Candidate Terms of Service

Version 1.0 | Effective Date: 1 January 2025

Jurisdiction: Australia (applies globally where JobSeal operates)
Governing Law: Laws of New South Wales, Australia

This document should be read in conjunction with the JobSeal Platform Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy.

1. Introduction and Acceptance

These Candidate Terms of Service ('Terms') constitute a legally binding agreement between you, as an individual candidate ('you', 'Candidate'), and JobSeal Pty Ltd ('JobSeal', 'we', 'us', 'our'), a company incorporated in Australia.

By registering for a JobSeal account, creating a REFID profile, or using any part of the JobSeal platform ('Platform'), you agree to be bound by these Terms in full. If you do not agree, you must not use the Platform.

These Terms must be read alongside our Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy, each of which form part of your agreement with us.

2. Eligibility

To register as a Candidate, you must:

Be at least 18 years of age;
Be an individual person (not a corporation or other entity);
Have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract;
Not be prohibited from using the Platform under applicable law; and
Provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration.

You may only hold one active Candidate account. Creating multiple accounts to circumvent a suspension or to manipulate your score is a material breach of these Terms.

3. Your Account and REFID

3.1 Account Registration

When registering, you must provide your full legal name, a valid email address, and a phone number. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for all activity that occurs under your account.

3.2 Your REFID

Upon completing registration, you will be assigned a unique reference identifier ('REFID'). Your REFID is your portable professional identity on the Platform. It is non-transferable and may not be shared with, sold to, or used by any other person.

3.3 REFID Links

The Platform enables you to generate two types of shareable links associated with your REFID:

General links: Suitable for use on LinkedIn, CVs, or professional profiles. These provide access to your public profile page without identifying the specific application context.
Specific links: Tied to a particular job application and employer. These enable you to track when and by whom your profile was accessed in the context of that application.

You are solely responsible for deciding when, how, and with whom you share your REFID links.

4. Employment History and Verification

4.1 Accuracy Obligation

You must ensure that all employment records you enter on the Platform are accurate, complete, and not misleading. This includes company names, role titles, employment dates, and the identity of referee contacts. Providing false or misleading information is a material breach of these Terms and may expose you to legal liability.

4.2 Referee Nominations

When nominating referees for an employment record, you confirm that:

The referee contact details are accurate and belong to a person who held the role you have described;
You have a legitimate basis to nominate this person as a referee in connection with your employment at that organisation;
You have not colluded with any referee to influence or inflate the scores they provide; and
You will not contact referees to pressure, coach, or incentivise them in relation to their survey responses.

4.3 Verification Process

JobSeal will send verification and survey requests to your nominated referees on your behalf. You acknowledge that:

JobSeal cannot guarantee that any referee will respond to a request;
Roles where no verified response is received will contribute no score to your REFID;
Verification outcomes depend on third-party cooperation and JobSeal accepts no liability for non-response or delayed response by referees; and
JobSeal reserves the right to verify claimed employment independently using business registry and other publicly available data sources.

At nomination, you may optionally request either of the following for a role, instead of the standard scored verification:

Identity and employment-only verification. Your referee and HR contact confirm your identity and the details of the role only. No survey is issued and the role contributes no score, dimension breakdown, or "High Confidence" indicator (below) to your REFID — it is still shown as verified.
"High Confidence" check. Your HR contact is asked to additionally nominate a second referee, whom you do not select and whose identity is never disclosed to you, who completes the same survey independently. If their assessment closely agrees with your primary referee's across every scored dimension, your role receives a "High Confidence" indicator, visible to employers viewing your report. This option is not available for roles verified using the identity-and-employment-only option.

5. Your JobSeal and How It Is Calculated

5.1 Score Computation

Your JobSeal is a numerical composite derived from aggregated, anonymised responses provided by your verified referees across four behavioural dimensions: Delivery Reliability, Technical Competence, Professional Conduct, and Re-engagement Indicator. The specific weighting applied may vary by role type profile selected at the time of a verification order. A role verified using the identity-and-employment-only option (§4.3) contributes no score or dimension breakdown to your JobSeal, and is excluded from this calculation entirely.

5.2 What You Can and Cannot See

You will be able to view:

Your overall JobSeal and sub-dimension scores;
The number of verified responses that contributed to each role score;
The verification status of each employment record, including whether a role received a "High Confidence" indicator (§4.3); and
When and by whom your specific REFID links were accessed.

