Like most digital and technology teams in government we find recruitment a challenge.
People have misconceptions about what it’s like to work here; they imagine layers and layers of management, lots of bureaucracy and old technology.
The reality is often very different, it certainly is at MoJ Digital & Technology, but it can be hard to debunk these ‘myths’.
In an ideal world we’d be able to talk to every potential candidate to tell them why we work here. After all, it's a great place to work. If we could do that easily, I am sure we would get a lot more interest.
Doing the usual stuff
Of course we attend digital & technology recruitment fairs and conferences, we advertise in all the usual places. But this means we compete with so many other organisations, making it hard to get our unique message across.
So we’re trying to do things a little differently, to reach people; to show them what we do, why we do it and why they should join us.
Some of the different stuff
We’ve decided to do more than just attend events. Instead we now actively look for opportunities to be part of events or host them ourselves, letting us showcase the talents of our amazing team and the work we do.
We hosted the ‘Capture the Flag’ competition at the 44Con cyber security conference in September. It was a great success! People were surprised to see it being led by a government department.
The initial reaction on social media was frosty but over the 3 days we saw the frostiness lift. We actually captured the attention of people who would never have thought about a career in government, who wouldn’t have thought about it being a really exciting and interesting place to work.
Building on this, the team successfully pitched to host the annual conference for Geek Girl Meetup. Lots of the the team gave their own time, energy and enthusiasm to support and organise what was a hugely successful event.
Hosting the event gave us the opportunity to talk to people, to tell them why we work here, show them the work we do and and just how important it is.
There’s more
This is not all we’re doing! We also:
- play an active role in the the cross-government Movement to Work Scheme, giving people who are not currently in education, training or employment the opportunity to come and work with us.
- help to deliver a 'First steps in to coding' course aimed at helping mums get in to careers in technology
- belong to the Tech Partnership Network and nearly 30 members of our team are TechFuture Ambassadors, inspiring young people about the exciting career opportunities in tech.
- have apprenticeship and fast stream schemes.
Letting our team do the talking
But it’s impossible to attend every event, conference or meetup so we wanted to create something that allows us to do what a job description can't. So, with a camcorder and phone microphone in tow we talked to our team about why they work here.
We are really proud of the end result so we thought, why not share it with you?
We hope it makes you think about working with us either now or in the future. If so, keep an eye on our recruitment page for opportunities and updates.
We want to host more events in the future, especially events aimed at young people, women in technology and other under-represented groups. If you have an idea for a conference or event or would like to talk to us about working with you in the future please get in touch.
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