Please watch in YouTube for more accessibility options. - opens in a new tab
Application
We’re really pleased that you are interested in joining us in Adult Social Care. You can explore and apply for all of our current Adult Social Worker opportunities through our Recruitment Hub. If you’d prefer to speak with us directly, please contact us at welovesocialworkers@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or call +44 1480 372425 to discuss our available roles.
Our teams operate across Cambridgeshire, with some working countywide and others working in more specific locations. Please see information on our teams here. If you are interested in a certain team, we would always recommend that you read up on relevant legislation for the role.
When you’ve found a job that you are interested in, submit an online application. Ensure that you meet the essential criteria and evidence your suitability for the role in your personal statement. Your application will be shortlisted by the hiring team.
Interview
If you are shortlisted, we will schedule an interview.
Interviews may include a written assessment or presentation prior to your meeting with the recruiting managers.
The whole process usually lasts around 90 minutes and could be completed either in person or via Microsoft Teams.
An example interview schedule looks like:
- 12pm – Written assessment, this will be emailed to you shortly before the start time and you will have 20 minutes to complete it. The completed assessment must be returned to the sender before the start of your formal interview.
- 12.30pm – Formal interview with recruiting managers by Microsoft Teams.
The written assessment or presentation will be on a topic relevant to the role you are interviewing for. It will also be competency-based, so may include a scenario for you to explain what you’d do or how you’d tackle an issue. We’d encourage you to think about legislation and processes, best practice, and to be creative in your answers. At Cambridgeshire, our service users are people, not numbers, so make sure you reflect this.
While we are interviewing you for a position, remember that you are also interviewing us to make sure Cambridgeshire is the right place for you.
Post-interview
We will always let you know the outcome of your interview as soon as we can. If you are unsuccessful, we know that it is disappointing, but we may talk to you about other roles we have available that suit your experience. Just because you’re not suitable for one team, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be the perfect fit for another!
Should you be successful – congratulations! You’ve taken the first step to join us at Cambridgeshire County Council. We will then send you a conditional offer email, detailing the pre-employment checks required.
Pre-employment checks
Pre-employment checks are a way of making sure we’re safely recruiting the right people into the right positions. All social worker roles require evidence of your qualifications, evidence of your Social Work England registration as well as a full Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.
Other checks we will require are:
- two references satisfactory to Cambridgeshire County Council (one of these must be your current employer)
- completion of our pre-screening health check questionnaire – this has been designed to help provide us with information to assess your suitability to carry out the role and responsibilities required in this job, or to let us know about any reasonable adjustments that need to be made in the workplace
- Right to work and DBS checks. Along with other standard checks such as ID verification, and additional information such as your bank details for payroll. Once your pre-employment checks are completed, your new team will be able to agree a suitable start date with you. At this time a formal offer can then be issued, and it is at this point that we recommend giving notice to your current role at this point.
If at any point within this process you have any questions, please contact your recruitment team representative, or email welovesocialworkers@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.
Starting with us
Before you start, your new team will arrange a date, time, and location for your first day.
When you start with Cambridgeshire County Council, we will provide you all the tools and support you will need. We have a full induction to introduce you to the wider local authority and to see how your role fits in, as well as more local inductions and training to help give you the best start to your career with us.
Feedback
Our aim is to provide a service that is always improving and provides you, the applicant, with a positive experience – whether you have been successful or unsuccessful in your application.
Therefore, we welcome any feedback from you on how you have found the recruitment process, so that we can look at how we can make the recruitment experience better for applicants in future.
When you are giving feedback, don’t just tell us where we’ve made a mistake or disappointed you, please tell us how we can make the process/experience better too!
Please send any feedback to welovesocialworkers@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.
