Creating a job listing iteration 2

We recently redesigned the way users create a job listing.

It tested well, but we decided to make some changes in response to research findings and things we spotted during a review of the design.

# User needs

Need HN001

Validated

As a hiring staff user
I need to be able to create a job listing
So that jobseekers can find jobs at my school

Need JN001

Validated

As a jobseeker
I need to easily understand a job listing
So that I know whether it’s suitable

# What we changed

# Adding a new role of HLTA (higher level teaching assistant)

Research showed that participants were not sure how to advertise HLTAs as they are not considered a teaching assistant, nor a learning support role.

To fix this, we added a new role of ‘HLTA (higher level teaching assistant)’.

# Showing the ‘key stages’ question for certain roles

We realised that the ‘key stages’ question is not applicable if the user selects a role of:

Learning support, cover supervisor or tutor
SENDCo (special educational needs and disabilities coordinator)

So, we’ll only show users this question if the user selects a role of:

Teacher
Headteacher, deputy or assistant headteacher
Head of year, department, curriculum or phase
Teaching assistant
HLTA (higher level teaching assistant)

For all other roles, the job listing page will show all key stages associated with the school.

# Only asking for education phase when it’s missing from GIAS

Previously, we asked hiring staff users to select an education phase if:

the school is an all through school
the location is a trust’s head office
multiple schools are selected and the schools have different phases

We’ll now:

ask hiring staff to select a phase if there’s no phase in the data from GIAS
show the phase that’s stored in GIAS on the job listing

If multiple locations have been selected and at least one of them has a phase, then that will be applied automatically to the job listing.

This is a temporary solution - we’ll look to ask users to select an education phase for each location that’s missing.

# Changing which phases we show

We get information about schools from GIAS. Schools are categorised as:

primary
all_through
not_applicable
middle_deemed_primary
secondary
16-19
middle_deemed_secondary
nursery

When we show this information to job seekers we combine and relabel them.

GIAS value	Mapped to	Labelled
nursery	primary	Primary
primary	primary	Primary
middle_deemed_primary	middle	Middle
middle_deemed_secondary	middle	Middle
secondary	secondary	Secondary
16-19	16 to 19	16 to 19
all_through	primary, middle, secondary, 16 to 19	Primary, Middle, Secondary, 16 to 19

This stops jobseekers from finding jobs at nurseries and all through schools.

So we’ll now only map ‘middle_deemed_primary’ and ‘middle_deemed_secondary’ to ‘Middle’.

GIAS value	Mapped to	Labelled
nursery	primary	Nursery
primary	primary	Primary
middle_deemed_primary	middle	Middle
middle_deemed_secondary	middle	Middle
secondary	secondary	Secondary
16-19	16-19	Sixth form or college
all_through	all_through	Through school

We also changed the ‘16 to 19’ label to ‘Sixth form or college’ to be more descriptive and consistent with the other labels.

# Adding job title hint text for all phases and accounting for multiple locations that are made up of different phases

Previously, we did not provide hint text for a:

nursery school
sixth form or college
through school

So we’ve added examples for this.

Role	Phase	Hint
Teacher	Nursery	For example ‘Nursery teacher’’
Teacher	Primary	For example ‘Teacher of KS1’
Teacher	Middle	For example ‘Teacher of Maths’
Teacher	Secondary	For example ‘Teacher of Maths’
Teacher	Sixth form or college	For example ‘Teacher of Maths’’
Teacher	Through school	For example ‘Teacher of KS1’ or ‘Teacher of Maths’’
Headteacher, deputy or assistant headteacher	NA	For example ‘Assistant headteacher’
Head of year, department or phase	Nursery	For example, ‘Nursery phase leader’’
Head of year, department or phase	Primary	For example ‘KS1 phase leader’
Head of year, department or phase	Secondary	For example ‘Head of modern foreign languages’
Head of year, department or phase	Middle	For example ‘Head of modern foreign languages’
Head of year, department or phase	Sixth form or college	For example ‘Head of modern foreign languages’
Head of year, department or phase	Through school	For example ‘KS1 phase leader’ or ‘Head of modern foreign languages’
Teaching assistant	NA	For example ‘Teaching assistant’
HLTA	NA	For example ‘Higher level teaching assistant’
Learning support, cover supervisor or tutor	NA	For example ‘Learning support assistant’
SENDCo	NA	For example ‘SENDCo’

We also did not include hint text when multiple phases are selected. In this case, the hint text should be based on the phase of the first location that was selected.

# Handling phase inset text when multiple locations are selected

Previously, we added inset text that says, for example, ‘The advert will say that this is a secondary role’.

