What Happens After You Submit Your CV to a Recruiter?

By Nicky Frates, Talent Specialist, Pollock & Associates.

After you submit your CV to a recruiter, a Recruitment Specialist reads it, compares it with the vacancies the agency is working on and with the candidates already on its database, and contacts you if your experience matches a role. If nothing matches at that moment you may not hear back straight away, and what happens to your CV in the meantime depends on the agency’s privacy policy and, for members of APSO, on a code of ethics that forbids sending your CV to an employer without your express permission.

This blog walks through the usual steps from the moment you submit your CV, explains why silence is common and does not mean you were rejected, and sets out what the law and the industry code say about how your personal information must be handled, including the retention periods in our own privacy policy.

What happens step by step after you submit your CV

Receipt of your CV: it reaches the agency through a form, an email or an application to a specific vacancy, and a well run agency confirms receipt so that you know it arrived.
Review by a Recruitment Specialist: the Recruitment Specialist compares your experience with the roles currently open, because there is a client waiting for an answer on those, and then with the other candidates the agency can call on when a new brief arrives.
Contact if there is a fit: a CV does not show your availability, your notice period or what you are looking for in your next role, so the Recruitment Specialist will usually phone or meet you to cover those points before going any further.
Your permission before your CV goes to a client: under the APSO Code of Ethics, which binds Pollock & Associates as a member, a CV may not be forwarded to a third party without your express permission, and that permission must be based on full disclosure of the client and the position.
The client’s decision on who to interview: from this point the timing depends on the employer’s own process, and the Recruitment Specialist passes on feedback as it arrives.

Should you apply for a vacancy or submit a general CV?

If a vacancy on our Careers Online page matches your experience, apply for it directly, because your CV is then read against a specific role and a specific client brief. If nothing there matches at the moment, you can use the Submit Your CV page so that a Recruitment Specialist can contact you when a suitable role opens. Both routes are open to you, and the difference is that a vacancy application is read against a live brief while a general submission waits for a match.

Why you might not hear back

A recruitment agency can only put forward the candidates who match the briefs its clients give it, so a strong CV that does not match any current brief may sit on the database until a suitable role arrives. When you apply, ask what a realistic timeframe looks like, and treat silence as meaning that there is no match yet and not as a verdict on you. Roles also take time to move from brief to offer because of the client’s own interviews and approvals, which we describe in our article on how long it takes to hire someone in South Africa.

How to make your CV easy to match

Recruitment Specialists search and sort by job title, skills, industry and location, so describe your experience in the terms employers use in their adverts. Put your current or most recent position first, with the dates, the employer and a few lines on what you were responsible for and what you achieved. Include any professional registration or certification that the roles you want require, such as your ECSA registration category if you are an engineer, and state your notice period. Save the CV as a Word document or as a PDF in which the text can be selected, because a CV saved as a scanned image cannot be searched.

How your personal information is protected

Your CV contains personal information, and the Protection of Personal Information Act, known as POPIA, applies to it. The Information Regulator explains that the purpose of the Act is to give effect to the constitutional right to privacy and that it sets out eight conditions for the lawful processing of personal information. A person can also ask a responsible party to correct or delete their personal information, and can complain to the Regulator if they believe the Act has been breached.

Labour law practitioners advise that consent for CVs should be specific enough to cover storing the CV, screening the candidate, assessments, contacting references and sharing shortlisted profiles with employer clients. They also advise that candidates should be told who is collecting the CV, why, how it will be used, whether it will be shared with employers, how long it will be kept and how to ask for a correction or removal, as set out in this guide to CV screening in South Africa.

Our own privacy policy states that we keep information for 3 years following an unsuccessful placement or 5 years following a successful placement, that you can request access to, correction of or deletion of your information, and that requests go to our Information Officer at privacy@pollockassociates.co.za. When you deal with any other agency, ask for its retention period and for the contact for privacy requests before you send your documents.

How to follow up without losing goodwill

Follow up once, after the timeframe you were given, with a short message that names the role or the date you applied and the one thing that has changed since, such as a new qualification or a new availability date, so that the Recruitment Specialist can answer it quickly. If you accept another position in the meantime, tell the Recruitment Specialist so that your profile can be updated and you are not contacted about roles you can no longer consider.

Frequently asked questions

Will a recruiter contact me after I submit my CV?

If your experience matches a vacancy the agency is working on, a Recruitment Specialist will usually contact you to discuss it. If there is no match yet, you may not hear back straight away, and your CV stays on the agency’s database for the period set out in its privacy policy.

Can a recruiter send my CV to an employer without asking me?

Not if the agency is an APSO member, because the APSO Code of Ethics states that a member must not forward a candidate’s CV to a third party without the candidate’s express permission, and that permission must be based on full disclosure of the client and the position.

How long does a recruiter keep my CV?

It depends on the agency, and Pollock & Associates keeps candidate information for 3 years following an unsuccessful placement or 5 years following a successful placement, according to our privacy policy, and you should ask any other agency for its period.

Can I ask a recruiter to delete my CV?

Yes, you can ask the agency to correct or delete your personal information, and under our privacy policy requests go to the Information Officer at privacy@pollockassociates.co.za, with information erased except where the law requires it to be kept. If you are not satisfied with the response you can complain to the Information Regulator.

Should I apply for a specific job or submit a general CV?

Apply for a specific vacancy when one fits your experience, because your CV is then read against that role. Submit a general CV when nothing fits at the moment, so that a Recruitment Specialist can contact you when a suitable role opens.

Ready to put your CV forward?

You can submit your CV directly to our Recruitment Specialists, and if you would like to talk to someone first, our team will tell you what happens next.

Submit your CV