Coach Agreement

This agreement is between you and Dataford. It covers coaching candidates on Dataford. It adds to our Terms of Service. Where the two differ on coaching, this agreement applies.

You accept it during your coach setup. You need to have accepted the current version to go live and take bookings.

Candidates book under the Coaching Terms. They set out what every candidate is promised, and you help keep those promises. Please read them.

You coach as an independent contractor. You are not Dataford's employee, agent or partner, and you do not receive employee benefits.

You decide how to run your sessions within this agreement. You provide your own computer, internet connection and a quiet place to talk. You may coach elsewhere, but not candidates you met through Dataford (see anonymity).

You are responsible for checking that coaching is allowed by your employment contract and your employer's rules on outside work.

• You are at least 18 years old.
• You work, or have worked, in the roles and at the companies you coach for. Everything in your application is true, and you keep your profile current. Tell us when you leave a company you list as your current employer.
• You can receive payouts through Stripe or, by PayPal or Wise, from the Dataford team (see payouts).
• You have one coach account, and only you coach under your handle.

We verify your employer in one of two ways before you go live.

• LinkedIn review. A person at Dataford checks your LinkedIn profile against your application.
• Work email. We send a 6-digit code to your work email. It expires after 10 minutes and allows 5 attempts. We keep only the email's domain and the time, never the address. If the domain does not match the company, a person at Dataford confirms it.

The "Verified employer" label shows for 365 days after a check. From day 335 we ask you to verify again. If you do not, the label comes off your profile.

Never claim an employer, level or role you cannot verify.

Candidates know you by a handle of 4 random characters that we assign at approval. They see your handle, verified employer, level, the roles you coach, your bio, rating and reviews.

• Never reveal who you are. No name, email, phone number, LinkedIn or other profile, social handle or website, whether in your bio, a session, your feedback or the shared notes. Bios with email addresses, links, phone numbers or @handles are rejected.
• Respect the candidate's privacy. You see a candidate's first name and their target. Do not try to identify them or reach them outside Dataford.
• Keep candidates on Dataford. Never offer, ask for or accept sessions, payment or contact outside Dataford with a candidate you met here. This applies while you coach on Dataford and for 12 months after your last session with that candidate.

Never share your employer's, or a former employer's, confidential information. That includes live or recent interview questions, question banks, rubrics and scoring guides, internal hiring guidelines, and anything about real candidates or hiring decisions.

Teach patterns, not questions. You can explain the format of each round, what strong answers look like and how interviewers think. Practice with questions you write yourself or that are already public. If you are not sure whether something is confidential, leave it out.

Do not offer referrals or suggest you can influence a hiring decision.

What a candidate shares with you (their brief, a mock report summary, the shared notes) is for their session only. Do not copy, keep or share it outside Dataford.

• No recording. Do not record, stream or capture a session, its audio, video or screen, by any means.
• Respect. Be professional. No harassment, threats, discrimination or sexual content. Do not ask about age, family, religion, health or other personal characteristics.
• Cameras are optional. They start off. You and the candidate each decide whether to turn yours on.
• Report problems. If a session goes wrong, leave the call if you need to and email us. We may pause your account while we look into a serious report.

You set your weekly hours, the notice you need before a session (at least 4 hours) and a buffer kept free after each session. Candidates can book any open time inside them straight away, so keep them current.

Candidates can also send a request with times of their own. Accept or decline each one within 48 hours. After that the request is released and the candidate's card hold is removed. Every booking and request shows your payout.

You can take a break at any time from your coach area. You leave the directory, and the sessions already booked stay booked. You still hold them.

Join on time. If you are not in the call 15 minutes after the start, the session is a no-show. The candidate gets a full refund, you are not paid, and a no-show goes on your record. You count as in the call once you have been in it for at least 1 minute, based on the video provider's records.

Proposing new times. If you cannot make a confirmed session more than 24 hours away, propose up to 3 new times instead of cancelling. The session keeps its time until the candidate answers. If they pick one, the session moves. If they decline, it is cancelled with a full refund, and a decline less than 24 hours before the start is a late change on your record.

Cancelling. You can cancel a session at any time. The candidate gets a full refund and you are not paid. Cancelling less than 24 hours before the start is a late change on your record.

Ending. Press End only once the candidate has joined, or after the 15-minute wait. Ending a session never marks anyone as present.

Automatic pause. 2 no-shows, or 4 late changes, within 90 days pause your account. You leave the directory, sessions already booked stay booked, and we email you. Only Dataford can lift a pause.

