Terms of use for candidates

These terms are the agreement between you and OpenStaff when you use OpenStaff to look for hospitality work. In short: OpenStaff is free for candidates. You must be 18 or over and looking for work in Great Britain. We match you with jobs automatically, and an employer whose job you match can see your profile unless you turn that off. We introduce you to employers, but we are not your employer and we cannot promise you work. The rest of this page covers what you can post, how to report a problem, how to complain and appeal, what we can do if the rules are broken and what we are responsible for. If you use an employer account, the employer terms apply to it instead.

Who we are

OpenStaff is run by OpenStaff Ltd, a private limited company registered in England and Wales.

Company number: 17474082
Registered office: 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX
Email: contact@openstaff.co.uk

In these terms "OpenStaff", "we" and "us" mean OpenStaff Ltd. "You" means the person who holds the candidate account.

How these terms work

Accepting them. When you sign up, you tick a box to accept these terms and to confirm that you have read our privacy notice. Before you press the button to create your account, you can go back and change anything you have typed. We then email you a link to confirm your email address. We keep a record of which version of these terms you accepted, and when.
What they include. These terms include our rules for using OpenStaff, set out below.
Privacy. Our privacy notice explains how we use your personal information. It is there to inform you. It is not part of this agreement.
Keeping a copy. You can read these terms on this page at any time, and save or print them from your browser. You can ask us for a copy of any earlier version that you accepted.
Language. These terms are in English only.

Who can have a candidate account

You can have a candidate account only if all of these are true:

you are aged 18 or over. We ask for your date of birth when you sign up to check this;
you have the right to work in the UK. We ask you to confirm this when you sign up;
you are looking for hospitality work in Great Britain. OpenStaff does not yet operate in Northern Ireland;
you are a person looking for work for yourself. A business, an agency or anyone acting for someone else cannot hold a candidate account;
you have only one candidate account;
we have not closed an earlier account of yours for breaking these terms, unless we have told you that you may open a new one.

OpenStaff is for adults only. Much hospitality work involves serving alcohol or working late at night, and the law limits both for people under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it, so that no employer can see the profile, and we erase it 30 days later. Only we can reopen it, for example if we made a mistake.

You confirm when you sign up that you have the right to work in the UK. Having an account is not proof of it until we check it using a third-party government-approved service. Every employer has to check it for themselves before you start work, and that includes a trial shift.

What OpenStaff is, and what it is not

What we do. OpenStaff is an online service that introduces people looking for hospitality work to hospitality employers. Employers post jobs. You build a profile. Our system works out how well your profile fits each open job, shows you the jobs you match and shows your profile to those employers, unless you have hidden it, or an employer is your current employer or a business you have blocked.
Matching is automated. It uses AI, and no person checks a score before it is first shown; every score is labelled as automated, and "See why" shows the main factors behind it, where we have a record of how it was worked out. You can ask a person at OpenStaff to review any match, or to adjust how your matching works. A score is a recommendation. It is not a decision about you, and it does not decide who gets a job.
You do not need a match to apply. You can browse every open job and apply for any of them.
We are not your employer. We do not offer you work. We are not part of any job offer, contract or pay arrangement between you and an employer, and we never handle your wages, tips or trial pay.
No promise of work. We cannot promise that you will be matched, invited, interviewed or offered a job.
Employers are separate businesses. We check an employer's business details before it can see any candidate. We do not inspect workplaces, and we cannot check everything an employer says in an advert or does at an interview, at a trial or at work. Each employer is responsible for its own adverts and its own decisions.

OpenStaff is free for candidates

We do not charge candidates. Creating an account, being matched, applying, sending messages and closing your account are all free, and we take no part of your pay.
No employer on OpenStaff may charge you for a job, an interview, a trial shift, training, or a uniform.
Never pay anyone for a job. If someone asks you to, do not pay, and report it to us. See Worried about a job or an employer?
Employers cannot pay to change your match scores or the order in which you see jobs. If we ever offer employers paid promotion, promoted jobs will be clearly labelled.

