Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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162. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the efforts her Department will make to ensure all customers' CVs uploaded will be kept confidential; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42870/14]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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JobsIreland () is a free vacancy advertising and job search service provided by the Department of Social Protection to support employers and jobseekers. Improving the job/candidate matching capability of this service is to incentivise employers to use the service to provide more jobs for those who are unemployed. At present jobseekers can use the site to manually search for jobs however employers cannot use the service in the ‘reverse’ direction to search for candidates. In addition there is no automatic matching of candidates/jobs to present a shortlist of suitable opportunities to jobseekers or suitable candidates to employers.

Accordingly a tender process is currently underway for a new job matching system to replace/upgrade JobsIreland. Subject to the outcome of the tender process it is anticipated that the new system will go live during 2015.

In order to populate the new site with sufficiently detailed candidate profiles to enable employers match their job requirements with suitable candidates, jobseekers will be asked to upload their CVs on JobsIreland and other similar employment sites. In addition to providing evidence to the Department that the jobseeker is genuinely seeking, and available for, employment this will bring benefits to the jobseeker as it will improve their chances of being ‘matched’ with employers in three ways. First, the new Jobslreland service will itself automatically match candidate profiles with suitable jobs and will notify both the jobseeker and the employer of the match details. Second, employers will have the ability to refine the search parameters and conduct an ‘advance’ search for job for candidates with specific skills, qualifications and/or experience. Third, jobseekers will have a similar search capability and will, by examining matching results, be able to refine the presentation of their CV to maximise its likelihood of being identified as a match for particular job types.

It is important to note that, unless otherwise specified by the jobseeker, candidate personal information, such as name and address, will not be visible to employers or other users. Instead candidate ID numbers will be used and these will enable prospective employers to communicate with jobseekers using messaging functionality on the system. In addition jobseekers will only be requested to upload their CV in circumstances where their case worker is of the opinion that it is appropriate to do so. In particular it is not intended that jobseekers with significant barriers to employment, for example literacy problems, will be requested to upload their CV. Such jobseekers will, as is the practice at the moment, be referred to appropriate service interventions.