Privacy Policy

LadderStar is operated by Ladder Star LLC. This Policy applies to the LadderStar website, Member accounts, private profiles, aggregate job board and saved jobs, AI interview sessions, Co-Star AI chat, Stars wallets and subscriptions, support, and related administrative operations.

It also applies when a Member sends you an interview invitation and you participate without creating a LadderStar account. The Member who creates an invitation provides the recipient details and interview context used for that session.

Account and profile information. We collect information you provide or receive from an authentication provider, including your name, email address, profile photo, authentication provider, private career profile, headline, skills, resume or resume link, work preferences, appearance and notification settings, account status, and operational roles. Firebase Authentication supports email/password, Google, and GitHub sign-in.

Job information. We process searches, filters, location queries, viewed-job interest signals, saved-job records, soft-removal status, and portable job snapshots. Job listings may come from LadderStar's retained public job records or external providers such as Careerjet, Jooble, and Adzuna.

Interview information. For practice and sent interviews, we process session settings, role and organization context, interview briefs, required questions, imported job snapshots, recipient name and email, invitation and attempt status, microphone audio while it is streamed, transcripts, timestamps, duration, reconnect events, scores, feedback, strengths, improvements, question coverage, recommendations, and reports.

Chat, feedback, and notifications. We process Co-Star AI conversation metadata and message content, feedback ratings and comments, workflow context, support communications, notification records, and read or delivery state. Human-to-human messaging is retired.

Billing and administration. We process Stripe customer, checkout, subscription, invoice, plan, price, and transaction references; Stars balances, reservations, usage, and wallet history; administrative support notes; account-status and role changes; pricing and content publishing actions; and immutable audit and user-activity events.

Device and service information. We may receive IP address, browser and device information, pages and features used, referrer, approximate location inferred from network information, cookie or local-storage preferences, performance measurements, errors, security events, and rate-limit or anti-abuse signals.

We collect information directly from you, from a Member who invites you to an interview, from authentication and payment providers, from your use of LadderStar, from job-listing providers, and from platform operators performing authorized support or administrative work.

Member profiles are private and are used to operate the account and personalize interview sessions. LadderStar does not publish Member profiles to other users or search engines. Historical documents from the retired public-profile feature may be retained, but the service no longer publishes or updates them.

The job board aggregates listings from LadderStar's existing public job records and external providers. When you search, LadderStar may send the provider your search terms, selected location, IP address, browser user agent, and referrer as needed to retrieve and attribute results. Following an application link takes you to a third-party site governed by that site's privacy practices.

Saved jobs are private to your account. A saved record can include a portable snapshot so an external listing remains viewable if the provider result changes. Unsave actions generally mark the record as removed instead of immediately deleting the underlying record.

Members may run an interview for themselves or send a named, single-use invitation to someone else. The sender may provide the recipient's name, email address, interview brief, required questions, organization context, and an optional job snapshot. The recipient sees the sender's display name and relevant interview context before beginning.

During a live session, microphone audio is transmitted from the browser through LadderStar's Cloud Run relay to Google Gemini so the AI interviewer can respond and produce a transcript and evaluation. LadderStar stores transcripts, reports, session status, duration, and operational events. LadderStar does not currently offer interview recording and does not intentionally save live microphone audio or video as a recording. Short-lived audio buffers may exist while the live connection is operating, and AI providers may retain limited data under their applicable terms for security, abuse prevention, or legal compliance.

For a sent interview, the resulting transcript, report, score, and recommendations are available to the Member whose Stars funded the session and to authorized LadderStar operators. The participant receives a completion receipt, not the private report. Historical consent or recording records from retired features may be retained without an active recording or playback feature.

AI feedback can be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, biased, or unsuitable for a particular role or decision. LadderStar does not use audio or video for facial-expression scoring, emotion detection, biometric identification, personality claims, or judgments based on appearance.

We use information to create and secure accounts; provide private profiles, job discovery and saved jobs; operate practice and sent interviews; produce transcripts and reports; provide Co-Star AI chat; manage subscriptions and Stars; deliver notifications; respond to support; administer and moderate the service; diagnose failures; prevent fraud and abuse; comply with law; and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Where data-protection law requires a legal basis, we rely as appropriate on performance of a contract or steps requested before entering one, consent, compliance with legal obligations, and our legitimate interests in operating, securing, supporting, and improving LadderStar. When we rely on consent, you may withdraw it for future processing. When we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the interests and rights of the affected person.

We may use aggregated or de-identified information for analytics, reliability, capacity planning, and product reporting, provided we do not use it to identify an individual.

