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Practitioner · Chapter 7 · 16 of 24 in the series
Manage Candidate Data Rights in Quelixa
Walk through candidate data download, erasure and opt-out requests, with attention to active applications and employee records. The Northwind Group scenario includes a notice version, an example 24-month retention setting, and anonymized historical applications, letters and outbox records.
01Lesson notes
Step by step#
Settings › Recruitment › Standards & Compliance
- Fee policy — No fees — the ILO principle.
- Privacy notice — What applicants consent to, version 2026.1.
- Retention — 24 months after the last activity.
Settings › Recruitment › Standards & Compliance
- Three targets — Women 10%, disability 2%, minority 5%.
Candidate portal › My profile › Your data & privacy
- Consent — Version 2026.1, 7 October 2026.
- Retention — 24 months after last activity.
- Download my data — A file, not a request.
- Delete my profile — Self-service erasure.
Candidate portal › my-data-283.json
- One file — 4.4 KB, timestamped.
Candidate portal › my-data-283.json
- Preferences — Alerts off, opted out of marketing.
- Talent pools — Silver medallists.
- Communications — One invitation, in January.
Candidate portal › Delete my profile
- What it does — Name, contact details, photo, documents.
- Type DELETE — A deliberate act.
- Delete permanently — Cannot be undone.
Candidate portal
- Deleted — Her profile and personal data.
Recruitment › Candidates › Anonymised
- The name — Anonymised, with a random surname.
- The address — A token that delivers nowhere.
- What stays — Gender and nationality, for statistics.
Recruitment › Candidates › Chronicle
- Anonymised — Candidate request, Monday evening.
- Downloaded — She took a copy first.
Recruitment › Applications › Anonymised
- Written test — The mark is still here.
- Interview — So is the panel's result.
Candidate portal › Messages
- His message — Please delete everything you hold about me.
Recruitment › Candidates › Tariq Nasser
- Anonymise Personal Data — A manager's action, with a reason.
Recruitment › Candidates › Anonymise Personal Data
- Reason — Erasure request received on 23 February.
- Anonymise — Irreversible.
- What it does — Identity, contacts, documents, photo.
Recruitment › Candidates › Anonymised
- Anonymised — Today, by James.
- The name — Gone.
Recruitment › Candidates › Chronicle
- Anonymised — The request, the date, and who acted on it.
Recruitment › Talent Pools › Silver medallists
- The members — Silver medallists from last autumn.
- Anonymised — Cannot be contacted again.
Recruitment › Job Posts › Customer Success Team Lead
- Application fee — James tries 50.
Recruitment › Job Posts › Save Failed
- Save failed — Fees are not allowed under the company policy.
- The field — Still says 50 — and will not save.
Settings › Recruitment › Fair & Structured Selection
- Blind during scrutiny — Masked on the server; reveals are logged.
Open Settings › Recruitment › Standards & Compliance and read the fee policy, the privacy notice version and the retention period. In a candidate portal, find Your data & privacy and locate the download and delete controls without using them.
Transcript
What do you keep?
Lina: Monday evening in Tokyo. Yuki Watanabe applied to Northwind last October and didn't get the job.
Yuki Watanabe: They still hold my details. I want to see what — and then I want it gone.
Lina: This chapter is about what a candidate may ask of your data, and the rules that keep the process fair.
Lina: A candidate lends you their data for one purpose. They may see it, take a copy, and ask for it back — and nobody should pay to be considered.
Four things a candidate may ask
Lina: Four things.
Lina: What do you hold, and why — a privacy notice they consented to, with a version number.
Lina: A copy of everything, in a file they can keep.
David: And 'forget me'.
Lina: Erased, with two limits: not while an application is still running, and not once they are an employee.
Lina: And how long — a retention rule that runs whether anyone remembers or not.
The rules, in one place
Lina: James set the rules once, under Standards and Compliance.
Lina: No application fees,
Lina: the privacy notice every applicant reads and consents to — version 2026.1 —
Lina: and retention: twenty-four months after the last activity, the weekly job anonymises whoever is left.
David: Why twenty-four and not twelve?
Lina: Long enough to come back to a silver medallist for the next opening; short enough that nobody sits on file for years.
Quota targets
Lina: And the regional quota targets, compared with hires on the dashboard.
Her side of it
Lina: On Yuki's profile, the same rules from her side.
Lina: The consent she gave, and when: version 2026.1, on the seventh of October.
