Planning how to advertise your vacancy

If you have a vacancy or other resourcing need then you should contact your Resourcing team contacts to discuss your requirements

Advertising policy

Redeployment

All vacancies must be open to staff at risk of redundancy for 5 days before they progress to advertising.

All applicants who apply for roles during this phase must be dealt with before advertising can begin.

Please note that new roles that are created as a direct result of an organisational restructure programme are normally advertised to those directly affected by the restructure in the first instance. Your HR team will advise if this applies.

 

Internal and External advertising

All open-ended vacancies are advertised internally and externally concurrently.

Fixed-term vacancies within Professional Services may be offered as a secondment opportunity through internal-only advertising. This is at the discretion of the hiring manager.

 

Networking, social media and informal contacts

Remember to also promote your vacancy through any professional, subject-related or work-based networks that you or colleagues are members of - whether through social media such as Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook; subject or profession related blogs, web sites, newsletters and e-mail alerts; or the more traditional face-to-face contact at meetings, conferences and seminars etc. Informal and word of mouth promotion to targeted groups is an effective and no-cost way of widening your pool of suitable candidates.

Informal networking can also be used to promote your vacancy amongst groups who are currently under-represented in the discipline (for instance women in Science, Engineering and Technology) or related fields or sectors.

 

Using recruitment agencies and consultants

The University's general policy is to advertise vacancies rather than use agencies or consultants, except for temporary staffing needs. This is because the University has its own established, professional and efficient infrastructure for recruitment and to ensure the strongest possible field of candidates, fair and open competition and that costs are minimised.

In exceptional circumstances it may sometimes be appropriate to use an agency or consultant, for instance where the vacancy is highly specialised and it is reasonably anticipated that it will be hard to find a suitable candidate through advertising. One option to consider if this route is followed is the senior, professional and specialist service offered by the University's recruitment advertising agency, TMP.

For senior management roles, engaging an executive search may be an appropriate option and the University has access to a number of preferred suppliers.

These options should only be followed after consultation with the University's Resourcing Manager and will generally be in tandem with the vacancy being advertised on the University's web site. How the agency or consultant fee will be paid for will need to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

 

Exceptions to the requirement to advertise

It is only generally in the following circumstances that a vacancy would not need to be submitted to Human Resources for advertising:

 

Advertising studentships

The Postgraduate Recruitment and Admissions Team have responsibility for advertising studentships.