. The legal basis for this is Article 6 (1) b and f) GDPR; the legitimate interest is, for example, a burden of proof in proceedings under the German General Equal Treatment Act (AGG).

5. Data sharing

We may transfer your personal data to companies affiliated with us provided this is permissible within the scope of the purposes and legal bases outlined above. For the processing activities in our online recruiting system Beiersdorf Group companies are jointly responsible. The essence of the arrangement of this joint determination is that Beiersdorf AG, Germany, is predominantly responsible to fulfill information duties according to data protection law and provide information on the joint processing. We might share your candidate profile with other recruiting teams in the Beiersdorf Group. You can manage the visibility options of your profile by selecting whether your profile should be visible to the recruiting team involved in your current application or recruiting teams within the Beiersdorf Group worldwide. If you do not wish to be further considered for relevant job offerings, you can request the deletion of your candidate profile, see section “Data retention”.

Furthermore, personal data may be processed on our behalf on the basis of contracts pursuant to Article 28 GDPR, especially by providers of systems for applicant management and selection procedures. We do not share data with third parties that have no reference to our application management and application procedures or other use cases we describe in section “Use of personal data”.

Such transfers may involve the transfer of personal data to recipients outside the European Union / European Economic Area. Standard contractual clauses have been concluded with these external service providers, unless they are based in countries with an adequacy decision pursuant to Art. 45 GDPR.

Further recipients can be found in the general recipients section 1.4. 

In the event of a legal obligation, we reserve the right to disclose information about you if we are required to surrender it to competent authorities or law enforcement bodies. The legal basis is Article 6 (1) c) GDPR.

6. Legal rights in relation to personal data and how to exercise them

6.1. Right of access

You can request information about your personal data (commonly known as data subject access request). You can exercise this right by contacting us under the above mentioned contact details of the controller.

6.2. Right to rectification and erasure

If you wish to update the personal data provided to us, you can send us an email to RC[at]Beiersdorf.com or you modify the data yourself in the relevant application within your candidate profile. Under certain conditions, you can ask us to erase your personal data. 

6.3. Right to restriction of processing

Under certain conditions you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data, e.g. when you want us to verify the accuracy of your personal data. You can adjust the visibility of your profile at any time or opt out of notifications.

6.4. Right to data portability

Under certain conditions you have the right to receive the personal data concerning you which you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

6.5. Right to object

If we process your data to protect legitimate interests, you may object to such processing for reasons arising from your particular situation. For more information see section “Objection or Withdrawal of your consent to the Processing of Personal Data”.

Furthermore, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority concerning the processing of your personal data.

7. Data retention

We retain your data for a period of 6 months after your last log in date in your profile. This is necessary for the burden of proof in the event of a legal claim based on the German General Equal Treatment Act (AGG). We further retain your personal data in that period in case there is a relevant job offering for which you will be a fitting candidate. You can manage the visibility settings of your candidate profile as described in 5 Data sharing. In addition, you can request the deletion of your candidate profile or the withdrawal of your application by contacting our recruitment experts at RC[at]Beiersdorf.com.

You can also unsubscribe from the Beiersdorf Job Agent and stop receiving information on current job postings in the menu “options” of your candidate profile.

In case your application is successful we may store your personal data within the subsequent employment in compliance with the applicable legal regulations. More information can be found in the Data Privacy Statement for employees that we will provide to you on acceptance of the job.

8. Objection or Withdrawal of your consent to the Processing of Personal Data

If you have given your consent (Article 6 (1) a GDPR) to the processing of your data (e.g. when we invite you to participate in a survey on your satisfaction with the application process at Beiersdorf), you can withdraw your consent at any time. Such a withdrawal influences the permissibility of processing your personal data after you have given it to us.

If we base the processing of your personal data on the weighing of interests (Article 6 (1) f GDPR), you may object to the processing. This is the case if processing is not necessary in particular to fulfil a contract with you, which is described by us in the Chapter Use of data. When exercising such objection, we ask you to explain the reasons why we should not process your personal data as we have done. In the event of your justified objection, we will examine the situation and either stop or adjust data processing or point out to you our compelling reasons worthy of protection, on the basis of which we will continue processing.