Guidance

Find a job: guide for employers

Updated 1 October 2020

The Find a job service

Even in these challenging times Jobcentre Plus is here to help employers fill their urgent vacancies. As some sectors shrink, there’s a volume of new, job ready people looking for alternative or additional employment.

What is Find a job?

Find a job is the government’s official job vacancy service. It’s also one of the largest free job search sites in the UK so your vacancies can reach a wide and diverse audience. Hundreds of thousands of people are already registered on the site, and it’s one of the most consistently used online services at GOV.UK.

What does Find a job offer?

The service offers a simple and streamlined way for people to search for the latest jobs, by location, sector and job role. Email alerts can quickly flag your latest vacancies to site users.

Thousands of private and public sector employers large and small have already signed up, and the service is open to employers and recruitment agencies who recruit on their behalf.

The current coronavirus epidemic means that even more people with key transferable skills and recent experience of the labour market could be searching for your vacancies that are crucial to the UK.

By using the government recruitment service, you can access the widest pool of talent and skills, and you will be supporting the UK labour market directly during this coronavirus (COVID-19) disruption.

How can I register?

You can create a free account to post your vacancies online. It’s quick and easy to upload a vacancy and manage it online, and you can choose how you want applicants to contact you.

Different locations

Each vacancy is location specific so that site users can search for opportunities in their area. If you have vacancies available across different locations, then you’ll need to create multiple vacancies – one for each town or area - to ensure your vacancy will be seen by the right people.

The easiest way is to quickly create a copy of your existing vacancy. Check our simple guide, or watch our video demo.

If you have more complex needs, or vacancies across large numbers of locations, then you can also arrange a ‘bulk upload’ from your system to Find a job. You’ll need to provide vacancy information in a specific XML format – check our technical instructions. And you’ll need to request permission to get started.

Find a Job: How to request bulk upload credentials.

Top tips

• when placing vacancies, be mindful of transferable skills and experience, and keep the minimum requirements as broad as possible. This will help to attract workers traditionally employed in other sectors and roles that could boost your workforce very quickly
• but be clear about the job, what’s involved and any restrictions that may apply. This will make sure you attract the right applicants
• create a vacancy for each location where you are recruiting – this means that your vacancies will appear correctly in local searches
• help and advice is available from the find a job team
• if your company is Disability Confident you can display this status on your ‘find a job’ advert which means you show up in searches carried out by jobseekers expressing that as a search preference
• if you have a large number of vacancies then we can help with a bulk upload service that may save you time