What actually happens to your CV inside a recruitment agency

People often ask why nobody replied to their application. This is how an application commonly moves through a recruitment agency, and where it tends to stop.

Agencies do not all work the same way. Where we are describing a common workflow or our own experience rather than the law, we say so.

Before a person sees it

At many agencies that use an applicant tracking system, software may read your CV into a searchable profile before a person reviews it, or while they do. The consultant sees a short profile against the advert, and opens your actual CV when something in the profile looks worth a closer look. Other agencies open each CV directly.

On a high-volume advert, some applications may never be opened by a person. A role that goes live on a Friday afternoon in a high-volume category can bring in more applications over a weekend than one consultant can open in a full working day, and they have to be worked through in some order.

What a consultant often reads first (not your summary)

A quick scan often starts with your most recent job title and the date beside it. Then it may move to the role before that, and on to your location, your qualifications and the skills the role needs.

Next the consultant may look for the requirement on the spec that cannot be negotiated. Many specs have one: a valid driver's licence, a PSIRA grade, a SANC number, a specific ERP system, a language, a willingness to work a Saturday shift. If it is hard to find on your CV, a busy consultant may move on, and the scan is sometimes done on a phone. Put it on the first screen.

Your personal summary is often read last, if it is read at all. The parts of a CV many consultants rely on most are the plain ones: dates, employer names, the systems you list, and whether the story adds up. There is more on making those easy to find in how to write a CV for a South African job.

Screening questions can end an application

If an advert asks you questions before you can submit, treat those questions as part of the interview.

Screening answers can be used as a filter. In some systems an application filtered out on a screening answer does not appear in the consultant's list at all. Answer "no" to "do you have your own transport" on a role that genuinely needs a car, and the careful CV behind it may never be read.

Some of those questions are badly worded, too. Somebody in a hurry asks "do you have a matric certificate" when they mean "did you pass matric", and a person who lost their certificate in a fire answers honestly and is filtered out. Where there is a free-text box, use it to explain a "no" that needs explaining. Where there is not, apply anyway and email the consultant separately, quoting the reference number. If the letter you receive names the requirement you missed and offers a review, ask for one.

The advert is not the brief

An advert is usually a public summary of a private conversation, and that conversation is where much of the detail comes out.

When an agency takes a brief, the client may say things that were never going to be written down. The last person in the seat left after five months. The shift starts at 06:00, so a long commute is a risk. The advert says "strong Excel", and in the room it turns out to mean one specific reconciliation.

That gap is much of the value an agency adds, and it is also where judgement matters. Much of what gets said in a briefing is legitimate and simply unwritten. Occasionally it is a preference that has nothing to do with the job, or that would be discriminatory if it were applied, and the right response is to question it with the client. Good consultants do.

What this means for you: if you get a consultant on the phone, ask what the client actually needs, in those words. Many will tell you, because a candidate who understands the brief interviews better, and that suits the agency too.

The shortlist is smaller than you think

Agencies commonly send the client a shortlist rather than everyone they considered. How long it is, and how it is put together, varies by client. It does not usually get longer because more people applied.

So the arithmetic behind many regret letters is simple. However many people applied, only a few go forward, and at some agencies part of the shortlist comes from candidates already in the agency's database rather than from the advert. If you applied cold to a debtors clerk role in Bellville, you may have been up against candidates you could not see.

What the client actually receives

Your CV, sometimes reformatted onto the agency's own template, and often a short note from the consultant saying why you are worth an hour of the client's time. That note may include your salary expectation and your notice period.

Candidates rarely see the note, and it can do as much as the CV to get you the interview. Some agencies remove your contact details from the copy that goes to the client. Others send the CV as you wrote it. It is worth asking which they do.

Where applications commonly stall

Most of these are ordinary.

• The client filled the role internally and told the agency later.
• The client changed the spec halfway through, and the new one does not describe you.
• The budget was withdrawn and the vacancy was never formally closed, so the advert stayed live.
• The consultant who owned the role left, and it took a while for someone else to pick it up.
• You were the fourth-best of four, and there were three interview slots.
• You were shortlisted, the client chose somebody else, and nobody had written to you yet.

Several of those have nothing to do with you, and you will often not be told which one it was. So the answer to "what did I do wrong?" is frequently: nothing.

What "we will keep your CV on file" means

Usually it means the agency plans to keep your CV for future vacancies. An agency may have a lawful basis to keep candidates' details for ongoing recruitment, but POPIA does not give it an unlimited right to keep them indefinitely.

POPIA says a record must not be kept longer than necessary for the purpose it was collected for, unless one of the listed grounds applies (section 14(1)). One of them covers the case where "the responsible party reasonably requires the record for lawful purposes related to its functions or activities" (section 14(1)(b)). That is one reason a CV you sent years ago may still be in an agency's database.

It is not a blanket licence. The agency should be able to say what it is keeping your CV for and for how long, and once it is no longer authorised to keep the record it must destroy, delete or de-identify it as soon as reasonably practicable (section 14(4)). "Matching people to jobs" is a purpose. "Indefinitely" is not a retention period.

There is a second, narrower rule. The Employment Services Act 4 of 2014 requires an agency to keep a register of the job seekers registered with it, the ones it placed and the particulars of the employers they went to (section 16(1)), and to keep those records for at least three years (section 16(2)). That register is a record of who registered and who was placed, not a copy of your CV.

If you want it to stop, write to the agency's information officer. Your rights, and what the agency then has to do, depend on the circumstances and on the basis it relies on. If it processes your CV on its legitimate interests, you can object on reasonable grounds relating to your situation (POPIA section 11(3)(a)), and once you have objected under that section it may no longer process it (section 11(4)). If it relies on your consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time (section 11(2)(b)), although that does not undo processing that was lawful before you withdrew. The mechanics are in what to leave off your CV.

Our own side of it is in the privacy notice. Deleting your account on this site does not delete the copy an agency already holds, so as the account closes we email you the list of agencies that have your details.

What "we will be in touch" means

Sometimes it means exactly that. Often it means the consultant does not know yet. And silence often means nobody has made a decision.

What helps

Answer the screening questions carefully, and read them twice.

Put your town and province on your CV. Location is often an early filter after job title, and a CV with no location is easy to skip on roles that need someone local.

Apply for fewer things, better. Eleven applications to one agency in a day can look scattered rather than determined, and it rarely helps.

Follow up once, by email, at about ten days, quoting the reference number, in three lines. That occasionally moves things, because it lands in an inbox rather than at a switchboard. Following up four times rarely helps.

Keep your contact details accurate, keep your phone on with voicemail set up, and watch your WhatsApp messages and email. In high-volume recruitment, recruiters may move on quickly if they cannot reach you.

And tell the consultant when you have accepted something else. It costs you nothing, it saves them a call, and the next time a role comes up in your field they may be more likely to remember you.