Overview
When you send RecruitFirst a CV, the file goes to the consultant who covers your sector and market, and the record of your submission is held under the data protection law of your market — the PDPA in Singapore, the PDPO in Hong Kong, PIPA in South Korea, and their local equivalents elsewhere. This piece explains the handling in plain terms: who can see what, how long it is kept, and how to get it deleted. The Privacy Policy is the formal statement; this is the version that answers the questions people actually ask.
Who can see my CV?
The consultants who work the market and sector you registered for. Candidate submissions sit in the candidate database, which is what a recruitment desk runs on.
Applications to work at RecruitFirst are handled differently, and deliberately so: they are held in a separate system, visible only to the people team, and the consultants who place candidates with client companies cannot open them. Most people applying to join us are employed at a competitor, and that separation is the point.
How long do you keep it?
Your CV file is deleted within 30 days of being taken into our internal recruitment system. The record of your submission — your details, what you told us you were looking for, and the consent you gave — is kept for 12 months and then deleted.
The consent record is kept for the same reason the law requires it: if it is ever questioned whether you agreed, we have to be able to demonstrate that you did. It is a small text record rather than the document you sent.
Will you send my CV to an employer without asking?
No. We put you forward only with your agreement, and we tell you which company before we do.
Do you charge job seekers?
No. RecruitFirst never charges job seekers a fee, in any market, for any service. Our fees are paid by the hiring employer. If anyone asks you for a payment in connection with a RecruitFirst role, it is not us — see the piece on verifying a consultant and reporting a scam.
What is the marketing consent for?
It is separate, optional, and specific: market and salary insights for your sector. Declining it does not affect whether a consultant works with you, and you can withdraw it at any time.
How do I have my data deleted?
Ask us, through the contact page or by replying to any consultant you have been dealing with, and we will confirm when it is done. You do not need to give a reason.
If you want to know what we hold rather than delete it, ask for that instead — you are entitled to it.
How is the file itself stored?
Not as a public file. CVs are not written into the public part of the website, where a URL alone would be enough to open one; they are stored in the database and served only through an authenticated route that checks who is asking on every request. Internal job applications are additionally restricted to administrators.
Why publish this at all?
Because "we take your privacy seriously" is not information. The specifics above — who sees it, 30 days for the file, 12 months for the record, deletion on request, no fee to job seekers — are the things worth knowing before you send anything to a recruitment agency, ours included.
The formal terms are in the Privacy Policy, and where the two differ, the Privacy Policy governs.