The following can only be a brief introduction of the legal subject concerned. Before you take any action which may have legal consequence, you should first seek advice from your own lawyer or make an appointment at any District Office to see a volunteer lawyer of the Free Legal Advice Scheme.




(824) CODE OF PRACTICE ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT - PROVISIONS ON RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENTS

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Under the Code of Practice on Human Resource Management, an employer or an employment agency representing the employer, without disclosing their identifying particulars, should not solicit personal data from job applicants in a recruitment advertisement. For example, if an employer only gives a Post Office Box Number or a fax number in a recruitment advertisement without clearly displaying its company name, then it should not directly ask the applicants to provide their resume.

If an employer finds it necessary to conceal its identity in a recruitment advertisement, it may ask the job applicants to contact the company by phone or to write to the company to ask for an application form that bears the employer's identity. Alternatively, an employer may use a recruitment agency, which should be identified in the advertisement, to receive the personal data from job applicants.

It should be noted that some recruitment advertisements only bear a fax number, a postal address or a e-mail address without explicitly asking job applicants to provide their personal data. Such a kind of recruitment advertisements is not permissible under the Code because such advertisements are in effect soliciting personal data from job applicants.

In addition, some recruitment advertisements only display the logo of the employer as the identifying particulars of the company concerned. In such circumstances, unless the logo displays the full name of the company, the employer should also not directly solicit personal data from job applicants in the recruitment advertisements.

Furthermore, if a recruitment advertisement directly asks job applicants to provide their personal data, then it should include a statement informing applicants about the purposes for which their personal data are to be used such as "The personal data collected would only be used for the purpose of recruitment."

If you have any query about the provisions on recruitment advertisements under the Code, please call the PCPD on 2827 2827.

Date of amendment: 1st April 2013