Can a friend and I apply jointly for a full time job, proposing job share?

[33goingon64]

I have resigned from my job and want to find something part time closer to home. A good friend, who by a real coincidence lives round the corner and has very similar career experience to me, also wants to do this. Rather than us both chasing the same part time jobs, we wondered what a potential employer might think of us applying jointly for a full time job. Has anyone ever done this, successfully or otherwise?

[flowery]

Yes do. I work for myself now but in one of the 'proper' jobs I had a few years ago, we had two candidates apply for a senior post as a job share, and they got appointed and were later promoted as well.

How successful you might be may depend what kind of organisation you are applying to and what sort of role. Some are more open minded than others!

[flowery]

The holiday/sickness cover thing is a good point to make. Even if you don't increase your hours when the other is on holiday/sick, the employer has the advantage of having someone performing the role year-round (provided you don't both take holiday the same weeks).

[YoullLaughAboutItOneDay]

Depending on the nature of the role, it may work. You need to be mindful that you will be more expensive to employ than one full time employee (payroll costs, any insurances like life which are a flat cost, etc, sometimes need overlap on working hours for handover), so you need to show your selling points too.

If you can cover holiday/sickness then that is great (though particularly on holiday think how they would pay that). Depending on the role they may prefer that you take at least most of your holiday at the same time, or that you don't take it at the same time. Really depends whether the other half of the job share can effectively cover holiday periods, or whether work needs to be passed to a third person (in which case it can be a pain doing that 10 weeks a year not give, so better if the holiday is matched up).

Also think what else you can offer - e.g. if you both have unusual experience that they would be unlikely to get from a single candidate. Or if one of you has unusual experience they can train the other on.

[jkklpu]

Definitely have a go - you've nothing to lose from trying. And you need to get all of the plus points into a great cover letter so that they take you seriously. You might also say that you'll be flexible on interviewing: the employer will probably want to do individual interviews with you both, but then suggest a joint one of 15 minutes or so to explain exactly how you'd manage the job-share, eg which days, which hours, how you'd manage the handover, whether you could be flexible on being phoned by the other when it's not your day, etc.

Best of luck.

[33goingon64]

Wow, some really positive feedback and great advice. I think you're absolutely right laughaboutit that we need to present ourselves both as a unit but also as two individuals who can teach each as well. Also hadn't thought about interviews, jkk, and the fact that we will need to prove we can work as a team. Fingers crossed we get a good response.

[fairylights]

33.. just wondering how you got on in your applications? Have you got anywhere yet? A friend and I are about to apply for a job together and have appreciated the wisdom on this thread, thanks for starting it! Hope it is working out for you..