File written feedback within 24 hours of the end of each session. For a mock interview: where the candidate stands, a score for each area, and what to fix first. For a strategy session: the prep plan you agreed and the next steps. Make it honest, specific and your own. Leave out anything that identifies you or is confidential.

• Filed more than 48 hours after the end, you earn 75% of your payout for that session.
• At 72 hours without feedback, we tell the candidate, warn you and alert our team.
• At 7 days without feedback, the candidate is refunded in full and no payout is due.

Your rate card, the payout you earn for each session format, is set with Dataford when you are approved. It is shown in your coach area. Changes are agreed with Dataford and apply to new bookings. Each booking keeps the payout it was sold at.

Candidates pay your payout plus Dataford's fee. The fee is 35% of your payout, and the price is rounded up to end in 9. Founding coaches, named by Dataford, have a 25% fee for as long as they coach on Dataford, so they cost candidates less at the same payout.

Candidate discounts come out of Dataford's fee. They never reduce your payout.

A moved session is still the same booking: you earn when it is held.

Paid weekly, 14 days after each session.

Payouts run every Monday. A session is paid in the first run once 14 days have passed since its end, as long as it has no open report or chargeback. So you are paid 14 to 21 days after a session.

You choose how you are paid, and you can switch later:

• Stripe. For bank accounts in the US, the UK, the European Economic Area, Canada and Switzerland. Each session is one transfer, in US dollars, to your Stripe Express account. Stripe then pays your bank on its own schedule, in your local currency. Your Stripe account is also covered by Stripe's Connected Account Agreement (outside the US, its recipient agreement).
• PayPal or Wise. Open to coaches anywhere. After each weekly run, the Dataford team sends what you earned that week as one payment to the PayPal or Wise account you give us, within 2 business days. Amounts are set in US dollars. PayPal or Wise may charge fees or convert the currency at their own rates; those are yours. Keep your account details current: a payment sent to the details you gave us counts as paid.

Switching method changes how later payouts are sent. Sessions already in a payout go out the way they were set up.

You need a payout method set up to go live. If Stripe turns payouts off for your account, we pause your account and email you. Fix it in Stripe or switch to PayPal or Wise, and your account goes live again.

You are responsible for the taxes on what you earn. Dataford does not withhold tax. Give Stripe accurate tax details. Where US rules require one, you receive a Form 1099 through Stripe.

If you are paid by PayPal or Wise, you give us your tax status before your first payout:

• Outside the US. You sign a declaration in your dashboard, in place of IRS Form W-8BEN, that you are not a US person for tax purposes. Tell us within 30 days if that changes.
• In the US. We email you a Form W-9 to fill in and return before your first payout, and send you a Form 1099 where US rules require one. Your payouts wait until we have it.

A candidate can report a problem until 14 days after the end of a session. Your payout for that session is held while we look into it. We email you, and you can reply with your side. A person at Dataford decides, usually within 2 business days.

• Keep. The session stands and you are paid as normal.
• Partial refund. Your payout shrinks by the same share as the refund.
• Full refund. No payout is due.

If you were already paid and the session is refunded later, we reverse your share of the refund from your Stripe account. If you were paid by PayPal or Wise, that share is taken off your next payout instead.

Chargebacks. If a candidate disputes the charge with their bank, your payout for that session is held. If the bank decides for us, the session's outcome stands. If it decides for the candidate, it counts as a full refund.

Candidates rate each session. Your profile shows your rating and reviews, each with the rating, the text, the candidate's target role and the month.

Do not ask for, trade or pay for reviews. We may hide a review that breaks our rules, such as one that identifies someone. Hidden reviews do not count toward your rating.

You can stop at any time: take a break, or email us to close your coach account. Hold or cancel your booked sessions first. A cancel less than 24 hours before the start is a late change.

We can pause or close your coach account if you break this agreement, if your verification lapses or proves false, after repeated reliability problems, or to protect candidates. When we close it, we cancel and refund your upcoming sessions.

Sessions you held before your account closed are paid on the normal schedule, less any refunds under this agreement. The sections on anonymity, confidentiality, taxes and reversals continue after the agreement ends.

We handle your data as our Privacy Policy describes. Candidates never see your name or contact details. Our team sees your application and verification records.

To the extent the law allows, Dataford is not liable for indirect or consequential losses. Our total liability to you under this agreement is limited to the payouts you earned in the 12 months before the claim.

We may update this agreement. We tell you by email and in your coach area, and you accept the new version there to keep taking new bookings. Sessions already booked follow the version in force when they were booked.

Email support@dataford.io. Include your coach handle so we can find your account quickly.