Recruitment Policy

Your personal data are processed by the COST Association, an International not-for-profit Association (AISBL) under Belgian law, registered in Brussels clerk office under n° 0829.090.573.

If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information please contact us at:

Address: COST Association, Avenue Louise 149, 1050 Bruxelles

Email: cost-hr@cost.eu

Data Protection Officer: Elodie Cornez, privacy@cost.eu

All of the information you provide during the process will only be used for the purpose of progressing your application based on our legitimate interests to find the best candidate for filling in a vacancy at COST (legal basis: article 6.1.f) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)).

We will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third parties for marketing purposes or store any of your information outside of the European Economic Area. The information you provide will be held securely by us and/or our data processors whether the information is in electronic or physical format.

We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you to progress your application. We will use the other information you provide to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for.

We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary. The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment.

We ask you for your personal details including name and contact details. We will also ask you about your previous experience, education, specific and other competencies, motivation letter and referees. Our recruitment team will have access to all of this information.

(Legal basis: your consent based on article 6.1.a) and our legitimate interests based on article 6.1.f. of the GDPR).

Our recruitment team shortlists applications for interview against the criteria and competencies specified in the job profile and vacancy notice for the position.

In the framework of the shortlisting process, we may also contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references.

(Legal basis: our legitimate interests based on article 6.1.f. of the GDPR).

We might ask you to complete tests and/or to attend an interview – or a combination of these. Information will be generated by you and by us. For example, you might complete a written test or we might take interview notes. This information is held by the COST Association.

Final recruitment decisions are made by hiring managers and members of our recruitment team. All of the information gathered during the application process is taken into account.

(Legal basis: our legitimate interests based on article 6.1.f. of the GDPR).

If you are unsuccessful following assessment for the position you have applied for, we may ask if you would like your details to be retained in our talent pool (reserve list) for a period of two years. If you say yes, we would proactively contact you should any further suitable vacancies arise.

Consent to the reserve list (for which legal basis is article 6.1.a) of the GDPR) can be retrieved at any time by sending an email to job@cost.eu mentioning the reference code of vacancy in which you did participate.

If we make an offer of employment, it will contain the following personal data of yours:

Name, first name, position, start date, gross monthly salary, other salary packages. Should you accept it, your signature shall also be registered on the document.

The offer of employment is sent to you in your personal interest, i.e. for you to be informed of the details of what the future employment contract should incur as rights and obligations (especially because employment contract may, under Belgian law, only be signed once you are in Belgium) (legal basis: processing necessary for taking the steps prior to entering into a contract – article 6.1.b) of the GDPR).

Candidates coming from abroad and invited for interviews will have their expenses reimbursed by the COST Association in accordance with our travel and accommodation reimbursement rules. To this end, we may ask you to complete the “Travel Reimbursement Request – TRR” document, outlining the reimbursement rules applied by the COST Association. This data processing aims at facilitating the recruitment of best suitable candidates (legal basis: processing necessary for taking the steps prior to entering into a contract – article 6.1.b) of the GDPR).

Successful candidates coming from abroad will have their relocation expenses reimbursed by the COST Association in accordance with our relocation procedure as will be detailed in the offer of employment. To this end, we may ask you to complete a relocation form and to provide us with three quotes for removal expenses (including your personal addresses – place of departure and of arrival) and invoices related to housing installation expenses (including your personal address). This data processing is based on the contract we conclude with you (legal basis: processing necessary for executiong the work contract – article 6.1.b) of the GDPR).

In some few occasions (recruitment of Director or interim staff), we do have recourse to service providers in order to support us in the recruitment process.

In case of complaints or litigation, we also have recourse to a law firm to help us facing the case. In this case, we need to share personal information with the concerned law firm.

Those service providers otherwise referred to as data processors are third parties who provide elements of support for recruitment purposes or legal support in HR matters. We have contracts in place with our data processors which exclude the transfer of personal data to a third country or international organisation. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

If you are successful, the information you provide during the application process will be retained by us as part of your employee file for the duration of your employment contract plus 5 years following the end of your employment.

If you are unsuccessful at any stage of the process, the information you have provided to us with regard to recruitment until that point will be retained for a maximum of 6 months from the closure of the recruitment campaign.

Information generated throughout the assessment process is retained by us for 2 years following the closure of the campaign.

However, data provided regarding travel expenses will be, due to legal obligations, retained within the COST Association for audit purposes for a period for 7 years and a half as of 1 ^st of January of the year following the closing of the accounting period (1 May – 30 April) within which those data have been collected.

Should you have agreed upon your details to be retained in our reserve list, your details will be kept in that reserve list (and for no other purposes) for a period of 2 years.

Your personal data are handled in full confidentiality. We make all necessary effort to take technical and organisational measures that might be required so as to ensure security of your personal data.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (GDPR), you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you:

• right to request from us access to and rectification of your personal data;
• right to request erasure of your data (right to be forgotten) in the cases foreseen by article 17 of the GDPR;
• right to obtain from us restriction of processing where there is contestation about the data processing for a period enabling to solve the issue;
• right to data portability;
• where the processing of your personal data is based on your consent (here the insertion in reserve list), you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

Your right to object

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of your personal data which is based on Article 6(1), (f) of the GDPR as mentioned above (legitimate interests of COST).

To exercise those rights, please send us an email to privacy@cost.eu together with a proof of your identity or write us to the following address: COST Association, Privacy department, Avenue Louise 149, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.

Please note that you always have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Privacy Commission at commission@privacycommission.be

This COST recruitment policy was last updated on 2 May 2018.