Job share

[whosaidtha]

Please can someone help me figure out how this would work.
I've seen a job I think would be perfect for me. It's advertised as a full time position. I emailed the company and asked if they would consider an application on a job share basis. They said yes. Great. But how does this work practically? Presumably not many, if any, will also apply as a job share because it's not advertised as such. So even if they think I am perfect for the job I can only get the job if another candidate agrees to a job share. And how would they find this out? Would they ask them at interview even if they hadn't seen me yet? And if they all say 'no' then I don't stand a chance? Could they offer it to me as part time and go out to hire another part time role because it would obviously be easier for them to just hire a full time person?
I want to hope that this will work out but it seems like it would be too logistically challenging for any company to even bother interviewing me.
Any help to understand this would be great.

Hi OP, I have a jobshare job - we work a set pattern each week but we cover for each other if the other is off sick / on annual leave so there is always one of us on duty. I love it - we are both flexible so can change our days if one us needs to swap, and we just work really well together. We are both similar anyway which helps and because there are two of us, the work pod is manageable.

I did another jobshare a few years ago which was OK but you have to rely on the other person and the one I had was unreliable and I ended up doing the majority of the work, even though we were both the same level. So just beware - if you don’t get on then it could cause issues, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it if you get it 🙂

Did you apply as a job share? Or did it just turn into one when you went part time or something?
I think this particular role would work well as a job share as there are clear ways to split the work. It would also be nice to have someone to share ideas with.

Is there a reason you emailed them to ask if it could be done as a job share specifically rather than part time?

I actually asked part time or job share. And then the response was yes but to make it clear I was looking for a job share in my application. So only mentioned job share and not part time. Maybe I should put job share or part time on my application?

The first job the other lady was already working and because she was part time, they offered it out as a jobshare to cover the other days she wasn’t in. When the other lady left I then took on the role full time, as it proved the service needed someone there every day of the week.

What my company liked about jobshare was that there were two of us so one would always be in; the downside of this is co-ordinating leave (especially Christmas if the other person wants it off every year). Two heads are better than one in terms of ideas / improvements to a service etc, however it’s also two lots of annual leave / sick leave / pay that the company have to pay out for.

I did go for one job, years ago, that was advertised as a jobshare. Myself and another lady got the job, but when they called me to say I had got the role as well, I had to turn it down as I had just got a mortgage and needed a full time wage - they ended up calling the other lady and telling her that they couldn’t actually give her the job as they wanted me or nothing - that was awkward but it was a great role in the end.