Your account

Give accurate information when you sign up, and keep your profile up to date. Your profile is your application, and employers rely on it.
Your account is for you alone. Do not let anyone else use it, and do not create an account in someone else's name.
Keep your password to yourself. If you think someone else has used your account, change your password and tell us at contact@openstaff.co.uk straight away.
We send account emails to the address on your account. You can change your email address, username and password in your settings.
You can sign in only after you have confirmed your email address. A sign-up that is never confirmed is deleted after 3 days.
A candidate account cannot be used to post jobs, and it cannot be turned into an employer account.

What employers can see, and when

Please read this section before you sign up.

Employers cannot search for candidates. An employer can see your profile if you apply to one of its jobs. Unless you have hidden your profile, it is your current employer or you have blocked it, it can also see it if you match one of its jobs or if it saved your profile earlier.

When you match a job. A match is a score of 40 or more out of 100, or a pair a person at OpenStaff has made a match after looking at it. Unless you have hidden your profile, or that employer is your current employer or a business you have blocked, the employer who posted that job can see your name, photo, city and work history, and the job types and business size you prefer, with the score and the "Why this matched" explanation for its job. This happens before you have applied or done anything else. The employer can save your profile and invite you to apply.

When you apply. The employer sees your profile as described above, even if you have hidden it, and also your application, any cover letter, your email address and your phone number. This is so whether or not you were matched. A business you have blocked sees your profile and your application, but not your email address or phone number.

When you reply to an employer's message. That employer can see your email address and phone number from then on, while it can still see your profile and you have not blocked it.

What no employer sees. Your date of birth or age, your street address, your postcode, the pay range you are looking for, and anything about your matches, applications or messages with other employers. The explanation beside a match never mentions pay.

You can hide your profile. "Let matched employers see my profile" in your settings is switched on when you sign up. If you switch it off, no employer sees you through a match: you do not appear in any employer's matched or saved candidates, and none can invite you, even one that saved your profile or invited you earlier. An employer you have applied to still sees that application and your profile. Conversations you are already in carry on. You still see your matches, and you can still apply for any job.

Your current employer. We do not show you through a match to a business you list as your current employer. If you apply to one of its jobs, it sees that application and your profile. Our privacy notice explains how we spot it.

One-Click Apply. In your matched jobs, pressing Apply sends your application straight away. There is no review step and no cover letter. If you want to check what will be sent, or to add a cover letter, apply from the job's own page instead.

Checking what they see. The profile preview in your account shows what a matched employer sees. Our privacy notice has the full list, and explains what happens if you withdraw an application or an employer saves your profile.

What employers may do with it. Our employer terms say that an employer may use your information only to fill the job in question, must keep it secure, and must not pass it on or use it for marketing. Once an employer has your information, it is responsible for how it uses it.

Applying, invitations and messages

Applying. You can apply for any open job. When you apply, the employer receives your profile and contact details; a business you have blocked receives your profile but not your contact details.
Withdrawing. You can withdraw an application at any time before the employer marks it as hired or rejected. The employer keeps the record of it. You can apply again while the job is still open.
Stages. The employer moves your application through its stages: shortlisted, interview, trial, hired or rejected. You see each stage, with its date, on your application. These are the employer's decisions, not ours.
Invitations. An employer whose job you match can invite you to apply, unless you have hidden your profile, it is your current employer or you have blocked it. An invitation is a choice made by a person at the employer.
Messages. An employer can message you only after it has invited you, or after you have applied for that job. You cannot start a conversation with an employer, but you can reply to one you have not blocked. Messages are text only, and they must be about the job. OpenStaff adds a short automatic message to the conversation when an employer invites you or moves your application to a new stage, and when you withdraw or apply again. None of these is added in a conversation with a business you have blocked.
Emails. We email you when an employer messages you, invites you or updates your application. You can turn these emails off in your settings, and you can turn off invitation emails on their own. Sign-in and password emails are always sent while your account is open, and a password-reset email is also sent while you can still reopen your closed account yourself. If you report one of our emails about messages, invitations or your applications as spam and your email provider tells us, we turn that kind of email off, and you can turn it back on in your settings. Marketing emails are sent only if you ask for them, and each has a link to unsubscribe in one step, without signing in.
Blocking and reporting. You can block a business: it can then no longer message you or invite you, see you in its matches, or see your email address and phone number, and its adverts leave your job search and your matches (any you saved or applied to stay in your saved jobs and applications). It still sees any application you have made to it, even one you withdraw, and your profile through it. You can also report a job, an employer or a message to us.
Trial shifts. A trial shift is arranged between you and the employer. When an employer moves your application to the trial stage, we ask them how long the trial will be and whether it is paid, and show you their answer. Our rules say that a trial must be paid unless it is a short, genuine test of your skills, and we do not accept an unpaid trial of more than 4 hours, or a second unpaid trial for the same job. See Worried about a job or an employer?

