The one thing you should never leave off your Polish CV

When applying for a job abroad, it is worth remembering that certain rules of CV writing may vary from country to country. For example, putting a photo on your CV is still considered a must by many Polish recruiters, whereas in the UK it is a no-no. If you are sending an application to a Polish company, always make sure that it includes your written consent to the processing of your personal data. Otherwise, the recruiters will not be legally permitted to process your application!

Fortunately, most companies include the relevant statement in their job postings and your task is to simply copy-paste it to the bottom of your CV. If you are not provided with any specific phrase, it is best to use a general one, such as:

• Wyrażam zgodę na przetwarzanie moich danych osobowych przez (company name) w celu prowadzenia rekrutacji na aplikowane przeze mnie stanowisko.

The above sentence means:

• I hereby give consent for my personal data included in the application to be processed by (company name) for the purposes of the recruitment process.

A lot of candidates from Poland choose to use a longer statement, which invokes the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Polish: RODO):

• Wyrażam zgodę na przetwarzanie moich danych osobowych w celu rekrutacji zgodnie z art. 6 ust. 1 lit. a Rozporządzenia Parlamentu Europejskiego i Rady (UE) 2016/679 z dnia 27 kwietnia 2016 r. w sprawie ochrony osób fizycznych w związku z przetwarzaniem danych osobowych i w sprawie swobodnego przepływu takich danych oraz uchylenia dyrektywy 95/46/WE (ogólne rozporządzenie o ochronie danych).

The latter can be translated as:

• I hereby give consent for my personal data included in the application to be processed for the purposes of the recruitment process in accordance with Art. 6 paragraph 1 letter a of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).

Note that if you would like to be considered for any other position within the company, you should consent to the processing of your personal data in future recruitment processes:

• Wyrażam zgodę na przetwarzanie moich danych osobowych przez (company name) również na potrzeby przyszłych rekrutacji.
• I hereby give consent for my personal data included in the application to be processed by (company name) for the purposes of future recruitment processes.

If you are in need of an English-language statement, the following is probably the most common one:

• I hereby consent to my personal data being processed by (company name) for the purpose of considering my application for the vacancy advertised under reference number (...)

For more advice on CV writing, take a look at these 6 resume tips to help you land a job in Poland!