Legitimate Interest is a term defined by the GDPR which allows a data processor to handle your data without consent if they have a legitimate interest to do so. The GDPR leaves individual businesses to define for themselves what legitimate interest means for them.
We approach defining our legitimate interest in processing your data as follows:
Where an applicant sends materials regarding an application to a vacancy that has been posted on a third party job board by a recruitment system on behalf of an employer, the applicant would have a reasonable expectation that their application is processed by the system which the employer used to post the vacancy therefore allowing the employer to manage the application in the same system.
Because an applicant would have a reasonable expectation that a recruitment system is involved in managing applications for employers, the software provider delivering the recruitment system has a legitimate interest in processing your data on behalf of the employer for the strict purposes of dealing with your application only.