What you may post, and the permission you give us

"Your content" means what you add to OpenStaff: your profile, photo, work history, skills, job preferences, cover letters and messages, and a CV you upload when you sign up (which we read once and then delete).

Your promises about it. You promise that:

it is true, and it is about you;
your photo shows you, and you took it yourself or have permission to use it;
it does not include other people's private details, such as the name or phone number of a former manager (take referees' details out of a CV before you upload it);
it follows the rules for using OpenStaff below.

Your photo is optional. If you add one, it must be a photo of you. No other people, no children, no logos and no text. Every employer who can see your profile sees it. Employers you are already in a conversation with still see it there while your profile is hidden.

Sensitive information. Please do not put details of your health or other sensitive personal information in role descriptions, cover letters or messages. Employers who can see your profile can read your role descriptions, and parts of them are sent to the AI models that do the matching. A CV you upload when you sign up is read in full by an AI model once and then deleted: take out anything about your health or other sensitive information, your date of birth, your photo, and other people's details, before you upload it. If you need an adjustment for an interview or a trial, you can ask the employer in your messages: say what you need, you do not have to say why.

Who owns it. You do, and you are free to use it anywhere else. You give us permission to use your content only to run OpenStaff for you. That means we may store it, copy it, show it to employers as these terms and our privacy notice describe, and process it to match you with jobs. Matching includes sending parts of it to the AI models that are run for us. If you upload a CV when you sign up, you confirm first that we may send it to the AI model that is run for us to read your work history and contact details out of it; we then delete the file and keep only what was read, which you check before your account exists. Neither of us pays the other for this permission.

When the permission ends. It ends when you delete the content, or when your account is erased, normally 30 days after you close it. After that we keep only what our privacy notice says we keep, for example in backups for about a week or where the law requires it. An employer that has already received your information may still hold its own copy. That copy is the employer's responsibility.

We do not sell your content, we do not use it in advertising and we do not use it to train AI models.

The rules for using OpenStaff

These rules apply to everyone who uses OpenStaff: candidates, employers and anyone who sends us a report or a form. In short, you must not:

post anything that is illegal, false or misleading;
harass, threaten or abuse anyone, or discriminate against them;
pretend to be someone else;
copy, collect or sell other people's details;
try to get round our security or our limits.

Our employer terms set the rules that employers must follow in job adverts and messages, so they tell you what you should expect from an employer.

Rules for everyone

Do not post or send anything that:

is illegal, or helps anyone to commit a crime;
is a scam or a fraud. That includes fake jobs, asking for money or bank details, and "jobs" that involve receiving or passing on money or parcels for someone else;
offers or arranges sexual services, or hides trafficking, forced work or any other exploitation;
threatens, harasses, bullies or abuses anyone, or is sexual, violent or hateful;
treats anyone worse because of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation;
is any image of a child;
pretends to be someone else, or misleads people about who you are or who you work for;
is false or misleading;
includes another person's private details without their agreement;
uses someone else's writing, photo, logo or trade mark without the right to;
is advertising, or has nothing to do with hospitality recruitment.

Do not:

copy, scrape or collect information from OpenStaff with automated tools;
sell, share or publish other users' details, or use them to build a contact list;
open more than one account, use someone else's account or let anyone else use yours;
open a new account to get round a suspension or a block;
try to get into accounts or data that are not yours, test or attack our systems, upload harmful code or overload the service. If you find a security problem, please tell us at security@openstaff.co.uk;
use OpenStaff if you are under 18.

