Some places to find out about jobs in the UK

There are several ways in which can find jobs: (1) job portals where jobs are advertised from all sorts of different organisations, and (2) individual companies' websites where their own jobs are posted. For (2) it can also be helpful to find (or create) your own list of companies by theme - eg the Association of Medical Research Charities has 100+ members so there's a ready made list of 'medical charities'.   

(3) For the sorts of jobs where people are headhunted (I don't move in those circles or at that level so can't help) I think it's all down to networking so things like LinkedIn would be for that. The UK Gov't has some advice on networking. CV Library has advice on How to address unemployment on your CV.

(4) What about a 'hand search' - poring over Google Maps of local areas to see what companies are there (that you might not have come across before) and sending speculative enquiries. 

(5) Put together a short pitch in a tweet / video and send it via Twitter and ask for RTs and suggestions, or via a public Facebook post etc.

(1) Places where jobs are advertised / portals

• The 10 Best Job Boards in 2020 - according to Wikijob (includes CV Library, Indeed, Total Jobs, Reed, Monster, Adzuna, Glassdoor, CW Jobs, Guardian Jobs and WorkInStartups - https://www.wikijob.co.uk/content/features/useful-resources/10-best-uk-job-boards-2020
  
  
• How to find job vacancies - from National Careers Service, list includes JobCentre Plus, Job boards, Networking sites, Local council bulletings, Recruitment agencies, Hidden job market, National Careers Service, Job Fairs, Direct contact, Industry magazines and newspapers - https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/advertised-job-vacancies
  
  
• AMRC (Association of Medical Research Charities) - https://www.amrc.org.uk/vacancies - provides a weekly vacancies email 
  
  
• Bidstats - https://bidstats.uk/tenders/ - for public tenders (not jobs as such)
  
  
• Charity Job - https://www.charityjob.co.uk/
  
  
• Civil Service: https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi - the site for all Civil Service jobs in the various governmental departments.
  
  
• Contracts / tenders for UK and EU - https://www.gov.uk/tendering-for-public-sector-contracts. Sell goods or services to the public sector (presumably mostly in England as info for the other nations is given too). Includes Contracts Finder for UK Gov't contracts, and Tenders Electronic Daily for EU tenders.
  
  
• Find A Job: https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/search - at the time of writing there are over 109,000 jobs on there (new ones are added or time out all the time). You can search by location, salary or category but not by keyword. You can see their categories here https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/browse
  
  
• Freelance writing jobs - https://mailchi.mp/69d207801f23/freelancewritingjobs from Sian Meades (@SianySianySiany)
  
  
• Guardian Jobs - https://jobs.theguardian.com/jobs/job-vacancy/
  
  
• Google search - Google now draws in snippets of various job adverts and you can add keywords, filter by location and set up an email alert
  https://www.google.com/search?&q=jobs
  
  
• Greenwich jobs - https://www.royalgreenwichcareers.com/ - and Greenwich Local Labour and Business (GLLaB) https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory/76/gllab_jobs - this is just illustrative (I live there!) but there may be similar schemes where you live.
  
  
• Kelly Services - https://www.kellyservices.co.uk/
  
  
• Indeed - https://www.indeed.co.uk/ - browse, upload a CV, or work at Indeed
  
  
• Intelligent people - London & South East - https://www.intelligentpeople.co.uk/jobs/ marketing, product management, eCommerce
  
  
• JETS Work Coaches - apply here https://dwpjobs-workcoach-microsite.co.uk/ - 13,500 new posts have been created (most filled already).
  
  
• Job Centre Plus - https://www.gov.uk/contact-jobcentre-plus - more about benefits and help in finding jobs than a portal as such
  
  
• Jobs.ac.uk - https://www.jobs.ac.uk/ - jobs in academia
  
  
• Job help: https://jobhelp.campaign.gov.uk/latest-jobs/ - (via https://gov.uk/jobhelp) this includes context about the themed categories and also includes links to other advice on finding jobs locally.
  
  
• LinkdedIn - https://www.linkedin.com - network, hear about jobs
  
  
• Monster - https://www.monster.co.uk/
  
  
• National Museums - https://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/jobs/
  
  
• Science communication jobs: psci-com (large mailing list), Facebook group, ScicommOps, Association of British Science Writers mailing list, Stempra mailing list - you might need to be a member to access the last two, British Interactive Group 'BIG'. 
  
