Privacy Policy

Welcome to our Privacy Policy

I'm guessing you're here on this page because you get emails from me… and I'm more than happy to share with you our approach to privacy and information security.

But more often than not… people who land here really aren't looking for our privacy policy. Because of this, I created the following quick links to direct you to our most popular pages.

FOR EMPLOYERS:

We help employers manage their email job alert subscribers. Basically this means we create industry new, company culture, and careers advice newsletters (that include job alerts for their latest jobs) to help employers build and grow their brand recognition with job seekers in their local talent market. To learn more… pick a link below:

Employers Information: CLICK HERE
What Employers do we Help: CLICK HERE
How we Help: CLICK HERE
Chat with our Team: CLICK HERE

FOR JOB SEEKERS:

We help job seekers dramatically increase their chances of getting a job by supporting and mentoring them throughout the entire process.

This includes our free job alert & career advice newsletters… as well as our paid group coaching & job search communities where job seekers are provided the strategies, tactics, tools, and support to help them confidently drive their course through the recruiting Labyrinth.

Job Seeker Information: CLICK HERE
What type of Job Seekers do we Help: CLICK HERE
How do we Help them: CLICK HERE
Get Help Today: CLICK HERE

Ok… now before we get to the Legal Privacy Policy info… perhaps you'd like to hear where refer.io came from?

The short story: How refer.io started

My name is Ryan, and in 2006, I started a hiring software company that helps employers find applicants for their jobs. Today, my team at ApplicantPro helps over 10,000 companies try to hire for over 100,000 jobs at a time.

In 2015, I realized that there was a huge gap where job seekers weren't getting their needs met:

First, for every one person my client hired, 50 others applied but didn't get the job.

Secondly, in comparison to those 50+ applicants, there were as many as 500 people who looked at the job on the career page I was providing, and for some reason, didn't apply. I assume maybe they just didn't like the location of the job.. or maybe they weren't at their computer and figured they'd come back later…

But this gap is what ultimately inspired me to create a solution for job seekers to help them find more career opportunities… aka the birth of Refer.io

So it started with just being a way for job seekers to sign up to receive an email notifying them the next time that a specific employer posted a new job. Which helps to solve the issues of 1: forgetting that they’re interested in the company and 2: not being the first to know when the company is hiring.

Later we added the ability for job seekers to get additional job alerts from different employers in their local area.

So if you're getting emails from me… it's because you signed up for those alerts.

And if you ever want to stop getting those emails… every single email has the ability for you to tell me to stop or to change what emails you get.

There are so many scammers in the world! Good news though… I’m not one of them

In today's world, it's hard to know who to trust. With so many scams and frauds being run online, especially around employment opportunities, it's no wonder that people are skeptical by default…

But the good news is: I’m not a scammer or a bad dude looking to make a quick buck.

To ease your mind, I figured that I’d outline exactly what me and my team do with your information to give you more insight…

Is this all about the money?

The fact that I send emails every day for free makes people worried. They figure I must be doing something with their information, because I'm generally not asking them for any money.

To be honest, you're right to wonder. Last month I sent a lot of emails.

I'd tell you the number, but you wouldn't believe me.. and if I posted the number, it would probably be wrong next month anyway. But as of January 2022, it was over 70 million a month, and it cost me over $20,000 a month to do it just for the technology of sending these emails.

You see, we're not sending one big giant group message, we're actually sending an individual email to an individual person where we match them to a job each time.

I also have a small team of 3 amazing people that helped me not just find jobs and answer replies (cuz we get a lot of people replying to our emails), but also help me to create amazing content to help people get on their career journey.

And so I do need to make some money, or I couldn't keep doing it… but I'm definitely not doing what you might think I'm doing…

Who can see my information?

The only people who see your information are my team, and the original employer that you signed up for alerts from.

What we don't do!

Let's start here with what we DO NOT do with your information… WE DON’T SELL IT!