Rules for messages

Messages are for the job: the application, and arranging an interview, a trial or a start date.
Be polite. No threats, harassment, abuse or sexual content.
Employers must not ask about your health or disability before offering you the job. They may ask whether you need an adjustment for the interview or trial.
Employers must not ask you for money, and must not ask you to send bank details, identity documents or right-to-work share codes through OpenStaff.
No marketing, and no offers that have nothing to do with the job.

Keeping people safe

OpenStaff carries content that one user writes and another sees: job adverts, profiles, photos and messages. This section explains how we protect you from illegal content, as the Online Safety Act 2023 requires.

How to report something

Use the Report button beside a job, an employer or a message.
If you cannot sign in, or you do not have an account, use our report form or email contact@openstaff.co.uk.
The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" below says what to tell us and what happens next.
If someone is in immediate danger, call 999.

What we do about illegal content

A person at OpenStaff looks at every report. When we learn that content is illegal, from a report or in any other way, we take it down quickly. Depending on what we find, we may also warn, suspend or close the account that posted it. If you gave us a way to reply, we tell you what we decided.

Terrorism content. We take it down, we suspend or close the account that posted it, and we may report it to the police.
Child sexual abuse content. OpenStaff is for adults only, and we do not allow any image of a child. If we find content of this kind, we stop anyone seeing it, keep the evidence securely, report it to the National Crime Agency as the law requires and close the account.
Other serious illegal content. On a recruitment service the main risks are fake job adverts and other fraud, adverts that hide trafficking, forced work or sexual exploitation, and harassment and threats in messages. We take the content down. Where other users are at risk, we suspend the account while we look into it, and when we suspend an employer all of its adverts come down together. We may also tell the police, the Fair Work Agency or another authority.

How we keep illegal content off OpenStaff

An employer must give us its business details and pass our checks before it can see any candidate.
Job adverts are shown only to signed-in users, and your profile only to the employers described above. Neither is on the public web.
An employer can message a candidate only after inviting them or after they have applied. Candidates cannot message employers first, and cannot message each other.
Messages are text only. A photo can appear only as a candidate's profile photo or as the logo of a business or branch.
We limit how often jobs, invitations and messages can be sent.
Every job advert must follow the job-posting rules in our employer terms, and the employer must confirm that it is lawful.

Technology

We do not use automated tools to look for illegal content in your messages, your profile or your photos. Job adverts are checked automatically, before they are published and each time they are changed or reopened, by software that compares the advert's words with a fixed list of words and phrases that our job-posting rules do not allow, and its pay with the minimum wage. The software does not use artificial intelligence and does not learn. If an advert contains wording our rules never allow, it is not published until it is changed; for other wording on the list, the employer must confirm that it is right for the job. A decision to take content down, or to act against an account, is always made by a person.

Privacy and free expression

When we decide what to do about a report, we take account of your privacy and of your right to express yourself within the law. We take content down only when we have reason to think that it is illegal or that it breaks our rules.

Complaints and appeals

You can complain if you think content on OpenStaff is illegal, if we took down your content or restricted your account, or if you think we are not doing what this section says. The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" below explains how to complain and how to appeal.

When our staff can read your messages

Your messages are between you and the employer. We do not monitor them.

A small number of authorised OpenStaff staff can open a conversation, and only for one of these reasons:

to run the service, for example to fix a fault that you have reported;
to deal with a request, a report or a complaint;
to keep people safe, where we have a specific reason to suspect serious harm or a serious breach of our rules.

Each time a member of staff opens messages in our admin tool, we record who did it and why. The engineers who run our servers do not read messages except to fix a fault; access to our servers and database is limited to named engineers, and their sessions on our servers are recorded. By using messages on OpenStaff, you agree that we can read them in these situations. Employers agree to the same thing in their terms.

What we can do if the rules are broken

If we have good reason to think that you have broken these terms, including the rules for using OpenStaff above, we may do one or more of these, depending on how serious it is:

take down or hide the content;
warn you;
suspend your account while we look into it;
close your account.

When we do any of these, we will:

act in proportion to what has happened;
warn you first and give you the chance to put things right, where that is reasonable. We act without warning only where we need to protect someone, where the law requires it or where the breach is serious;
tell you by email what we have done and why, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk;
keep a record of the reason;
give you a way to appeal. The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" below explains how. If we got it wrong, we put it right.