LadderStar uses Google Gemini and related Google infrastructure to process prompts, live audio, transcripts, job or role context, chat messages, generated responses, tool calls, and images for authorized internal sandbox features. Google's handling of that information is governed by the service configuration and applicable Google terms. Paid Gemini API services state that prompts and responses are not used to improve Google products, although limited logging may occur for safety and abuse prevention.

LadderStar interview scores and reports are generated using AI. They are intended for preparation and human review; LadderStar does not make employment decisions for Members or third parties. Do not submit government identifiers, financial account numbers, health information, trade secrets, confidential third-party information, or other sensitive information unless you have a lawful right and a clear need to do so.

We disclose information as needed to providers that operate LadderStar, including Google Firebase, Firestore, Cloud Run, Cloud Storage, and Gemini; Vercel hosting, Analytics, and Speed Insights; Stripe payment services; Resend email delivery; and external job providers such as Careerjet, Jooble, and Adzuna.

We also disclose invitation and completion information to the sender or intended recipient as described in the service; account and operational information to authorized administrators and owners for support, security, moderation, billing, and auditability; and information when required by law or reasonably necessary to protect rights, safety, and service integrity.

We may disclose information in connection with a merger, financing, reorganization, acquisition, bankruptcy, or sale of assets, subject to applicable law. We do not sell personal information for money. LadderStar does not currently use cross-context behavioral advertising. If our practices change, we will provide any notice and choice required by law.

We use cookies, local storage, session storage, SDK storage, and similar technologies for authentication, account state, security, theme and microphone preferences, checkout, local caching, performance, analytics, and optional job personalization.

Browser storage may contain a cached private profile, dashboard or wallet summary, interview workspace data, templates, invitations, reports, interview-brief drafts, job-interest signals, and cookie preferences on the device you use. Avoid using a shared device for sensitive account activity, sign out when finished, and clear site data when appropriate.

Optional job personalization records recently viewed categories, tags, and title keywords locally. Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights measure traffic and performance. See the Cookie Policy for details and available controls.

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose collected, including providing the service, maintaining session history and saved jobs, administering subscriptions and wallets, supporting users, securing the platform, preventing abuse, preserving auditability, resolving disputes, and meeting legal, tax, accounting, and contractual obligations. The period varies by record type, account status, and applicable requirements.

Account deletion currently disables sign-in, hides the private account from active use, and marks account records as deleted. It is not an immediate erasure of every record. Wallet transactions, subscription records, interview and activity records, audit logs, security events, retained historical data, and backups may remain where necessary for the purposes above. A deleted account may be eligible for recreation after ownership is confirmed.

Interview invitations expire after the selected one-to-thirty-day period, but related invitation, attempt, transcript, report, metering, and security records may remain afterward. Removed saved jobs and deleted interview or template records may use soft-deletion metadata rather than immediate physical deletion.

We use safeguards appropriate to the service, including Firebase Authentication, Firestore and Storage rules, server-side authorization for privileged routes, hashed interview invitation tokens, short-lived signed relay tickets, server-owned wallet and audit records, private service credentials, and environment-based secret handling.

No online service or storage system is completely secure. You are responsible for protecting your credentials, devices, identity-provider accounts, and active sessions.

You may update many account, profile, appearance, notification, and billing settings within LadderStar. You may cancel a subscription through supported billing controls and request account deletion through account settings. Browser controls can clear local storage and cookies.

Depending on where you live and whether the relevant law applies, you may have rights to know or access personal information, correct it, request deletion, obtain a portable copy, restrict or object to processing, withdraw consent, opt out of certain sale or sharing, limit certain uses of sensitive information, appeal a decision, and lodge a complaint with a privacy regulator. We do not discriminate against users for exercising applicable privacy rights.

Submit a request to privacy@ladderstar.com. Describe the request and identify the account or interview involved. We may verify your identity, authority, and relationship to the information before responding. An authorized agent must provide proof of authority. Some requests may be limited by legal exceptions or the rights of other people, including an interview sender or participant.

LadderStar is operated from the United States. We and our providers may process information in the United States and other countries where we or they operate. Those countries may have different data-protection laws from your home jurisdiction.

Where required, we rely on an adequacy decision, contractual safeguards, provider data-processing terms, consent, or another lawful transfer mechanism. Contact privacy@ladderstar.com to request available information about applicable transfer safeguards.

LadderStar and its AI features are intended only for people who are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a person under 18 has provided information to LadderStar, contact privacy@ladderstar.com.

We may update this Policy as the service, providers, or law changes. We will post the revised effective date and provide additional notice when required or when a change materially affects how we handle personal information.