Guidance for Applicants

Application

• When the right job comes up with us you’ll need to complete an application form, which is administered through the university’s recruitment portal.
• For each application we ask for an updated CV and a cover letter that is no longer than 2-sides of A4.
• Make sure you read the job description and demonstrate in your cover letter how you meet the listed criteria for the post.
• Use concrete examples of where you have delivered an activity, project or product in your experience to prove that you have the skills listed.
• We’ll assess your application according to how well you meet the knowledge, skills and attributes we’re looking for.
• Always run a final spell check.
• We can’t accept late applications, so get your application in on time.
• We shortlist anonymously, meaning we don’t see any names until the interview stage.

Interview

• If you are invited to attend an interview you will be emailed by City’s recruitment team and will be able to book an interview slot online.
• We usually ask applicants to prepare something in advance, such as a presentation or document – don’t panic, we’ll let you know this well in advance.
• Where possible we prefer to run our interviews in-person but understand that this is not always possible.
• We think the most important thing at our interviews is to be authentic and to be yourself. Tell us about your strengths and what you would add to our organisation.
• Carve out some time to do some research on City and our Union. We aren’t expecting you to be an expert but looking at our strategy, mission and values shows us that you care.
• If you are new to students’ unions look at how we’re run and what we do as a sector. Part charity, part university service – it can be a bit confusing!
• Come prepared with some questions for us, its important that you have all the information you need to decide whether you’d like to work with our organisation.

Disability Confident Scheme

Creating a workplace in which our staff feel comfortable to disclose a disability is important to us. The Disability Confident Scheme recognises employers who are committed to supporting applications from candidates with a disability of long-term health condition.

As part of City's ongoing commitment to diversity and equality we have committed to:

• Interview all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy and to consider them on their abilities.
• Discuss with disabled employees, at any time but at least once a year, what both they and their manager can do to make sure they can develop and use their abilities.
• Make every effort when employees become disabled to ensure they stay in employment.
• Take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make these commitments work.

If you are disabled and would like to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme, please select YES when prompted as you complete your application.

Useful resources

Whilst we encourage all applicants to do their own research on us, below are some links you may find useful:

• Student statistics at City
• Our strategy
• Recent articles about our activity
• Student insight reports