Important information

1. Consent of the applicant

If you are a prospective employer or a recruitment agency, you might consider contacting CERN to enquire whether your applicant has worked for CERN in the past and to obtain information about the contractual relationship, the job performance and conduct of the person, and the like.

Typically, you join to your request a letter of consent or agreement signed by the applicant, with which he or she entitles you to contact former employers and to collect relevant information.

However, usually, with such a letter of consent or agreement the applicant does not grant CERN the right to disclose personal data about him or her to a third party. Therefore, CERN will not be able to honour your request.

According to CERN’s internal data protection framework, in order to disclose personal data to a third party, CERN needs the express, specific, informed, unambiguous and freely given permission of the person concerned.

Therefore, you should collect from the applicant such a consent covering the disclosure of the requested details by CERN as well as the recipient of the data transfer, and provide it to CERN.

2. Format of the consent declaration

No specific format of the consent declaration is required. It is sufficient if the text clearly states that the candidate authorises CERN to send his/her data to you by detailing:
a) the identity of the candidate,
b) the categories of the personal data to be disclosed,
c) the recipient of the data transfer (you!).

You can attach the duly signed declaration directly to your request of employment verification that you should submit using the online form, as stated below.
But you could also envisage to invite the candidate to provide us with the consent declaration, e.g. in a separate e-mail.
Both options are available to you.

3. Identity check

Please note that in addition, for applicants who are no longer at CERN, an identity check is required.

To facilitate this verification, we strongly recommend that you put the applicant concerned person in copy of your correspondence with CERN, using his/her last private e-mail address communicated to CERN at the time of his/her departure. If this is not possible, an identity document of the applicant is required. CERN reserves the right to request further details for the identify verification.

4. Request form

If these conditions are successfully met, CERN will consider your request for data transfer.

To submit a request for employment verification, please use the online form "Request for personal data by legal entities" referenced below.

Please note that CERN will provide exclusively information of administrative nature.
Requests for reference letters do not fall within the scope of the procedure described above. For assessments of the applicant's performance or conduct, please contact his or her former supervisor directly.

5. The preferred option

Finally, for the sake of simplicity, you are encouraged to consider an alternative approach:

CERN’s former members of the personnel have the option of requesting an official contract attestation (using the corresponding link below), which will then be issued to you either by the person concerned or via CERN at the request of the person concerned.