Advertising the post

Do we need to advertise?; Composing the advertisement; Advertisement process; Where to advertise; Cost of advertising; Information required of applicants

Do we need to advertise?

All College-funded posts that are for 6 months or more, must be advertised in external media.  This is in accordance with the College's Equal Opportunities Policy. Certain rare exceptions may apply, such as:

• temporary/fixed term posts of 6 months’ duration or less

• externally funded research posts, where a named researcher has been identified

• when employees whose fixed-term contracts of employment are ending are offered a permanent post to avoid a redundancy situation (where the original appointment was made in accordance with the College’s Recruitment and Selection Guidelines);

• where there is a risk of a redundancy situation within the College

• where an individual employee is being considered for re-deployment under another College policy

Maternity cover posts are normally advertised if the vacancy is for 6 months duration or more. The advertisement will need to state that the post is available up to a certain date in the first instance, to allow for the possibility of the permanent postholder extending her maternity leave. If the permanent postholder decides not to return to her post then the permanent vacancy will be advertised.

Please note that all advertisements must be placed via Human Resources; no post should be advertised without prior consultation with the Human Resources Team. Birkbeck has an account with a professional advertising agency, which has developed an agreed template and corporate style for our advertisements. This encourages consistency and ensures that the text is appropriate and free from bias or discrimination.

Composing the advertisement

There is a standard template for Birkbeck advertisements, and certain paragraphs need to be included. Please refer to appendix for a sample advertisement for our post of Lecturer in Psychology, which includes these standard paragraphs in bold italics. These standard paragraphs contain important information and keep the look of Birkbeck’s adverts consistent; they should not be changed without reference to your Human Resources Adviser.

When composing the non-standard parts of your advert (normally no more than one or two paragraphs), you need to think about how you can attract the people that will meet the criteria for the role. It is therefore advisable to develop an informative paragraph about what the role involves, and include at least two of the main criteria that are essential to carry out the role (e.g. …"applicants must have experience of managing a team and have a working knowledge of database design…")

You may wish to include the contact details of an individual to whom informal inquiries can be made.. However, it is better to include it with the information that goes out to those who actually respond to the advert. This allows them to read the details sent about the role, before deciding whether they still require further information from the contact.

If you are including contact details for someone, please ensure that they are aware that they may be receiving some calls, and that they will be available for the period when the advert appears in the media (e.g. not on annual leave!).

Advertisement process

You should send your draft advertisement to your Human Resources Adviser, along with the Job Description, Person Specification, Further Particulars and Information on the post, and any other details that you would like to go to applicants. Please state in which publications you would like your advert to appear and when.

This information should be sent via e-mail as an attachment, or if not possible, on a disk in Word for Windows format (no hardcopies please). Please note that deadlines are set by the advertising agency for receiving advertising copy, in order to place it in time in the appropriate media. These deadlines are at least a calendar week before the publication date, and in addition, your Human Resources Adviser will need time to process the advert and get it to the agency. For details of actual deadlines, please contact your Human Resources Adviser. 

Along with your draft advert, it is important to include a copy of the appropriate authorization for the post and ensure that the source of funding is highlighted.

Each post is given a reference number by the Human Resources Team. The number relates to the Human Resources database post number and is quoted in the advertisement, the job description and other documents related to recruitment and to the post thereafter. This reference number should be used for this post for any further correspondence or actions.

Where to advertise

The Human Resources Team places all adverts on the UK’s leading higher education recruitment website, ‘Jobs.ac.uk’, which is accessible via the vacancies section of the HR website. 

In addition to these sources, please indicate in which, if any other publications you would like your advert to appear. The choice of publication will obviously depend on the nature of the role.

Care must be taken to ensure that the advert will reach as diverse a range of the population as possible, to ensure indirect discrimination does not take place. For example, placing an advert, solely in "Ms London" magazine, which is aimed at women would be indirect discrimination as there is less chance of men seeing and therefore being able to apply for the post. Certain exceptions may be made in cases of targeted recruitment to reach under-represented groups. However, this would need to be justified and may still need to be placed in other publications. Human Resources may advise you where necessary.

Cost of advertising

The College’s central recruitment advertising budget normally covers the cost for all agreed College funded posts to be placed in one publication. Your School or Department or the relevant Faculty will be required to meet the cost of advertisements placed in any additional requested publications.

Recruitment costs for non-College funded posts are normally met by the funding body.  Therefore it is advisable, when applying for a grant to an outside funding body (other than a Research Council) to include recruitment expenses in the calculation of the overhead spending money required, together with provision for the College’s maternity and sickness absence leave.

Information required of applicants

Appointees to all posts (College funded or not) must complete a College Application Form. This ensures that the College obtains all essential information regarding the employment status. Candidates are asked to provide Equal Opportunities data on a separate document. This information is retained permanently by the Human Resources Team on a database and it is used anonymously for statistical purposes in accordance with the HEFCE, HESA and the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 requirements.

Applicants for academic posts may attach a C.V. and a list of publications to the application form. For some posts, Heads of Schools may wish to request that candidates send in a sample of work with their initial applications, e.g. a copy of a recent publication. Human Resources send any original documents received to the Head of School. After the interviews have been held, the publications should be returned to the candidate either by the School or by the Human Resources Team.