Privacy Requirements for Job Seekers

We will be implementing capability in PETS that allows employers (company people) to find job seekers, review their credentials and contact job seekers (and/or the job seeker's job developer).

The job seeker (JS) probably needs to be able to specify if they want to be visible to employers, and exactly what aspects of their information are to be made visible (this assumption to be verified with client).

For example, a JS who currently is employed, and is looking for another job, may want their skills, job category, location etc. to be visible to potential employers - but not want their name to be visible.

The following questions pertain to job seeker control over their information. That is, these questions relate to whether or not an individual job seeker will be able to control visibility to specific aspects of the their information in PETS. These are the key questions to resolve with the client.

Update August 26, 2016: The questions below were discussed with the client on this day. The results of that discussion are documented below in bold.

1. Allow a job developer to submit a job application on behalf of a job seeker?

We have developed a feature that allows a job developer to submit a job application to a job on behalf of one of his/her assigned job seekers. Should the job seeker be able to disallow this?

August 26: The job seeker will be able to control this feature. We will add a control element to the Job Seeker profile page where the job seeker can enable or disable this feature.

Sep 9 update: waffle story #410 created for this.

2. An employer will be able to match a job against résumés (back end, cruncher). For a job seeker included in the match results:

• Can the employer view the job seeker's résumé?

• Can the employer contact the job seeker directly? (via visibility of phone, email, etc.)

  Note: we will probably allow an employer to contact the job developer assigned to the job seeker, and express interest in learning more about the job seeker - is this OK?

August 26: For reasons of job seeker privacy, and the desire to keep the Job Developer in the middle of the initial conversation between an employer and a job seeker, we decided the following:

• The employer will not be able to view the job seeker's résumé.
• The employer will not be able to contact the job seeker directly.
• There will be a mechanism for the employer to contact the job seeker's Job Developer, and ask for follow up action (this should include a text entry field for the employer to specify desired action (submit a job application for the job seeker, find out more information about the job seeker, have the job developer call the employer contact, etc.))
• Note: we will have to provide a mechanism for the employer to express interest even though there is no Job Developer assigned to the job seeker. Perhaps the communication is directed to the agency admin(s).

Sep 9 update: story #411 (company person search for job seekers matching job) references these privacy requirements.

3. An employer will be able to search for job seekers (front end, DB search - skills, location, job category, etc.). For a job seeker included in the search results:

• Can the employer view the job seeker's résumé?

• Can the employer contact the job seeker directly? (via visibility of phone, email, etc.)

  Note: we will probably allow an employer to contact the job developer assigned to the job seeker, and express interest in learning more about the job seeker - is this OK?

August 26: Since the same considerations apply here as for item #2, the same decisions will apply.

Note that item #3 above (direct search for job seekers based on attributes such as skills, etc) will not be included in the MVP (first release). However, items 1 and 2 are planned to be included in the MVP.