Where we believe that a crime has been committed or that someone is at risk, we may also tell the police or another authority. Our privacy notice explains when we share information in this way.

Treating people fairly

We will not refuse you an account, limit it, suspend it or close it, or treat you worse in any other way, because of your age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. The one exception is the rule that candidates must be 18 or over.

We will not treat you worse because you have complained about discrimination, or because you have helped someone else to complain.

If you are disabled and something about OpenStaff does not work for you, tell us and we will look for another way. See our accessibility statement. If something in your work history could count against you unfairly in the matching, you can ask for an adjustment to your matching in your settings, without saying why.

Employers must not discriminate either. Our rules ban discriminatory adverts and questions, and you can report an employer to us.

Nothing in these terms takes away or limits your rights under the Equality Act 2010.

Closing your account

You can close your account in your settings at any time. It is free, and you do not have to give a reason. You can download a copy of your information from your settings first.

When you close your account:

you are signed out everywhere, straight away;
employers no longer see you anywhere on OpenStaff, including in conversations;
for 30 days you can change your mind: sign in and choose to reopen your account, and it comes back as it was. If you have forgotten your password, reset it as usual, then sign in and reopen it;
after the 30 days we erase your profile or remove everything in it that identifies you, and we tell the employers our records show we sent your information to, unless the law stops us. Our privacy notice says what is erased, what is kept and for how long.

An employer may have copied your details into its own records. Closing your account does not remove them from there.

This agreement ends when your account is erased. If you reopen your account before then, it carries on.

Changes to OpenStaff and to these terms

We may change OpenStaff, and we may change these terms, but only for one of these reasons:

the law changes, or a court or a regulator requires a change;
we add, change or remove a feature;
to keep OpenStaff and the people who use it safe and secure;
to make these terms clearer or to correct a mistake.

If a change affects your rights or what you have to do, we will:

tell you by email and in OpenStaff before it takes effect;
explain what is changing and why;
ask you to accept the new version.

If you do not agree with a change, you can close your account before it takes effect. Leaving costs nothing. We make a change without telling you first only where the law requires it to be made straight away or there is an urgent risk to safety or security, and then we tell you as soon as we can.

Complaints, reports and appeals

This section explains how to complain to OpenStaff, how to report something you have seen on OpenStaff, and what we do next. You do not need an account to use any of it, and it is free. We will not treat you worse because you complained or made a report. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999 first.

Where to go

What it is about	How to reach us	What to expect
A complaint about OpenStaff, or about how we treated you	contact@openstaff.co.uk	A reply as quickly as we can
How we have used your personal information	privacy@openstaff.co.uk	We acknowledge it within 30 days
A job advert, profile, photo or message that you think is illegal or harmful	The Report button, our report form, or contact@openstaff.co.uk	A person looks at every report. Illegal content is taken down quickly
A defamation, copyright or trade mark notice	Our legal notice form, contact@openstaff.co.uk, or by post	The steps set out below
Your own content was taken down, or your account was restricted	Reply to the email we sent you, our appeal form, or contact@openstaff.co.uk	A person looks at the decision again
Discrimination	contact@openstaff.co.uk if it is about us, contact@openstaff.co.uk if it is about an employer	A reply as quickly as we can
A match score or explanation, a job you should have been matched with, your matches in general, or an adjustment to your matching	"Ask a person to review this" beside the match or on the job's page, "Ask a person to look at my matches" or "Adjustments to your matching" in your settings, or privacy@openstaff.co.uk	A reply within one month
A security problem with our website	security@openstaff.co.uk	A reply as quickly as we can
A job or an employer that worries you	See Worried about a job or an employer?	What we will do, and who else can help

You can also write to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

If you need to complain or make a report in a different way because of a disability, tell us and we will arrange it. See our accessibility statement.

Complaining about OpenStaff

Use this if you are unhappy with our service, or with how we treated you.

Email contact@openstaff.co.uk or write to us.
Tell us who you are and how to reply, what happened and when, and what you would like us to do.

What we do:

We tell you that we have received your complaint.
A person looks into it.
We reply as quickly as we can, with our decision and the reasons for it.
If you are not happy with the reply, tell us, and we look at it again.

