Guidance Notes for Job Applicants

Thank you for your interest in Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council. These notes are intended to help you with your application – so please read through carefully.

The Application Form

The application form is the only information we have available when deciding who to invite to interview, so you need to complete it as effectively as possible. The following is designed to help you to do this. Each section described here corresponds to the relevant section of the application form. Please do not enclose a CV with your form as we will not consider it as part of your application. 

You are asked to give us here the basic information we need to process your application. Although we ask for a daytime telephone number, we will not contact you at work without checking first that we can do so.

Tell us here about your qualifications, including secondary school and further education. In most cases a specific level of educational attainment will be an essential or desirable requirement of the job. You will be asked to provide proof of your qualifications at the time of interview.

For some of our jobs you will need to have, or be studying for a professional qualification, for example in finance or planning. If this is the case, we will say so in the person specification.

As with education, you may have attended valuable courses, both professional and personal, so include all relevant training.

Please give details of your main responsibilities, including where your post sits within your organisation. Keep this section fairly brief and factual but you may find it beneficial to include examples of key duties that display competence and suitability for the post which you are applying for.

Please give details of all relevant previous employment.

This is an important part of the form, as it gives you the chance to tell us why you are the best person for the job. You need to show how your qualifications, skills, training, experience and personal qualities meet the requirements of our person specification. Remember to tell us about relevant experience outside work too – for example voluntary or community work or experience in the home. Again, examples are always useful to highlight where you meet the criteria required for the position..

Please give details of any periods of ill health that you have had over the last two years and details of your illnesses.  

At the end of the form you have been asked to consent to us requesting this information from your most recent employer.

We ask for two references and always take them up before confirming an offer of employment.

Sometimes we will contact referees before interviews are held, so if you do not want us to do this, make sure you tick the appropriate box on the form. Both your referees should know you in a professional capacity, and one must be your present or most recent employer.

Where possible please supply email addresses to allow this part of the process to move along quickly.

Make sure you sign and date the form before you send it off. If you are e-mailing an application you will be asked to sign this declaration at interview.

Equal Opportunities Form

Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council is committed to creating workplaces where diversity is welcomed and promoted, and where discrimination of any form is removed. Monitoring of our workforce helps us to see whether we are treating all groups of employees fairly and supports our continued commitment to the "Positive About Disability" (Two Ticks Symbol) award.

To help us effectively monitor this policy, we ask you to complete our monitoring form. This is a confidential document used for analytical purposes only. Personnel detach it from your application before it is sent to the recruiting department.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

You are asked about criminal offences. All applicants are required to disclose current convictions.

Some jobs require the individuals to be checked by the Criminal Records Bureau.

The primary purpose of the Criminal Records Bureau is to help identify those candidates who may be unsuitable to work with children or other vulnerable members of society.

In summary, jobs that require a CRB check prior to appointing a candidate, are those that have potential to have unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults in their job role.

The attached document is SABC's policy regarding the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974

(Word Document, 61kb)

Acknowledgement of Receipt

If you would like confirmation that we have received your completed application form, please send a stamped addressed envelope attached to your application.

If we do not contact you within 21 days of the closing date, please assume that you have not been selected.

If you are attaching any additional sheets please write your name and the post reference number of the job you are applying for on each sheet.

As mentioned above please do not enclose a CV with your form as we will not consider it as part of your application, and could therefore miss important information.

To be fair to all applicants, we will not accept applications submitted after the closing date.

Complaints Procedure

If you feel your application has been unfairly treated, let us know by writing to the Personnel Manager at the address on the back of the application form (also shown at the bottom left of this webpage), within ten working days of the date you were informed of our decision, stating the full grounds to your complaint. We will investigate and respond in writing.

And finally……

Good luck with your application, we look forward to hearing from you!