At Convergence Partners Ltd (“Convergence”), we are all working hard to keep your personal information safe, secure, and private. We provide this policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to protecting your privacy.

We are also committed to ensuring that any personal information we obtain is held and used in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.

‘Personal information’ is any piece of information that relates to a living, identifiable human being (for example, people’s names, contact details, financial information, employment information, records, etc). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information.

Consent

By accessing our Website and/or submitting your personal information to Convergence by any means, you consent to the use of your information as set out in this Policy.

What personal information do we collect?

We will ask you to supply certain personal information to help us provide you with the best service that we can, and to enable us to manage our interactions when you contact us through our website, or through a third-party provider such as SEEK or LinkedIn.

Your personal information will be held by Convergence on our cloud-based CRM system.  We also use external platforms to store your personal information and provide you with our services.  See the sections below on how we use your personal information and how we disclose your personal information for further details.

The personal information we will collect about you may include:

• your name, date of birth, email address, phone number, address
• bank details, payment information, IRD/GST number
• passport, drivers license or other identification documents
• evidence of education and qualifications
• work history
• information disclosed in an application, cover letter, curriculum vitae or interview
• email communications and your written and verbal interactions with us
• and/or any other personal information you provide us.

With your permission, we may conduct pre-employment and probity checks which means that we will obtain information about you from third parties.  These checks may include:

• reference checks
• your right to work in New Zealand if you are not a New Zealand citizen
• criminal record check or national police check
• financial checks (ie - credit, anti-money laundering, etc)
• psychometric testing
• drug and alcohol test

We will only collect information where we need to do so to provide our service to you and/or our clients.  If we ask you for anything that is not necessary but may be helpful, we will indicate that it is optional that this is provided to us.  You are not required to provide us with your personal information.  However, if you don’t, or we can’t otherwise collect your personal information, it may affect our ability to engage with you.

When you use our website, we may collect information that is sent to us by your computer, mobile device or other access device.  The information that is sent to us may include your device’s IP address, referral URL, geo-location and data about the web-pages that you access.  Please see our Terms of Use for further information about this.

How your personal information will be used?

We will use your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Act 2020, for the following purposes:

• assess your suitability for an assignment or role with us and any ongoing employment
• to verify your identity and other relevant application information
• provide you with our services (as a candidate or client)
• provide you with information about job vacancies
• communicate with you (for example to provide support, or correspond with you about your application and role with us)
• facilitate your use of our website
• to provide our clients with reporting specific to the services we deliver to them
• improve our services and conduct market and business analysis;
• subject to your consent, provide you with news and events we believe may be of interest to you
• and/or comply with any legal obligations

If we need to use your personal information for any reason that is not listed above, we will explain why we need to use it in that way and ask for your permission first.

How we disclose your personal information

Convergence will never sell or rent your personal information, however certain groups of people will have access to it, including:

• employees at Convergence as they have access to your personal information in order to perform their job.
• our clients if we are representing you for an employment opportunity.
• associated third parties specific to the recruitment process, including but not limited to LinkedIn.
• third parties to conduct pre-employment and probity checks including but not limited to CVCheck, University/Tertiary Education Providers, Equifax, a nominated drug and alcohol testing organisation, a nominated psychometric testing organisation, Immigration New Zealand, professional associations, and/or other equivalent international entities or bodies.
• our service providers that we have engaged to provide a service to us in relation to the website or any service that we have agreed to provide you.
• courts, tribunals, and regulatory authorities as required by law.
• any other person or organisation that you have authorised us to disclose your information to.

If we need to disclose your personal information for any reason that is not listed above, we will explain why we need it and ask for your permission first.

Access, correction and retention of your personal information

You agree that any information you give to Convergence will be accurate, correct and up to date at the time it is supplied.

You are entitled to access the personal information that we hold about you, and to request that we amend that information if it is incorrect. There are some exceptions to this set out in the Privacy Act 2020.  For example, if somebody provides us a reference in confidence, we are not able to disclose that to you even though it contains your personal information. Further evaluative information about you such as interview notes and similar assessments, remains the property of Convergence and is not treated as being your personal information.

Convergence will retain your personal information for as long as it is required to achieve the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. If you request it or retaining your personal information is no longer necessary, we will delete or destroy it.

Security of information

The security of all personal information provided to us is important and we will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information in accordance with our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020.

However, we do not make any warranties in relation to the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us and we are not responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your personal information where our security measures have been breached.

Advertising and third party links to other sites

Our website may contain links to a variety of advertising and third party website sources. Some of these links may request or record information from users or use cookies or other methods to collect information from you. We have no control over the content or privacy policy practices of those sites and encourage you to review the privacy policies of those sites before using them.

Spam or false representation of Convergence

Convergence is not responsible for issues that have been caused or where you have been affected by accounts or people posing as Convergence employees or Convergence as a business. If you have been contacted by such fake accounts, please report it to info@convergence.co.nz

Marketing

We may send you information about us from time to time if you have given us your consent to do so (where required). You may opt-out of receiving electronic communications from us at any time by withdrawing your consent or using the unsubscribe function. Keep in mind, any withdrawal of consent does not apply to any necessary communications that we may need to get in touch with you about, such as responding to an inquiry.

Changes to this privacy policy

Convergence may, at any time, change the information in this privacy policy, without notice. Convergence reserves the right to alter, modify or update privacy policy. Any changes to this privacy policy will be posted here. Convergence will not be liable for any loss or damage which may arise directly or indirectly as a result of such changes.

What to do if you think we have made an error

We are committed to protecting your privacy and our policies, processes and systems have been developed with this in mind. However, if you think we have made an error, please email to let us know at info@convergencepartners.co.nz and we will endeavour to correct it as soon as reasonably practicable.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question or complaint about the way we have dealt with your personal information, please contact us by email at info@convergencepartners.co.nz and we will endeavour to respond promptly.

‍We take our privacy responsibilities seriously. In the unlikely event that a suspected or actual breach of your personal information occurs, we will investigate the breach. We will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner if we reasonably believe that the breach has caused you serious harm, or is likely to cause you serious harm.

If you have any queries regarding our Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use, please email the Convergence Privacy Officer - info@convergencepartners.co.nz