Lina: The retention rule.
Lina: A download button,
Lina: and a delete button.
David: No form to fill in, no letter to a data-protection office.
Lina: She can do it at half past seven in the evening, in Tokyo.
The copy
Lina: She downloads it. One file: everything Northwind holds about her.
Lina: Her profile, her education and experience; the consent she gave, with its version; each application with its test and interview results and every notice it sent her.
David: Even the marketing?
Preferences and pools
Lina: Even that. Her preferences — alerts off, opted out —
Lina: the pool she was kept in,
Lina: and the invitation from January that made her unsubscribe.
David: That's more candid than most companies would dare to be.
Lina: It's simply complete.
Delete
Lina: Then she deletes her profile.
Lina: The dialog says what goes — name, contact details, photo, documents — and what stays: past applications as anonymous statistics.
Lina: She types DELETE,
David: Typing the word is the point. A click is too easy to make by accident.
Lina: And confirms.
Gone
Lina: Done. Her session ends with it — there is no account left to sign into.
David: And that is the last Northwind hears from her.
What is left
Elena Novak: Yuki Watanabe deleted her profile last night.
James Whitfield: So what do we still have?
Lina: Tuesday morning. Elena opens what used to be Yuki's record.
A shell
Lina: The name is gone,
Lina: the email is a token that delivers nowhere,
Lina: and what stays is what the statistics need: a gender, a nationality, an education level, the years of experience — nothing that points to a person.
On the record
Lina: The chronicle keeps the two facts: she downloaded a copy,
Lina: and she asked for erasure, and got it — at her request, that evening.
David: And the letters we sent her?
Lina: Rewritten too. Every 'Dear Yuki' on the thread, and every address in the outbox.
The statistics stay
Lina: Her application still exists, with its results,
David: So the pass rates in chapter eight still add up.
Lina: Exactly — the interview result too. The statistics stay true; the person is gone.
Not everyone finds the button
Lina: Not everyone finds the button. Tariq Nasser, turned down last October, writes instead.
A request in writing
Lina: Please delete everything you hold about me.
The request arrives
Lina: The message lands with the recruitment team as a to-do. James opens Tariq's record: one application, closed in October, nothing live.
Lina: So he can act on it — a manager's action, and it asks for a reason.
The reason
Lina: The reason goes on the record: an erasure request, received today.
Lina: The action is irreversible,
David: What if he still had an application running?
Lina: It would refuse: conclude or withdraw it first. And a hired candidate's record belongs to HR.
Done
Lina: Done. Tariq is a shell now too.
David: Same result, two different doors.
The reason, kept
Lina: With the request, the date and who acted on it kept on the record — the one thing an erasure must leave behind.
Out of reach
Lina: And in the silver-medallist pool,
Lina: two members now who can never be invited again — Yuki, and since this morning, Tariq.
David: Which is exactly what they asked for.
Nobody pays to be considered
Lina: The other half of fairness is about the process itself.
Lina: The ILO's general principles say the employer pays for recruitment — never the candidate.
David: Some countries do allow a small regulated fee.
Lina: Then the rule permitting it is named on every advert, and every change is audited. Northwind chose no fees.
Lina: Blind review where bias creeps in: codes instead of names at scrutiny — chapter two.
Lina: And quota targets compared with real hires, on the dashboard.
A processing fee?
Lina: Wednesday. Finance asked whether a small processing fee would thin out the Dubai applications. James tries it on the post.
Refused
Lina: Refused: the company follows the ILO principle, no fees borne by candidates. Change the policy in settings if a regulation permits them.
David: So it isn't a matter of one recruiter's judgement.
Lina: It's a company decision, made once, and the system holds it.
Blind review
Lina: And blind review, set to scrutiny: names, photos, gender and religion are masked on the server, and any reveal by a manager is logged with a reason.
David: Set once, for every advert.
Lina: Set once.
Three things to keep
Lina: Three things to keep.
Lina: Their data, their rights: the notice, a copy, erasure — without asking anyone.
Lina: Erase properly — the record, the letters, the outbox — and on a clock, not on memory.
David: And fair by design.
Lina: No fees, blind where it matters, and targets you can see.
The numbers
Lukas Brandt: The board meets on Monday. Time to hire, cost per hire, where candidates drop out — and how fair it all was.
Lina: Next chapter: analytics, and ISO 30414.
Lina: That was data rights and fair recruitment. See you in chapter eight.