Complaining about how we use your personal information

If you think we have broken data protection law, for example by using your information unfairly, keeping it too long or not answering a request properly, follow the steps under "How to complain" in our privacy notice.

Reporting content that you think is illegal or harmful

Anyone can report a job advert, a profile, a photo or a message on OpenStaff. You do not need an account.

What to tell us.

What the content is and where you saw it. For example, the job title and the name of the business, or the name on the profile.
Why you think it is illegal or harmful.
How we can reach you, if you want to know the outcome. You can make a report without giving your name.

What we do.

A person at OpenStaff looks at every report.
If the content is illegal, we take it down quickly. If it breaks our rules, we deal with it as these terms say.
Where other users may be at risk, we can suspend the account while we look into it.
If you gave us a way to reach you, we tell you what we decided.
We tell the user who posted the content what we did and why, and they can appeal. We do not tell them who made the report, unless you agree or the law requires it.
We keep a record of the report, of what we decided and of when we acted.

When we take a photo down, it can no longer be opened, even by someone who has the old link.

If you disagree with what we decided about your report, tell us, and we look at it again.

If a job or an employer worries you, for example because you have been asked for money, see Worried about a job or an employer?

Defamation notices

If you believe that something a user has posted on OpenStaff is defamatory of you, you can send us a notice of complaint. The steps below are the ones set by the law of England and Wales.

What your notice must contain.

your name, and an email address where we can reach you;
the statement you are complaining about, and where on OpenStaff it appears;
why the statement is defamatory of you;
the meaning that you believe the statement has;
which parts of it you believe are factually wrong, or are opinions that are not supported by fact;
confirmation that you do not have enough information about the person who posted it to bring legal proceedings against them yourself;
whether you agree to us giving your name and email address to the person who posted it.

Use our legal notice form, send it to contact@openstaff.co.uk, or send it by post to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

What happens next. If your notice leaves out something listed above, we tell you within 48 hours of receiving it what is missing and what the law requires. If you tell us that you can identify the person who posted it, the steps below do not apply: we look at your notice as a report of unlawful content, and take the statement down if it is unlawful.

Within 48 hours of receiving your notice, we send a copy to the person who posted the statement, and we tell you that we have done so. If you have not agreed to us sharing your name and email address, we remove them first.
If we have no way of contacting that person, we take the statement down within 48 hours of receiving your notice instead, and we tell you that we have done so.
The person who posted it has until the end of the fifth day after we contact them to reply.
If they do not reply in time, we take the statement down within 48 hours of that deadline. If their reply leaves out what the law requires, or they agree that the statement should come down, we take it down within 48 hours of receiving their reply. Either way, we tell you when we have done so.
If they reply that they want the statement to stay up, and give us their full name and postal address, we tell you within 48 hours of receiving their reply that it has not been taken down. We give you their name and address only if they agree, or if a court orders us to.

Saturdays, Sundays, Good Friday, Christmas Day and bank holidays in England and Wales do not count towards any of the 48-hour periods. We keep a record of each step and of when we took it.

We may also take a statement down straight away, without these steps, if it breaks our own rules.

Copyright and trade mark notices

If you believe that content on OpenStaff uses your copyright work or your trade mark without permission, for example a photo, a logo or a piece of writing, send us a notice.

What your notice should contain.

your full name and address, and an email address where we can reach you;
what you own: the work or the trade mark, and whether you are the owner or are acting for the owner;
exactly where the content is on OpenStaff;
why you believe that using it there is unlawful;
a statement that what you have told us is accurate.

Use our legal notice form, send it to contact@openstaff.co.uk, or send it by post to OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

What happens next. A person looks at your notice. If the content appears to break your rights, we take it down quickly, and we tell the user who posted it what we did and why. That user can appeal. We may suspend or close the account of someone who keeps posting content that breaks other people's rights. We keep a record of when your notice arrived and when the content came down.

If we took down your content or restricted your account

If we take down something you posted, or warn you, or suspend or close your account, we email you to say what we did and why, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk. If you think we got it wrong, you can appeal.

