Almost a sixth of the UK’s entire workforce is employed across central and local government posts. We examine what makes a good recruit and how to improve the hiring process.
Around 5.7 million people work in the public sector, across 23 ministerial departments, 20 non-ministerial departments and over 300 agencies and public bodies. With such a web of workforces, it can be a major hiring headache.
Conor White, Associate Partner, Healthcare and Central Government Divisions at Real Staffing, is experienced in working with government departments and the many associated agencies. His team focuses largely on helping with business change and digital transformation needs. Here, White shares his top tips for how to make recruiting run more smoothly, including around security clearances – one of the biggest issues for government roles.
Take time out to plan
For starters, clients should give more warning when they need new talent, urges White. “Only giving a couple of weeks’ notice can be frustrating. The reality is, if you need a security clearance, it’s often not feasible in this time. I would advise clients to be more organised and give themselves a good run-up to get this done, based on the security clearance level they need, rather than leaving everything to the last minute and then expecting miracles.”
Working with a staffing partner for resource planning sessions can help to speed up the hiring process too. “Not many places will actually allocate the time to it,” White explains. “But just an hour's worth of resource planning each month, for the next 12 to 18 months, would be the most helpful thing they could do. It allows us to then plan ahead and get people ready for those clearances.”
While clearances might take just a week to process, they can be as long as six months, which isn’t much use for the “here and now” contract needs.
White also advises customers to think about whether they really need the level of clearance they’re asking for, adding: “Or is it just because that’s what they’ve been told to do and it's written down in a rulebook somewhere? Has that job gone through a benchmarking process and they know a particular clearance is needed? Or can they drop it down a level to save time?”
On the candidate side, there are also avoidable hold-ups. For example, many potential recruits don’t include on their CV whether they have a live security clearance – and if they do, often don’t state when it expires, says White. “My talent engagement team are continually speaking to contractors within the government market and the question is always: ‘Have you got a clearance and when does it expire?’”
“We keep a log of candidates and track who has got one and when it runs out. So if someone rings us up tomorrow and says they need 10 project managers with security clearance, we can go straight to that list of consultants, and know their status.”
Sector-specific experience
We may be in an age where many employers, particularly in the private sector, are more open to transferable skills to attract a more diverse talent pool. But in government organisations, relevant experience – particularly for contractor roles – is still the primary focus, says White.
“Nine times out of 10, clients want someone who's worked within that department line at some point before,” says White. If a candidate is needed for the Department of Health and Social Care, for example, if they’ve come from NHSX, NHS Improvement or Care Quality Commission, they would “likely have the upper hand” over someone from the Cabinet Office or with private sector experience.
“These candidates will already have prior knowledge about the overall [government] department and likely experience doing similar work,” explains White. “So they're easier to onboard, they're quicker to understand some of the acronyms and terminology and can transition very easily.”
He adds: “In contracting, it's more about what you've done in the past, what you've delivered and whether you can provide case studies, references and testimonials from relevant previous projects or pieces of work. All this tends to put a candidate above people who just turn up to an interview and talk.”
Widening the net
But for broader business change and transformation roles, wider experience is usually preferred, says White. Someone with experience across a range of organisations within government is “probably looked at more favourably” for these jobs, compared with a candidate who has worked at the same organisation for the last 10 years and only knows that business.
“If you've worked at lots of different places, you’ll have been exposed to a bigger range of challenges and situations,” he explains.
For these positions, top of the list of attributes is great stakeholder engagement and skills in agile environments. Employers will want to know whether a potential recruit can engage with a range of different people, of varying seniority, and build relationships fast. The ability to adapt their style to make something work will also make someone an attractive hire.
Recruiting for a diverse collection of government departments, agencies and arms’ length bodies is a tall order. But customers and candidates can both do their bit to help accelerate the process.
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