Employer subscription terms

These terms apply when a company (“you”) subscribes to ElderBirch Employer Access — Monthly (“Employer Access”) from Elderbirch (Pty) Ltd, trading as ElderBirch Consulting & Services (“ElderBirch”, “we”). They are in addition to our terms of use and privacy policy. The person who accepts them confirms that they are authorised to bind the company.

1. What these terms cover

These terms cover the self-service subscription: using the candidate register, contacting candidates, posting vacancies and managing applicants yourself. Full-service recruitment — where you ask ElderBirch to recruit for you through a recruitment request — is governed by separate written placement terms, agreed with you before we start.

2. Price and billing

• Employer Access costs R 250.00 per month.
• You pay by card through PayFast. The first payment is taken when you subscribe and your access starts as soon as PayFast confirms it.
• Billing is monthly in advance: PayFast charges the same card every month on the same date, until you cancel. Each payment extends your access by one month.
• We can also accept payment by EFT by prior arrangement.
• If we change the price, we will email the account holder at least 30 days before the new price applies to you. You can cancel before then.
• Invoices and payment history are available in your dashboard under Subscription.

3. What Employer Access includes

• Full candidate profiles in the register (see the access table in our privacy policy).
• Candidates' contact details and CV downloads, where ElderBirch allows direct contact.
• Messaging candidates and connection requests.
• Posting vacancies, receiving applications and managing applicants.
• A shortlist, and a company profile in the hiring companies directory.

ElderBirch may decide that contact with some or all candidates goes through ElderBirch — for example candidates we represent personally. For those candidates you use Request an introduction instead of seeing contact details or CVs. At present, direct contact is switched on for candidates ElderBirch does not represent personally.

4. Immediate start and the cooling-off period

When you subscribe, you ask us to start the service immediately and you consent to that at checkout. Under section 42(2)(d) of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, the seven-day cooling-off right in section 44 does not apply to services that begin, with your consent, before the end of the cooling-off period.

5. Cancelling

• The main account holder can cancel at any time from Employer dashboard → Subscription, or by emailing elderbirch@outlook.com.
• Cancelling stops future payments. You keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for. We do not refund or credit part-months.
• You can subscribe again at any time.
• If a monthly payment fails, access continues for 3 days while you update your card, then pauses until payment is received.

Our cancellations & refunds page explains when we do refund.

6. Fair use

Employer Access is for recruiting, not for building a database. Each company may make up to 30 contact reveals and CV downloads a day in total, across all its users (showing a candidate's contact details and downloading their CV count separately). Automated access, scraping, bulk copying or exporting of the register is not allowed. We monitor use and may limit or suspend access that looks like harvesting.

7. One company, up to 3 users

• A subscription is for one company (one legal entity and its trading names).
• It includes up to 3 named users, including the main account holder. Every user needs their own login; logins may not be shared.
• The main account holder manages billing, cancellation and team members, and is responsible for the other users following these terms.

8. Your own genuine vacancies only

• Use the register only to fill genuine, current vacancies in your own organisation.
• Do not resell, share, publish or pass on candidate information to anyone else — including related companies, clients or other recruiters — and do not use it for marketing.
• Recruitment and staffing agencies may present register candidates to their clients only with ElderBirch's prior written agreement.
• Vacancies you post must be real, accurate and lawful, show your company's name, and be closed or marked filled when they are filled. We may hold, edit or remove vacancies that break these rules.

9. Introduction fees

Employer Access lets you hire candidates you find in the register without a placement fee, with these exceptions:

1. Candidates ElderBirch represents. Some candidates are marked as represented by ElderBirch and are introduced only through a request. If you, or anyone on your behalf, employ or engage a represented candidate — permanently, temporarily, as a contractor or through another agency — within 12 months of ElderBirch introducing them, ElderBirch's placement fee applies in accordance with its standard terms, which we send you in writing before the introduction.
2. Candidates passed to third parties. If you pass a candidate's details obtained through ElderBirch to a third party (for example a related company, a client or another agency) and that party employs or engages the candidate within 12 months, you must pay ElderBirch an introduction fee in accordance with ElderBirch's standard terms.

Please tell us when you hire a candidate in either category. Hires through Employer Access are recorded so that we can keep the placement register the Employment Services Act requires.

10. Fair and lawful recruitment

You must not unfairly discriminate against candidates, directly or indirectly, on any ground listed in section 6 of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 — including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, family responsibility, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, HIV status, conscience, belief, political opinion, culture, language or birth — or on any other arbitrary ground.

Employment equity filters (population group, gender and disability) may be used only for employment equity purposes consistent with the Employment Equity Act, such as measures in your employment equity plan. They show only candidates who consented, and never display the values. Using them for any other purpose is a material breach.

11. Work permits

Candidates' citizenship and permit information is declared by the candidate. Before you employ a foreign national you must see and verify a valid work permit or visa that allows the work, as section 8 of the Employment Services Act 4 of 2014 and the Immigration Act 13 of 2002 require.

12. Never ask candidates for money or documents

You must never ask a candidate for any payment — for registration, applications, training, uniforms, medicals, checks or anything else. Charging a work-seeker for an employment service is prohibited by section 15 of the Employment Services Act. You must not ask for ID copies, bank details or similar documents before you have made a written offer of employment, and any background check needs the candidate's written consent. A breach of this clause leads to immediate suspension and may be reported to the authorities.

13. Protecting candidate information (POPIA)

Candidate information you receive is personal information protected by POPIA. You process it as a responsible party for your own recruitment, and you agree to:

• use it only to recruit for the specific vacancy, and keep it confidential;
• protect it with appropriate security safeguards (section 19) and limit access to people involved in the recruitment;
• not transfer it outside South Africa except as section 72 allows;
• delete the information of candidates you did not appoint once the recruitment is finished, unless the candidate agrees otherwise (section 14);
• notify ElderBirch in writing within 72 hours of becoming aware that candidate information obtained through ElderBirch was lost, accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person, and co-operate with us and the Information Regulator (section 22).

When ElderBirch shares a candidate's information with you for an introduction on our behalf, you act as our operator (sections 20 and 21): you may process it only with our authorisation and must treat it as confidential.

14. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or end your access immediately, without a refund, if you breach clauses 6, 8, 10, 12 or 13, post fraudulent or misleading vacancies, or harass candidates. For other breaches we will tell you what is wrong and give you a reasonable chance to fix it first. We may report unlawful conduct to the authorities. Fees owed under clause 9 survive termination.

15. Our responsibility

Candidate profiles are written by the candidates. ElderBirch does not guarantee their accuracy, suitability or availability; you remain responsible for your own interviews, reference checks and verification. A candidate marked “Interviewed” has been interviewed by ElderBirch — it is not a guarantee of qualifications or references. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you is limited to the subscription fees you paid in the three months before the claim arose.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we will email the account holder at least 30 days before they apply; you can cancel before then. The version and “last updated” date at the top of this page show the current terms.

17. Contact

Questions about your subscription: elderbirch@outlook.com or 067 031 2470.