You will not be able to view:

Individual referee responses or any question-level answer data, including responses from a second referee nominated as part of a "High Confidence" check (§4.3);
The identity of which referee submitted which response, or the identity of any second referee nominated for a "High Confidence" check; or
Any free-text commentary that may have been provided in a survey response.

Important: Raw response data is not retained. JobSeal's scoring engine processes referee survey responses in memory and stores only the resulting aggregated dimension averages. Individual question-level responses are never written to persistent storage. This design is intentional and means that no individual response can be retrieved, attributed, or produced in any dispute or legal proceeding.

5.3 Score Updates

Your JobSeal is recomputed each time a new verified referee response is received. Historical scores are not preserved as snapshots; the displayed score always reflects the current computation.

6. Dispute Process

If you believe a role score has been computed incorrectly due to a procedural error in the verification process, you may raise a formal dispute through your account dashboard. You must raise any dispute within 90 days of the relevant score being published.

JobSeal will review whether the verification process was followed correctly. We will not investigate whether any individual referee's assessment was 'fair' or 'accurate', as referee responses are provided in good faith under a separate set of terms and are irrevocably anonymised. If a procedural error is confirmed, the affected score will be removed and the verification process may be re-initiated. If no procedural error is found, the score will stand.

You may attach a written statement of no more than 500 words to any role score on your profile. This statement will be visible to employers who access your profile. JobSeal does not edit, moderate, or endorse candidate statements.

7. Account Subscription and Status

7.1 Subscription Fee

An active Candidate subscription is payable annually ('Annual Fee'). The Annual Fee is payable in advance and is non-refundable except where required by the Australian Consumer Law.

7.2 Inactive Accounts

If you do not renew your Annual Fee, your account will transition to 'Inactive' status. In Inactive status:

Your REFID profile remains accessible to employers who access it via a direct link or search;
Your JobSeal and verification history remain visible on your profile;
You cannot add, edit, or delete employment records or referee nominations;
You cannot generate new REFID links; and
View tracking on your specific links is suspended.

Reactivating your account requires payment of the Annual Fee for the current period.

7.3 Account Deletion

You may close your account at any time through your account settings. Closing your account exercises your right to erasure under the Australian Privacy Act (APP 11.2) and, where applicable, GDPR Article 17. Upon deletion:

Your profile, employment history, scores, and personal data are permanently deleted immediately;
Your REFID profile is removed from employer search and direct link access immediately;
Employer accounts that have completed a paid verification order on your profile are notified of your erasure and must delete any report copies they hold; however, JobSeal cannot technically recall reports already downloaded to employer systems;
Audit log entries are de-identified (personal identifiers removed) rather than deleted, and are retained for up to 7 years for fraud prevention, dispute resolution, and legal compliance purposes; and
No refund of any Annual Fee is provided upon account deletion, except where required by the Australian Consumer Law.

8. Prohibited Conduct

In addition to the Acceptable Use Policy, as a Candidate you must not:

Provide false, misleading, or fabricated employment records;
Nominate fictitious, deceased, or unauthorised persons as referees;
Offer, pay, or arrange any benefit to any referee in connection with their response;
Create or use more than one Candidate account;
Attempt to identify or contact any specific referee based on score outcomes; or
Use your REFID or profile data in any way that misrepresents your employment history to a prospective employer.

9. Intellectual Property

Your JobSeal profile, REFID, computed scores, and verification reports are generated by and remain the property of JobSeal. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use your profile data for personal professional purposes (including sharing your REFID with prospective employers).

You retain ownership of the content you provide to the Platform (employment history details, skills, candidate statements). By submitting this content, you grant JobSeal a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to process, display, and use this content for the purpose of providing the Platform's services.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

JobSeal provides the Platform on an 'as is' basis and makes no warranty that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any specific verification or scoring outcome will result from your use of it;
JobSeal is not liable for any employment outcome, salary outcome, or commercial decision made by any employer based on your JobSeal or profile;
JobSeal's total liability to you in connection with these Terms is limited to the Annual Fee paid by you in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim; and
Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law, including for personal injury or death caused by our negligence.

11. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Where changes are material, we will provide at least 30 days' notice via email to your registered address before the changes take effect. Continued use of the Platform after the notice period constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

12. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. Any dispute arising under these Terms will be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales.

Before commencing any legal proceedings, you agree to notify us in writing and allow 30 days for us to attempt to resolve the dispute informally.

13. Contact

Email: legal@jobseal.co
Privacy queries: privacy@jobseal.co
Disputes: disputes@jobseal.co