How to get an NHS/Council job?

[Hotsausagedog]

I really want to work for the NHS or Council as where I live (rurally) they seem the best options due to pension contributions, flexitime, clear pay grades.
I have experience working in banking/finance, projects and property management and running a housing charity, but have been a bit out of the loop having my children over the last 10 years. I’m happy to study towards qualifications to help me get a job but looking online I don’t really know where to begin- too many options!
Im 40 and really want to build a career again, ideally with clear progression.
How can I get in? Apply for everything going or study something specific?

Try applying for band 2 o 3 non clinical administrator roles. All that's needed is office experience. No further study required. Ask about flexibility at interview. Nhs admin jobs do no always offer flexibility. You might have some success with a band 4 role if you have people management experience.

Look for a housing job, maybe a Housing Officer, on your local authority website.

I work for a LA and they have been very flexible re working patterns. I have worked all combinations - full time, 2/3/4 days per week.
At the moment I work 4 days, 2 at home and 2 in the office which works well for me.

@tattychicken i love the sound of flexibility! What does a Housing officer do? Would I need additional qualifications for that?

Council and nhs both have decent sized finance depts.

What sort of work do you want to do? I’ve worked both council and nhs ….. the benefits are good like you say. I’ve worked in unqualified and qualified roles. I’ve found most departments have qualified and unqualified people. So current role for a local authority has social workers, social work assistants, business support in the same department etc…. So quite often no need for specific qualifiecations - they quite often find qualifications too :)

between them nhs and council cover an awful lot so many possibilities. Might also be worth looking for parish councils too.

Good luck.

Have a look at the jobs pages of your local authority and see if anything takes your interest. Don't forget other public sector organisations like Police and Fire too. They also have "back office" staff. If you look further at Civil Service, lots of departments offer WFH so location is less of an issue than it used to be.

For the interview, most now follow the STAR process so be prepared for that.

I'm a housing officer for a social housing provider. I help tenants manage their tenancies, anything from monitoring tenants' rent account offering benefit advice, dealing with anti-social behaviour, and repairs. Evictions, estate inspections and improvements, hoarding, arranging for voids to be relet and signing up tenants. I have level 3 in housing services from CIH, which is often listed as desirable but not essential on job applications.

Are you in Scotland? Try getting a job in an assessors/valuation board. Local government with similiar perks as council. If you have a degree I'd suggest doing an rics postgraduate. Assessors will put you through a traineeship to becone a chartered surveyor and you'd be on £40k+, all going well, within 4 years. I think the English equivalent is VOA.

Can you also register ad bank staff, think it's nhs professionals and look for the agency which holds the local council contract for temp staff. In my area it's Pertemps. This could be a way in.

My last couple of roles have been project management based within local authority, both home based with a small amount of office time - loved the flexibility. In my experience you need to find a job that suits you either at your level or possibly a level below, and once you've proven yourself to be a reliable, safe pair of hands you'll get decent career progression as that's all they really need! I agree with the above poster, housing officer or tenant participation officer could be great, but there's such a huge variety of roles that are run by the council, a lot of specific projects funded by government which can be interesting and rewarding. Just ensure that if/when you get a role that you make yourself visible and network across departments then you'll be in people's minds for future roles. Good luck 🤞

Read up on inclusion and equal opportunities and ensure you have examples of how you do this in your jobs as they are essential for public sector jobs

@Hotsausagedog three useful websites

https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/candidate/search

https://www.jobsgopublic.com/?ga_client_id=1c5a3d4c-7189-4d74-b8b4-bceb831cf3ba

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi

This is all brilliant advice thank you. There’s only 1 job that’s come up for where I live (and I may vaguely have a chance with!) so I’m going to apply for that.
Theres not much for where I live so will look at National also.

Update- I’ve applied for quite a few jobs and haven’t had much success at all. I got 3 interviews but each one afterwards said whilst I’ve interviewed very well others were ‘more qualified’, ‘an internal candidate’, and I’m ‘over qualified’. All have questioned why I want to do the role as on my CV it would appear a bit of a backwards step. (That’s because I want to be independent and not work for my DH’s company anymore!)

Any advice please? I’ve just seen a Work Coach job advertised with DWP and considering changing my name/CV!

Apply for the DWP job. Do not change your name but tailor your CV for the job.

If they are saying overqualified then start applying for jobs at the next level up and even higher.

It can take a lot of applications to get that first job. Once in then you can suss out what is the right job/level for you and it’s easier to move.

Good luck

@Sisterpita thank you for the advice. Have done the application and the situations test so fingers crossed. It’s so demoralising hearing “sorry you were unsuccessful this time”. I just really really want to kickstart my career again!

Keep going. Good luck!

Could you ask to visit them/ shadow/ work experience to see what they do? Would make you look super keen and show your face.

this is how I made switch from council to NHS . I’d applied for lots of NHs jobs and not got to interview. Did 3 days work experience. Obviously wrote that on my application for a job in that (very big) department then got an interview and as it happened one of the people interviewing was someone I spent time with during work experience. Got me huge brownie points and a lot to talk about in interview tbh.

anyway good luck x

@Cracklecrack Great idea! Thank you I will ask!! Like you say you just need an ‘in’! Thank you

I took a 12 month fixed term contract with my local council, in a role that had quite high turnover and was quite a low band. I looked at it as an ‘in’ and explained that after children I wanted a complete change of career direction.
once I was working in the role I applied for other interval vacancies that came up and after 13 months was offered a full time permanent contract. I work 4 days compressed, one day a week in the office.

A family member did similar to Usernamepain in that they got a fixed term contract job with the LA then looked out for permanent contract jobs. After 12 months a job they liked the look of came up, they applied and got it. The jobs didn't ask for specific qualifications and the applicant had a Masters degree (not relevant to the job in any way).