How does an Authority recruit an Associate?

Authorities can contact us at any time of the year when they have a suitable role they would like to recruit to.

We maintain and update a pool of quality candidates every six months. Our candidates are assessed via a three-stage process. They are eager to join our programme and take on a public sector role. Once we’ve reviewed your role against our requirements and candidate pool, we will propose candidates to you that we believe are best suited for the job. It’s then up to you to perform a final-stage interview.

Tell us about the role you are looking to recruit to

We are a unique organisation on a mission to build skills and capacity in public sector planning and placemaking teams. We understand the sector and want to speak with you about your recruitment challenges and needs. Your time is precious, and we want to check that our Associate Programme is the right route for you before taking you through the process!

Submit an 'Expression of Interest'

If the role is suitable for the programme, we will then ask you to submit an EOI form to help us gather the details of the job. We will then review our pool of candidates to check that we have suitable candidates who we believe would be a good fit for you and your team. If we don’t, we will let you know when our candidate pool is to be refreshed and when we will be able to assess your role against new candidates. If your need is more urgent, we can explore whether our other services can help support you with recruitment.

If we are confident, we can propose candidates to you; we will ask you to share more information on the job and your organisation and ask you to sign a short agreement before we make any introductions.

Arrange and conduct interview(s)

If we have a suitable candidate for your role, you will be asked to confirm that you want to interview them and then arrange to meet the candidate directly before confirming whether you want to proceed in offering them the job.

If you decide not to interview the proposed candidate or if you decide not to offer them the job after the interview, we will do our utmost to continue to source and propose further eligible candidates.

Make a job offer and complete onboarding

After the interview, let us know if you’ll be offering the candidate the job. You will be responsible for making formal offers and starting your organisation's standard onboarding process to ensure the successful candidate starts in the post.

Pay our fee

We only invoice for our programme fee on the successful appointment of a candidate

The programme fee is a flat £6,000 + VAT, and there is no additional fee if you decide to extend or offer Associates a permanent contract at the end of the fixed term period (if it is not already permanent).

We offer a tapering refund if the Associate leaves the job within the first 5 months.

Congrats you have recruited an Associate!

Once you have successfully recruited an Associate, we will regularly check in during the early months to see how your Associate is settling in and offer additional support if necessary.

You also get to join and be part of our Officer Community, with access to other support services such as our peer-to-peer mentoring scheme and joining us on one of our Field Trips to other partner local authorities across the country.