But we did not consider what the hint text would say if multiple locations with different education phases are selected.

In this case, it will say ‘The job listing will list the education phases.’

# Adding a filter for key stages

We added a key stages filter to the job listings page. This will allow jobseekers to find relevant jobs across different types of schools.

For example, if a jobseeker wants to teach KS2 but does not mind if the role is at a primary school or middle school, they can now just filter by KS2.

# Conditionally showing key stages based on the phase of education

We’ll only show the key stage question if the education phase has more than one key stage.

We’ll only show the relevant key stages for the phase of education.

GIAS value	Key stage checkboxes	Show question
nursery	Early years	No
primary	Early years, KS1, KS2	Yes
middle_deemed_primary	KS1, KS2, KS3	Yes
middle_deemed_secondary	KS2, KS3, KS4	Yes
secondary	KS3, KS4	Yes
16-19	KS5	No
all_through	Early years, KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4, KS5	Yes

# Changes to full time working pattern option

Full-time working patterns can be flexible, include additional training days, or vary for different roles.

To make this clearer, we added a ‘Details’ field when ‘Full time’ is selected.

We changed the hint text so it says:

‘Usually at least 36.5 hours a week’ if the role is HLTA (higher level teaching assistant); Teaching assistant; Learning support, cover supervisor or tutor
‘Usually at least 27.5 hours a week’ if the role is Teacher; Headteacher, deputy or assistant headteacher; Head of year, department, curriculum or phase

There’s no hint text if the role is SENDCo (special educational needs and disabilities coordinator).

# Adding an ‘additional allowances’ question

Previously, we removed this field because we thought it was more related to what the school can offer the applicant, which is covered later.

But, research showed that teaching and learning responsibility (TLR) or special educational needs (SEN) allowances were separate from the information about the school community, faculty, and continuing professional development hiring staff users included in the ‘About the role’ page.

So, we added a question to the salary details page. The label says ‘Do you want to include additional allowances?’ and the radio buttons are:

‘Yes’
‘No’

The ‘Yes’ radio button reveals a text area labelled ‘Additional allowance’.

# Removing the ability to enter a custom closing time

Previously, closing time had options for:

9am
12pm (midday)
11:59pm
Another time

Selecting ‘Another time’ revealed an input to enter any time.

As it’s more effort to build this, we decided to remove this option and add another fixed time option of 5pm.

# Changing the label for ‘start date’

Previously, the label was ‘Start date’. Research showed that one participant was not sure whether this was the date the job starts, or the date the job will be published.

So we changed the label to ‘Job start date’.

# Improve content on the ‘using the application form’ page

Previously, content at the top of the page said:

This application form provided by the service:

is always up to date with the keeping children safe in education guidelines

provides a simple experience

makes it easy to shortlist or reject applications’

In research:

one participant was not sure how the form worked from a shortlisting point of view
some participants were not sure if a jobseeker account would store their information for faster applications
one participant was not sure who was required to complete the form

So we changed:

‘makes it easy to shortlist or reject applications’ to ‘makes it easy for you to view, shortlist or reject applications in one place’
‘provides a simple experience’ to ‘provides a quick and simple experience for applicants’

We also moved this bullet to the top so that the information relating to applicants comes first.

# Changing the question about whether the role is suitable for ECTs

Previously, we asked users to select the ‘Suitability for early career teachers (ECTs)’ with radio button options for:

We’ll only accept an ECT
We’ll consider an ECT
We will not consider an ECT

We found that hiring staff users could not think of a scenario when ‘only accept an ECT’ might be used. It was even seen as discriminatory by some participants.

Instead, we’ll now ask ‘Is this role suitable for an early career teacher (ECT)?’ with options for:

# Remove hint about the upload order of additional documents

Previously, we added hint text that said ‘Files are displayed in the order you upload them.’

But research shows that users did not read the hint, and users will only typically upload 1 or 2 files anyway.

So we decided to remove this part of the hint.

# Changing the confirmation page content

Previously, we did not include a link to change the listing when the job has been published as opposed to scheduled, so we added a link to do this.

We also made the content more consistent and concise.

If the job listing has been scheduled, there’s a line below the green confirmation box.

Regardless of whether the job listing has been scheduled or published, the rest of the content is the same.

There’s a heading of ‘Next steps’ followed by a list of bullets to:

view the job listing
make changes to the job listing
manage jobs

# Further considerations

We want to consider:

adding guidance about what can be entered for ‘Full-time equivalent salary’
moving the question about suitability for ECTs to a separate page to help hiring staff answer more honestly
how to make it clear that ‘about the school’ will be included in the job listing
how we stop users from repeating the safeguarding statement