Recruitment tips and guidance

Application Guidance

There are thousands of different roles here at Surrey County Council and if you're considering applying then we would certainly welcome your application. We recognise that for many of you, this could be a first job or maybe the first time you've applied for a role in a long time and for that reason, we have listed below some guidelines and advice for when you're applying.

With our roles being so varied, we recommend using the advice below as guidelines only and applying it where suitable.

The guidance has been divided to cover each step of the application journey:

• CV writing
• Personal statement guidance
• Interview tips

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Every job has a job description and a person specification/selection criteria.

The job description gives information about the duties of the job for which you are applying, who you would report to and where you would work.

The selection criteria outlines the experience, skills and qualifications we are looking for to fulfil the requirements of the job. The information given in your application is matched against the selection criteria to decide whether to invite you to interview.

We recommend you thoroughly reading both of these to ensure you have a full understanding of what the job entails as not only will this help in your application but will allow you to apply for roles that are suitable for you.

Getting Started

Once you've found the job that interests you and prepared your personal statement you can apply online. You can register so that your information is stored for this job and future applications.

We encourage applicants to apply on line if possible. If you need to apply in another format (e.g. in Braille, on cassette, on paper or using the council's easy read application form) please contact us.

For the application form you will need to have to hand:

• Full contact details
• NI number
• Your personal statement
• Your employment history with exact dates (dd/mm/yyyy) and reasons for leaving each role
• Other relevant experience
• Any declarations that you will want to make for example work permits, unspent convictions
• Education and qualifications with exact dates (dd/mm/yyyy)
• You will be asked if you are a disabled person. The Council is a Disability Confident employer. If you are a disabled person, this symbol lets you know:
• You will be automatically shortlisted for an interview if you meet the essential job criteria
• That we will make reasonable adjustments to make sure that you are considered for the job on an equal basis with other applicants.

You will also be asked complete an equalities monitoring form to help us monitor that our recruitment processes. Our goal is that our workforce reflects the community we serve.

Please visit our Disability Confident page to learn more.

If you then decide to apply online for another job at a later stage, the online application system will automatically complete the following sections from previous applications to save you time:

• full contact details
• education background
• employment history
• qualifications
• equal opportunities.

Further assistance

For further information and guidance on applying for jobs, please see the links below:

• Find a job with Universal Jobmatch - help in finding the right kind of job and job coach.
• Eteach.com - teacher vacancies across the UK.
• Surrey Community Action - promoting voluntary work in Surrey.
• Jobsgopublic - search for jobs in the public sector nationwide.
• Surreyjobs.info - jobs with all local authorities in Surrey, health service, colleges and universities.
• Age Positive - DWP information on promoting age diversity in the workplace.
• Hot courses - advice, information and guidance on any aspect of learning or work in Surrey.
• Redundancy Help - this site gives advice to people who have been made redundant.
• The Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) - provide advice about employment disputes.
• Gov.uk Website - links to information about retirement, including how to plan ahead, claim your pension and deal with tax issues.