Reply to that email, use our appeal form, or email contact@openstaff.co.uk.
Tell us why you think the decision was wrong, and send anything you want us to take into account.
A person looks at the decision again. Where we can, it is someone who did not make it.
We tell you the outcome and the reasons for it.
If your appeal succeeds, we put your content or your account back as it was. A photo we deleted cannot be put back, so we tell you that you can add it again. We erase a closed account 30 days after we close it, so appeal within that time, and give us the account reference and the appeal code from the email we sent you; once we have received your appeal, we do not erase the account while we decide it.

You can use the same route if you think that:

we are not doing what these terms say about illegal content, reports or complaints;
we have not respected your privacy, or your right to express yourself within the law.

Complaining about discrimination

If it is about OpenStaff. Tell us at contact@openstaff.co.uk if you think we have treated you unfairly because of your age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. That includes how we dealt with your account, how our matching treated you, and anything about OpenStaff that did not work for you as a disabled person. We look into it, reply with our reasons, and put things right where we got them wrong.

If it is about an employer. If you think an employer on OpenStaff has discriminated against you, in an advert, in a message, at an interview or in a decision, report it to us with the Report button, our report form or at contact@openstaff.co.uk. We can take an advert down and warn or suspend the employer. We cannot decide a legal claim between you and an employer, and we cannot award compensation.

Getting advice. The Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) (opens in a new tab) gives information and advice about discrimination. Acas gives free and confidential advice about rights at work on 0300 123 1100, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Both are separate from OpenStaff.

Time limits. Legal claims about discrimination have strict time limits, which start from the date of the act you are complaining about. Complaining to us does not extend them. Acas explains the time limits for employment tribunal claims (opens in a new tab).

Asking for a person to review a match

If you think a match score or a "Why this matched" explanation is wrong or unfair, use "Ask a person to review this" beside the match. If you think you should have been matched with a job and were not, use the same button on that job's page, or "Ask a person to look at my matches" in your settings. You can also email privacy@openstaff.co.uk. A trained member of our staff, who has the authority to change the result, reviews it and replies within one month with the outcome and the reasons. If you disagree, use the same button again or reply to our email, and we will look again; where we can, someone else does.

If you are still concerned about online safety

Ofcom is the regulator for online safety. If you have reported something to us and you are still concerned about how OpenStaff deals with illegal content, reports or complaints, you can tell Ofcom (opens in a new tab). Ofcom does not respond to or investigate individual complaints. It uses what people tell it to decide whether a service is doing enough to protect its users.

What we keep

We keep a record of each complaint, report and notice: what it was about, when it arrived, what we decided and when we acted. Our privacy notice explains how we use personal information, including what you send us in a complaint, a report or a notice.

What we are not responsible for

We will provide OpenStaff with reasonable care and skill.

Loss or damage that is not foreseeable.
What an employer does. Employers are separate businesses and we do not control them. We are not responsible for what an employer says in an advert, how it treats you or what it does with your information. This does not apply where your loss was caused by our own failure to do what these terms say or to take reasonable care, for example by not acting on a report.
Delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control. If one happens, we tell you as soon as we can and do what we can to limit its effect.

Scores and explanations. A score or a "Why this matched" explanation is an automated recommendation. It can be wrong, and it is not a promise of work. If you think one is wrong, you can ask a person to review it.

Availability. We try to keep OpenStaff running all the time, but we do not promise that it always will be. We sometimes need to take it offline to repair or update it.

Other things you should know

We may transfer our rights and duties under these terms to another organisation, for example if the business is sold. We will tell you first. Your rights under these terms will not be reduced, and you can close your account if you are not happy.
You cannot transfer your account to anyone else.
This agreement is between you and us. Nobody else has the right to enforce it.
If a court decides that part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.
If we do not enforce a term straight away, we can still do so later.

The law that applies

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. Wherever you live, you keep the protection of the laws of your home country that cannot be changed by agreement. That includes the law of Scotland if you live there.

You can bring a claim against us in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland, you can bring it in the courts of Scotland instead.

Complaints and contact

If something has gone wrong, please tell us so that we can put it right. The section "Complaints, reports and appeals" above explains how to complain, how to report content and how to appeal, and what happens next.

General questions and complaints: contact@openstaff.co.uk
Your personal information: privacy@openstaff.co.uk
Reporting a job, an employer or a message: our report form or contact@openstaff.co.uk
Post: OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX