public sector jobs

bronzie

I am currently working within the heritage sector and am approaching the end of a contract. I am looking to work within the public sector and have my CV up on monster, I have had quite a bit of interest for which I am obvioulsy grateful, however it is mainly commercial jobs.

I wonder if anyone could suggest any sites/recruitment companies that I could approach that might deal with jobs that might suit me better.

Ideally I would like to work within the charitable sector or for a government department/organisation.

Any help would be appreciated
Thank you

Andy_L

http://www.careers.civil-service.gov.uk/

https://www.civilianjobs.mod.uk/

siren13577

try:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/jobs/current-vacancies.htm

I hope you find the right job for you, as an ex civil servant I can say there were good and bad things about working as a govt employee, flexi is great but things have been cracked down on and more or less everything is accounted for strictly. Good luck and Happy Christmas.

luxor4t

Husband works as a civil servant, I used to.
Plus points:
- regular, structured pay
- clear holiday entitlement
- clear pension scheme
- potential for flexible working hours

bad points:
- no bonuses, windfalls etc
- rates can be low compared to similar jobs (esp in London)
- rigidity (eg have to compete for promotion, fill out forms to get a pencil)
- public expectation (eg they drink tea all day NOT)
- political football = MPs vote themselves huge rise then cut cs pay, or decide on unpopular scheme that cs has to enforce (eg Child tax credits)
- uncertain future in some areas

Choose your department carefully! Good luck.

bronzie

Thank you all for your comments; I will take them on board. The situation that I am in is that I have recently left uni and am currently working in what is my first really industry job, my contract ends here in the end of March so I am looking for something new. I would like to stay in the public as I get satisfaction from knowing that there is someone at the end that actually benefits from what I do, rather than sitting around making some rich company a bit richer. I am finding it really hard to find anything though, I have been trawling the internet for weeks now, but all I seem to find is expired jobs, jobs that pay really low wages or more commercial roles that I am not interested. I know that If I reach the point where I have to take something I don’t want to then I will be unhappy in the role, I have done that before and it wasn’t nice.

siren13577

bronzie wrote: »

Thank you all for your comments; I will take them on board. The situation that I am in is that I have recently left uni and am currently working in what is my first really industry job, my contract ends here in the end of March so I am looking for something new. I would like to stay in the public as I get satisfaction from knowing that there is someone at the end that actually benefits from what I do, rather than sitting around making some rich company a bit richer. I am finding it really hard to find anything though, I have been trawling the internet for weeks now, but all I seem to find is expired jobs, jobs that pay really low wages or more commercial roles that I am not interested. I know that If I reach the point where I have to take something I don’t want to then I will be unhappy in the role, I have done that before and it wasn’t nice.

Try going for a graduate position, they have specialist recruitment for graduated and you should find that you'll go in above the basic rate of pay for non graduates. Good luck, you should find it okay, you sound very bright and motivated and that's the type of people civil service are looking forward. Good luck and let us know how you get on.:j

elljay

Hi Bronzie

I have worked in the public sector all my life, a short stint in the civil service, otherwise in the a range of different nhs and local government organisations.

Whilst officially any jobs should be advertised, they are still often filled internally (under the table so to speak) this especially in the civil service, I couldn't believe how many jobs are filled just by someone getting internal promotion unofficially and also how many people are appointed from outside because they are known by someone else. In local govt it was much more above board though this still happens. NHS jobs are almost always advertised on www.jobs.nhs.uk but beware that because of NHS staff cutbacks these also include those only available internally for staff who need to be redeployed - read the ad or job description carefully. The best way I found to get a job in local government was to list all the local authorities in the geographical area in which I wanted to work (for me it was south and west Yorks) and put all their job websites into a bookmark file then check each one every week. Similarly with government departments ( eg DWP, HMRC, etc etc as well as their offshoots, for example HSE runs a lab called HSL - there are loads of other examples- so you might want to track those down too.) Look also at NGOs. There are general websites and papers but they're often selective, jobs are always on the individual authority websites though and most civil service jobs don't get included on the civil service careers website. I found you have to do a lot of research to get a comprehensive list of bookmarks to check, I had around 50- general googling doesn't work as you've found! Good luck, it's quite hard work but reaped the rewards for me.

I don't know what your professional skills are (general admin? IT? librarian?policy research? scientist?) but obviously you would need to list your skills and then match them to any job descriptions/person specs that attract you (don't go by job titles). You'd also need to decide which dept you'd want to work in (social services? housing? education etc etc)

I found working in the civil service to be seriously dire but it's horses for courses and everyone's different. The prevalent culture wasn't that we were working for the good of the people of Britain who were of course our paymasters but for the great god 'the pension'. Anyone over about 40 didn't want to move to improve their skills or career in case 'the pension' was offended or jeopardised so coasting along waiting for their retirement date was a really serious issue. However civil servants are really well looked after, not just the pension, but good working conditions, subsidised staff restaurants and various other facilities - I felt a bit uneasy about some of this though. Local authorities and nhs vary considerably in their perks for staff.

Good luck with it, let me know if I can help further

Liz

Plum_Pie

I've just got a really interesting, well-paid job through the public sector dept of www.hays.com.

Good luck.

bronzie

I have managed to find a few jobs that I am thinking of applying for, one is with the MoD, I not sure how comfortable I feel about that really but we'll see. Found a good one yesterday with a childrens charity on the Guardian Jobs website.

Can I ask what might be a stupid question, if you get a job with say the MoD for arguments sake, are you then an employee of the current goverment? If so does that mean that if they get voted out, you would loose your job?

Thanks again all for your comments, and if I dont get a chance to say it (off on a long holiday on Sunday) have a Merry Christmas and a great new year!

brazilianwax

Nope. We civil servants work for the Government of the day, whatever colour they are.

Expect them to check that your own personal politics won't jeopardise that.



Oooh, and it's fairly easy to move Departments once you are a civil servant.

More posts are advertised to existing civil servants than to none.

If you go in under the Faststream though (and not all Departments havea scheme) you'd be expected to stay with your home department for a set period (albeit moving jobs every 6ish months).

bronzie

brazilianwax wrote: »

Nope. We civil servants work for the Government of the day, whatever colour they are.

Expect them to check that your own personal politics won't jeopardise that.

Thanks brazilianwax,

Is that not a tad odd for you, I mean in the sense that you could end up working for a government with whose policies you totally disagree with?