  
• Reed Jobs - https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs 
  
  

(2) Thematic ists of organisations' websites - I recommend creating your own tailored version. These lists are not set up with job seekers in mind so you will need to drill into any org's website that interest you and find their vacancies page.

• Association of Medical Research Charities -
  https://www.amrc.org.uk/pages/category/member-directory?Take=151
  full members' list (note ending of URL, there are currently 151 member orgs, if link doesn't work [eg a new member org joins] delete last bit, scroll to the end and choose 'load more'). You can also sign up to their weekly vacancies email.
  
  
• Companies Lists in UK (Wikipedia) - literally alphabetically, not thematically
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_the_United_Kingdom_A-J
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_the_United_Kingdom_K-Z
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_companies_of_the_United_Kingdom - organised by city 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_United_Kingdom_employers - list of largest UK employers 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTSE_100_Index - companies listed on the FTSE 100
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_private_companies_in_the_United_Kingdom - largest private companies in the UK
  
  
• Companies list in London (Wikipedia)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_based_in_London
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Organisations_based_in_London - organised thematically (eg housing orgs, local gov't, health orgs etc)
  
  
• Places that employ science communicators (mostly in London) - 
• https://brodiesnotes.blogspot.com/2009/07/amrc-member-charities-websites.html (created by me, on this blog)
  

Random

• RAF - https://www.raf.mod.uk/recruitment/ (I'm not allowed to apply as they know I'd try to steal the aircraft)
  
  
• Women Returners - https://womenreturners.com/ - support for women returning to work after a career break, and info for their (potential) employers
  
  
• Marshall Harber - https://www.marshallharber.com/job-board.php - for private chefs, live in housekeepers (I was watching Downton Abbey while searching and thought I'd add this one in!)
  

 

Background to this post
The UK Government is increasing the number of Work Coaches through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), by creating 13,500 new jobs for people to help as JETS: Job Entry - Targeted Support. Their role will be to support other jobseekers into finding suitable employment and the scheme was launched on Monday 5th October 2020.

This story was widely covered in the news media on Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th October but none of the stories I saw linked to where someone could apply for one of these 13,500 new jobs. Even the Government's own press release made no mention of it. 

Eventually I found it: JETS jobs - https://dwpjobs-workcoach-microsite.co.uk/ (via a search on https://civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk, restricted to DWP organisation. When I clicked on an example job and then 'apply at advertiser's site' that's where it took me. 

It seemed like it would be the sort of things that would just fall out into the top results on a Google search for jets dwp jobs, but no.

 

 

 

Organisations: typing /jobs at the end of your homepage should take visitors straight to your vacancies page

Please add a /jobs redirect to your website, if necessary
Please arrange things (or ask your web person to do it) so that anyone typing /jobs at the end of your homepage will automatically be redirected to wherever you keep information about job vacancies on your site.

It would make me happy if /jobs was the industry standard, then any visitor to your site has only to type 5 characters and the enter key to see if you have jobs available.

There are plenty of suggestions and instructions
https://www.google.com/search?&q=how+to+redirect+URL

Advantages
• saves people having to navigate to see where you've hidden your vacancies page
• saves them having to type jobs, job vacancies, vacancies, recruitment, employment, work for us, work with us, careers or opportunities into your search bar

Disadvantages
• if you move your vacancies page you'd need to remember to set up a redirect again 


Grab your job vacancies bonus points

• Don't make site visitors log in to see your job vacancies
• Let each job vacancy have its own URL so that people can share a direct link via email and social media, rather than suggesting that they search using the job's ID code
• Consider if the skills you want need to be phrased as 'essential' or if you can show that the job encourages learning
• If you'll accept two people working part-time on the job, say so in the advert
• Be explicit about the salary, use numbers 
• If your organisation is very small with low turnover then I'd still recommend considering a static jobs page with information about the roles and skills of your staff and why they like working there

Updating my list of places that might employ science communicators

In 2003 when I began working in science communication I didn't know about all the different type of jobs available or the different sectors, so I began collecting examples of places that had employed, or seemed likely to employ, science communicators. 