Now, keep in mind, there's a very limited amount of information that we actually have about any given job seeker… so the information that I have isn’t really that valuable to some random 3rd party anyways.

Generally, we know a…

job seekers name,

email address,

And the type of job they're looking for in a given location.

What do we do with your information?

We start out with simply a name, email, and the type of job they are looking for in a given location. Over time we try to learn more about you by tracking the types of jobs that you clicked on, and the type of career advice that you engage with… like a blog post about interviewing.

What I do with this information is simply work to provide more relevant jobs & information so that you’ll keep opening and engaging with my emails!

What am I really after?

What I'm really trying to figure out is one simple thing… I want to know a job seekers current status when it comes to the employment journey… and where they want to go next!

I want to know about your job search. Are you actively looking for a job, are you actively applying for jobs, are you getting interviews, are you negotiating an offer, and did you get it?
I also want to know if you just got a new job, what job you got, what you could use help with in getting on your feet, and what I can do to help you crush it!
And finally, I'd love to know about your current job. How long have you been there, if you want to move up, if you want to change departments, or of course… if you want to start looking for a job at a new company.

What do you want to do next… and how can I help?

That really is the big question that's on my mind all the time.

Where do you want to go as your next step, whether that's moving up in your organization by being better at the job, getting promoted, moving to a different department or finding your next opportunity?

If I know where you're at today, and I know where you want to go next, then that gives me the ability to start helping you to make that next next step bigger and yet easier.

How do we make money?

Right now we make money in a couple different ways.

First off… the paid job boards of the world give us access to their “sponsored jobs”. These are the jobs that employers are urgently looking to fill, so they have paid money to job boards to get them extra traffic beyond what the job boards would send them for free.

If you click on one of those jobs, we get paid a small fee, usually we're talking about around 10 cents… or up to a quarter.

That said… there aren’t enough paid jobs out there to provide real value to the people that get my emails… so we also have lots of jobs that we gathered up that we aren’t paid for.

Our goal isn't to just show you jobs that we get paid the most for, but to show you the jobs that are the best fit… so that means in any given email you won’t really know which jobs we get paid for and which ones we don’t.

Next up… we have some paying clients that come to us wanting to generate extra applicants for their jobs. After I review their jobs and feedback scores, I'll take and send those jobs out specifically for that employer. Some of these employers come directly to us, but most of them come through one of our Applicant Tracking System partners.

Finally, we do send content in our emails that have links to additional job hunt & career related information (like books, courses, resume writing services, etc), as well as, just some cool links to products our team is loving. If you click thru and purchase one of those products or services, we get a small commission.

How will we make money in the

My Personal Commitment

Privacy Policies come and go… but a person's character & core values are hopefully more long term.

Refer.io has always been a labor of love for me. I’ve been working on this project for the last 6 years now, and have dedicated a significant amount of my personal time and money to do it.

While we continue to diligently work to grow and scale this project, which will lead to us finding new ways to both add value to our subscribers as well as generate revenue, the one thing that you can depend on is that we will be guided by a set of principles or values… what I call:

My Commitments…

I will give value first!
I will care more about helping the people with their career path than anyone else they know.
I will focus on helping you actually be successful at anything career related.
I will ensure that if I ask anyone for money, especially jobseekers and employees, that I will provide 10 times more value than I was paid…
And if you feel somehow you didn't get that value, I will make it right.
I'll be transparent. If you want to know what's going on. Just ask!

Which brings me to the my last commitment… I'll be available! Send me an email or hit me up on social… and it will get read. If it's important, it will definitely get a response.

But if you're really worried about something, I will respond personally to it!

Now for the boring part…

I wouldn't be a good entrepreneur and business person if I didn't have good lawyers. Between the lawyers and my email processor… they make me have crazy long legal crap on my site.

Below is our legal privacy policy. You can also click on the following link to get to our terms and conditions.

Privacy Policy

Effective date: May 03, 2018

Refer.io LLC ("us", "we", or "our") operates the https://refer.io website (the "Service").

