Applying to us
We want talented, positive, team-spirited people to feel welcome and fairly treated at Essex County Council – and that starts before you join us. This is the philosophy behind our application process. Please take a look at the different stages.
Our application process varies from role to role, but below are some stages you may find as part of your application.
We are an equal opportunities employer, so if you need any support or assistance at any point in the application process, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk. We will be very happy to make any reasonable adjustments you need.
Let’s get started
-
Online Application Steps
All of our vacancies are advertised here. We ask you to complete a quick online application form, upload your CV and answer some questions. This should take no more than five minutes but you are welcome to spend more time on your application and include a covering letter if you wish. You can also create a profile in our recruitment system – in case you want to come back and view the status of your application.
If you don’t see a role that matches what you’re looking for right now, please join our talent pool. Tell us about the type of roles you are interested in and we’ll notify you if they become available. Please keep checking our website, though, as new roles we won’t have recruited for will appear often, and they may be of interest.
-
Recruiter Sift
Once the job you have applied for reaches its closing date, a recruiter will review your CV/application against the role’s criteria. They will perform an initial screen before passing suitable applications to the hiring manager. We will let you know if you are not successful at this stage.
-
Hiring Manager Shortlist
The hiring manager will shortlist the applications they want to take to the next stage. They will consider all the qualifications, experience and skills the role needs in coming to their decision. Again, we will let you know the outcome if you are not selected to go further.
-
Interview
We will invite you to interview with us – either virtually on in-person, depending on the circumstances. In your interview invitation, we’ll let you know who will be interviewing you and if there are any additional tasks for your interview such as planned or unplanned presentations, written case studies etc. Again, should you need any support with reasonable adjustments, please let us know.
-
Video Interview
Sometimes, as part of the recruitment process, we will ask you to complete a video interview, containing the answers to three-to-six questions. This isn’t live: at a time that’s convenient for you, you’ll record your answers via video for the hiring team to review. Further information about video interviewing can be found here.
-
Psychometric Assessments
For some roles, we will ask you to complete psychometric assessments. These tools vary from role to role, but typically they are online questionnaires designed to learn more about your attributes and behaviours, measured against our organisational values. If you are asked to take part in this, we will provide you with more detailed information at the time.
-
Compliance and Vetting
If you are successful in your application, we will carry out compliance and vetting before you join us. The checks we undertake will vary from role to role but will include right-to-work checks and references. We may also conduct a DBS check, driving license check or professional bodies verification. There are further checks specific to certain roles in ECC but we will let you know what these are as we support you through the process.
Our reputation
We are proud to have been recognised as ‘Excellent’ by the Local Government Association. We were commended in all five areas of the Equality framework for local government [essex.gov.uk], first awarded to us in 2012.
Guaranteed interviews
At ECC, we are proud to operate guaranteed interview schemes under our commitment to disability confident, veterans and care leavers. To find out more about this commitment please visit our Equality & Diversity section.
We really hope that you have a positive experience with ECC. We would also love to hear your feedback, so please share this with us at resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk
We wish you the very best of luck in your application.