That list became a hugely popular blog post in 2009 and I have been perennially updating it ever since. The latest version (checked Nov 2017) now lives in a Google Spreadsheet: Scicomm jobs - list of vacancies pages employing science communicators

Science communication happens in medical research charities, schools, newspapers, museums, universities, community groups, learned societies, pharma companies, government - it is impossible to completely map all the possible ways that one can do scicomm.

The jobs are hugely varied too - health information professionals (my own background), PR people, journalists, museum explainers, bloggers, television or radio presenters and vloggers, scientists who talk about their work, non-scientists who talk about other people's work. It's a big sector!

Anyway if you're new to science communication I hope you'll find something interesting among the suggestions.

Note that these employers also employ IT specialists, HR personnel etc so the vacancies pages will probably be of use to anyone looking for a job, but the focus is on scientific (broadly) institutions.

Note to employers
PLEASE consider adding a /jobs redirect to the end of your homepage address and pointing that to wherever you're currently keeping your jobs. The reason this list of science communication vacancies pages needs updating so frequently is partly because you keep moving your jobs around every time you have a website refresh but also because you use different terms to describe jobs (jobs, vacancies, recruitment, work for us, work with us, opportunities). 

Obviously you are free to put your vacancies pages wherever you wish and call them whatever you like but please let's all point to them with /jobs for simplicity. Thank you. This will let anyone type /jobs at the end of your homepage URL and go straight to your vacancies page, hooray!

How to make it easier for people to find your jobs

How to make it easier for people to find your jobs by Jo Brodie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://brodiesnotes.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://brodiesnotes.blogspot.co.uk/p/test-page.html.

This post (but no other post on this blog) is made under a Creative Commons license for anyone to pinch, rewrite and share with attribution and linking back to this post. You don't need to ask my permission to use it, even for commercial use, but you need to apply the same type of license to your version as I've used here. That's the deal :)

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Dear organisations, companies, charities, people who employ other people...

There are lots of people looking for jobs at the moment and many of them will be spending some time looking online, so let's make it easier.

Although there's an almost limitless supply of websites that list job vacancies most organisations will also post their own jobs on their own website in addition to advertising elsewhere. Sometimes they can be a bit hard to find and require hopeful candidates to spend time hunting on your website.

Here's my big suggestion for making it easier for everyone to find your latest job vacancies.

Create a page which has the following type of address
http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/jobs

This means that anyone visiting your site only has to type /jobs at the end of the address of your homepage to be immediately taken to your page about jobs.

Most web users know or have learned, through experience, that clicking on the organisation's logo (generally on the left hand side of the page) will return them to the homepage. I'd love it if people could similarly learn that typing /jobs was a quick shortcut that would always lead them to a page of info about working at your company.

It also provides people with a page that they can bookmark and link to (eg on sites where vacancies pages are collected). It's even better if you set up an RSS feed on it so that your new jobs are sent to RSS subscribers whenever you make a change on that page.

Possible objections
1. People can use our search box to find jobs
I'm sure they can, if they're on your site. But should they search for job, jobs, vacancy, vacancies, work with us (for us) or recruitment? Do all those words lead them to your page on jobs?

2. Way ahead of you, our jobs page is at http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/vacancies
Fantastic. Any chance you could humour me and set up a /jobs page that redirects to your vacancies page as well?

Don't forget, after a website reshuffle, to point your new http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/recruitment to the http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/jobs page though.

3. We're a small company so we don't have a page on jobs
Well... can't force you, but would it damage your Google ranking to have a page saying that jobs will be posted there when they become available?

How about using such a page to talk about what a great place you are to work, perhaps some profiles celebrating the diverse mix of skills and backgrounds of your members of staff, and why they've chosen to work there.

4. Well we do have a jobs board
Great but that's you advertising jobs at other organisations (very helpful of course) but is it easy for people to find out how they can work with you too?

See also - my other regular bleats on this topic :)

• Thoughts on job vacancies pages part two (24 December 2011) 
• Dear companies / organisations everywhere – why not make it easier for people to find your jobs? A little bit ranty :) (8 February 2012)
• Organisations that make it easy for you to find their jobs (9 February 2012)