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data.

We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://refer.io

Definitions

Personal Data

Personal Data means data about a living individual who can be identified from those data (or from those and other information either in our possession or likely to come into our possession).

Usage Data

Usage Data is data collected automatically either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of data stored on a User’s device.

Data Controller

Data Controller means a person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed.

For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, we are a Data Controller of your data.

Data Processor (or Service Providers)

Data Processor (or Service Provider) means any person (other than an employee of the Data Controller) who processes the data on behalf of the Data Controller.

We may use the services of various Service Providers in order to process your data more effectively.

Data Subject

Data Subject is any living individual who is the subject of Personal Data.

User

The User is the individual using our Service. The User corresponds to the Data Subject, who is the subject of Personal Data.

Information Collection And Use

We collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our Service to you.

Types of Data Collected

Personal Data

While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you ("Personal Data"). Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

Email address
First name and last name
Phone number
Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City
Cookies and Usage Data

We may use your Personal Data to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you. You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or instructions provided in any email we send or by contacting us.

Usage Data

We may also collect information how the Service is accessed and used ("Usage Data"). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

Location Data

We may use and store information about your location if you give us permission to do so (“Location Data”). We use this data to provide features of our Service, to improve and customize our Service.

You can enable or disable location services when you use our Service at any time, through your device settings.

Tracking & Cookies Data

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information.

Cookies are files with small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our Service.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Service.

Examples of Cookies we use:

Session Cookies. We use Session Cookies to operate our Service.
Preference Cookies. We use Preference Cookies to remember your preferences and various settings.
Security Cookies. We use Security Cookies for security purposes.

Use of Data

Refer.io LLC uses the collected data for various purposes:

To provide and maintain our Service
To notify you about changes to our Service
To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so
To provide customer support
To gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Service
To monitor the usage of our Service
To detect, prevent and address technical issues
To provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information

Retention of Data

Refer.io LLC will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

Refer.io LLC will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Transfer Of Data

Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.

If you are located outside United States and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to United States and process it there.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.

Refer.io LLC will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.

Disclosure Of Data

Business Transaction

If Refer.io LLC is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.

Disclosure for Law Enforcement

Under certain circumstances, Refer.io LLC may be required to disclose your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).

Legal Requirements

Refer.io LLC may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

To comply with a legal obligation
To protect and defend the rights or property of Refer.io LLC
To prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
To protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
To protect against legal liability

Security Of Data

The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

"Do Not Track" Signals

We do not support Do Not Track ("DNT"). Do Not Track is a preference you can set in your web browser to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked.

You can enable or disable Do Not Track by visiting the Preferences or Settings page of your web browser.

Your Rights

Refer.io LLC aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data.

Whenever made possible, you can update your Personal Data directly within your account settings section. If you are unable to change your Personal Data, please contact us to make the required changes.

If you wish to be informed what Personal Data we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us.

In certain circumstances, you have the right:

To access and receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you
To rectify any Personal Data held about you that is inaccurate
To request the deletion of Personal Data held about you

You have the right to data portability for the information you provide to Refer.io LLC. You can request to obtain a copy of your Personal Data in a commonly used electronic format so that you can manage and move it.

Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests.

Service Providers

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service ("Service Providers"), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.

These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Analytics

We may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.

You can opt-out of having made your activity on the Service available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity.

For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Payments

We may provide paid products and/or services within the Service. In that case, we use third-party services for payment processing (e.g. payment processors).

We will not store or collect your payment card details. That information is provided directly to our third-party payment processors whose use of your personal information is governed by their Privacy Policy. These payment processors adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of payment information.

The payment processors we work with are:

Stripe

Their Privacy Policy can be viewed at https://stripe.com/us/privacy

PayPal or Braintree

Their Privacy Policy can be viewed at https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full

Links To Other Sites

Our Service may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.

Children's Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13 ("Children").

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Children has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the "effective date" at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us: