Privacy policy

1. Who we are and who to contact

Avery Professional Group is a healthcare recruitment firm based in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. We recruit physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, technical and allied health staff, and healthcare leaders for hospitals, health systems and healthcare organizations in Canada and the United States. DocFinder is the physician recruitment service of Avery Professional Group.

We are responsible for the personal information we collect. Our Privacy Officer is accountable for our compliance with this policy and with applicable privacy law, including Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Privacy Officer: Kevin Kirkpatrick, Founder
Avery Professional Group
39 Millburn Dr, Bowmanville, ON L1C 5L6, Canada
Email: kevin@averyprofessionalgroup.com or kevin@docfinder.ca
Phone: 905-447-2151

2. What personal information we collect

Candidates (people we recruit, or who apply or ask about opportunities): name and contact details; location and willingness to relocate; CV or résumé and what it contains, such as education, training, professional licenses and registrations, work history and skills; the roles, locations, compensation expectations and start dates you’re interested in; references you choose to give us; our notes from conversations and interviews; and messages you send us. For leadership candidates, this can include assessment results gathered during a search, with your knowledge.

Professional information from other sources: we may collect business contact details and professional background (for example name, title, employer, specialty, license status and work email or phone) from publicly available professional sources such as professional directories, regulatory college or licensing registers, employer websites and professional networking profiles, and from business contact-data providers. We use this only to contact you about professional opportunities. If we contact you this way, you can ask us to stop at any time.

Clients and enquirers (hospitals, health organizations and the people who contact us on their behalf): name, title, organization, contact details, and information about the roles, searches or projects you discuss with us.

Website visitors: if you use a contact, CV submission or booking form, the information you enter. Our hosting, security and website tools also automatically process technical information such as your IP address, browser and device type, pages visited and the date and time of your visit. See section 8 on cookies.

What we don’t ask for: please don’t send us government identification numbers (such as a SIN or SSN), health information about yourself, or banking or payment details through our website or by email unless we’ve specifically asked for something required for a credentialing or onboarding step, and agreed with you how to send it securely.

3. Why we use it

We collect and use personal information only for these purposes, which we identify at or before the time of collection:

• to respond to your enquiry or request;
• to find, contact, assess and present candidates for roles with our clients, and to support offers, licensing, credentialing, relocation and onboarding;
• to tell candidates about current and future opportunities that may suit them;
• to provide our recruitment, search, coaching, project and consulting services to clients, and to manage those relationships;
• to run, secure and improve our website; and
• to meet our legal, regulatory and contractual obligations.

We don’t use personal information for any new purpose without telling you and, where required, getting your consent.

4. Consent

We collect, use and disclose personal information with your consent, except where the law allows otherwise. You give express consent when you send us your CV, apply for a role or agree to be considered for an opportunity. You give implied consent for us to reply when you contact us. We will not send a candidate’s CV or identify a candidate to a prospective employer without that candidate’s agreement for that specific opportunity.

You can withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual limits, by contacting our Privacy Officer. If you withdraw consent, we may no longer be able to consider you for opportunities.

5. Who we share it with

Prospective employers (our clients): as described above, only with the candidate’s agreement for the specific opportunity. For leadership placements, this includes the independent executive coach assigned to the placed leader, with that leader’s knowledge.

Referees: we contact the references you provide, with your permission.

Service providers that help us run our business and process information on our behalf, under contract and only for that purpose, including: Loxo (applicant tracking and candidate database), Microsoft 365 (email and documents), GoDaddy (website hosting, website forms and site traffic statistics), Sucuri (website security), Akismet (spam filtering for website forms), OptinMonster (website messages and pop-ups), TrustedSite (website security certification), Google Fonts (website fonts), and business contact-data and sourcing tools.

Legal reasons: where required or permitted by law, for example to comply with a court order, or to protect our rights or someone’s safety.

Business transfer: if all or part of our business is sold or merged, personal information may be transferred to the new owner, who will be bound to use it as this policy describes.

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

6. Where it’s stored

Some of our service providers store or process information outside Canada, including in the United States and other countries. While there, it is subject to the laws of those countries and may be accessed by their courts, law enforcement or national security authorities. We choose providers that protect information to a standard comparable to ours. When we recruit a candidate for a role in another country, we share that candidate’s information with the employer in that country, with the candidate’s agreement.

7. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes above or as required by law. As a general rule, we keep candidate records for 24 months after our last contact with you, so we can tell you about future opportunities, unless you ask us to delete them sooner. Records relating to a placement, and client records, are kept for as long as the client relationship continues and for up to seven years after, for contractual, guarantee, tax and legal purposes. When we no longer need information, we securely delete or anonymize it.

8. Cookies and website technologies

Our websites use cookies and similar technologies that are needed to run and secure the sites, and tools that remember whether you’ve already seen a site message. Our hosting provider, GoDaddy, also sets cookies that count visits and measure basic site traffic, and our hosting and security providers keep server logs, including IP addresses, to protect the sites. We do not use advertising cookies. If we add other analytics or advertising tools, we will update this policy first. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some parts of the sites may not work as intended if you do.

Our sites link to other websites, including LinkedIn, Spotify and our job board. Those sites have their own privacy policies.

9. Email and messages

We send commercial electronic messages in line with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and the US CAN-SPAM Act. Our messages identify us and include a way to unsubscribe or ask us to stop, and we act on those requests within 10 business days.

10. How we protect it

We protect personal information with safeguards suited to its sensitivity, including password-protected and access-controlled systems, limiting access to people who need it for their work, and confidentiality obligations for anyone working on our behalf. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If a breach of security safeguards involving your personal information creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as required by law, and keep a record of the breach.

11. Your rights

You can ask us to:

• tell you whether we hold personal information about you, how it has been used and who it has been shared with, and give you access to it;
• correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• stop contacting you, or withdraw your consent; and
• delete your information, unless we need to keep it for legal or contractual reasons.

Send requests to our Privacy Officer. We may need to confirm your identity. We’ll respond within 30 days, and tell you if we need more time or can’t fulfil a request, and why. There is no charge for a reasonable request.

United States: depending on your state, you may have additional rights, such as to know, correct or delete personal information, or to opt out of its sale or sharing. We don’t sell or share personal information for targeted advertising. Contact us to make a request, and we’ll honor the rights that apply to you. We won’t discriminate against you for exercising them.

United Kingdom and European Economic Area: if you’re a candidate in the UK, Ireland or elsewhere in the EEA, we process your information on the basis of our legitimate interest in recruiting for our clients and your interest in hearing about opportunities, your consent where we ask for it, and steps you ask us to take toward an offer. In addition to the rights above, you can object to processing, ask us to restrict it, and ask for a copy of your information in a portable format. You can also complain to your local data protection authority, such as the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or Ireland’s Data Protection Commission.

Australia and New Zealand: you can access and correct your information as described above, and contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner if you’re not satisfied with our response.

12. Questions and complaints

If you have a question or concern about how we handle personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer first so we can try to resolve it. If you aren’t satisfied, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca or 1-800-282-1376.

13. Children

Our services are for working professionals and healthcare organizations. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We’ll post the new version here and change the “Last updated” date. If we make significant changes, we’ll make reasonable efforts to let affected people know.