Are you looking for a new challenge and want to join a successful and rapidly growing organisation? Do you want to improve people's lives at a national scale through government policy? We are looking for a number of Associate Advisors and Associate Research Advisors to join us in early 2021 or potentially in September 2021.

What does an Associate Advisor do?

If successful you will become an important part of one of our policy teams, either as an Associate or Research Associate. Questions your work may answer include:

• How can governments and businesses reduce the environmental impact of the nation’s diet?

• What is the most effective way for the police to tackle violent crime?

• What simple changes can employers make to shrink the gender pay gap?

• How can governments and NGOs encourage hand washing, face mask wearing and social distancing around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic?

This role is at Associate level which means you will be involved in things like:

• Researching a new policy problem. You might conduct a review of academic literature, conduct semi-structured interviews with policy experts or carry out field visits;

• Writing policy notes or proposals that reflect the priorities of government departments or other partners. At first you’re likely to do this with support from experienced colleagues;

• Developing workable policy solutions or intervention ideas informed by behavioural science’

• Presenting our work to external audiences and communicating key BI concepts to partners in a way that is easy to understand;

• Forming strong working relationships with clients and delivery partners; and

• Preparing project deliverables (e.g. evidence summaries, final reports) with a clear understanding of the overall project objectives

As an Associate Research Advisor, in addition to some of the elements above, you are likely to spend more of your time:

• Designing and organising impact evaluations including randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental evaluations; 

• Conducting exploratory data analysis; and

• Drafting research protocols and analysis reports and contributing to project reports.

What makes a great Associate Advisor at BIT?

We are looking for people who understand what we do, share our values and are keen to learn and develop their expertise. We are looking for candidates with the skills listed below. We expect to provide training and development support in some of the areas.

• Interest or background in behavioural science. You have an interest or experience in behavioural science and can explain key concepts such as defaults, loss aversion and social norms. You have the ability and desire to learn and absorb more complex behavioural science concepts quickly and creatively apply that knowledge to real world scenarios.

• Ability to communicate clearly and convincingly. You can explain complex topics in simple terms and you can write clearly and concisely.

• Ability to manage work from multiple projects simultaneously. You can manage your own time and a workload of several projects to deliver to a high standard on a tight deadline. 

• Ability to manage and develop yourself at work. You demonstrate high self-awareness and regularly self-reflect, which helps you make good judgements. You are aware of the impact that your actions and words have on those around you, which helps you work well in a team. You are resilient and accept responsibility for decisions whether they achieve the desired outcome or not.

• Awareness of how public policy is designed. You can see both sides of an argument, for example, on High Speed 2 (HS2) or Universal Basic Income, and you can think through what makes some policies effective and others impractical. You may not have worked in a policy setting before but will learn while you are at BIT.

• Solid understanding of ‘causality’. You know that just because sales of sunglasses and ice creams increase at the same time, one does not cause the other. You can also describe approaches to assess the impact of interventions in a rigorous way.

• Quantitative skills (for Associate Research Advisors). You have studied a quantitative subject (such as economics, econometrics, statistics or psychology), or have relevant work experience that demonstrates a similar level of understanding. You are comfortable using either R or Stata for data analysis. This will be tested as part of the selection process.

Who are we and what can we offer you?

The Behavioural Insights Team is the world leader in applying behavioural science to public policy challenges in order to strengthen communities and improve lives. 

We design and rigorously test new ideas across a range of areas such as health, crime and education, to establish what works and what doesn’t. We have helped Tuberculosis patients take their medicine; reduced police susceptibility to cyberattacks; and helped organisations close their gender pay gap.

We are looking for a passionate and imaginative individual who understands behavioural science and shares our thirst for evidence-based solutions to join our dynamic and growing team.

BIT is a great place to work:

• You will work alongside a friendly,  talented and driven team with diverse expertise - from economics to anthropology and neuroscience - and a wide variety of personal and professional backgrounds. What unites us is the goal to have positive social impact through our work.

• Employees have part ownership of the company through membership of the Employee Benefits Trust.

• We have regular team lunches with a diverse range of expert guest speakers. 

• We encourage flexible working and have a culture which enables this; for example flexible start and finish times and an IT set--up which allows for easy working from home options

• We’re a social bunch and have a variety of interest groups including Film Club, BIT Kids for our parents & 5-a-side team to name a few. We have even kept most of our activities going virtually!

• We have a flexible benefits programme which currently includes things like gym memberships, cycle to work schemes and the ability to buy extra annual leave at the start of the year.

• We have a great office in Westminster (which we aren’t using too much at the moment), but it has an amazing coffee machine and fridges stocked full of soft drinks!

• You have the opportunity to work on a variety of projects with real impact and we’ll provide the support for you to be able to thrive at BIT.

What does the process look like?

We use Applied to reduce bias in the recruitment process. You will need to answer a few work-based questions which will be anonymously marked by members of our team. Our selection is based on performance in these questions, rather than looking at your CV. 

Candidates with the top scoring answers will be invited to the first stage of assessment which will be a series of activities where you’ll have the chance to demonstrate your skills. The final stage will be a structured interview where you will be asked a set of questions that reflect the role. It’s at this stage we first see your CV. All parts of the process will be carried out remotely. We always give all applicants feedback, no matter what stage your application reaches.

Key dates:

Role closes: Monday 11th January at 12.00pm (midday)

First round (task-based): Wednesday 20th & Thursday 21st January* 

Second round (interview): Wednesday 27th & Thursday 28th January*

Candidates applying for the Associate Research Advisor role will also need to complete a technical assessment in R or Stata between Wednesday 13th and Tuesday 19th January

* Dates are subject to change.

Please note:

• Available on a full-time (39 hours) or part-time basis. Flexible working options include flexible start and finish times, home working and compressed hours

• We are based in Central London (Westminster) but due to Coronavirus, we are mostly working from our homes in the UK. The plan at the moment is to be working from the office a bit more from early 2021 but we are monitoring the situation closely.

• We are hoping that the successful candidates can start as soon as possible, but we may also be in a position to offer roles starting in September 2021.

• If we experience greater demand than anticipated, we may need to shortlist based on the answers to one of the three Applied questions.

• If you do not already hold the right to work in the UK and/or require sponsorship in order to continue working here, you should think carefully before applying. This is because we will be unable to sponsor you unless there is no other suitably qualified settled worker available to fill the role or your current immigration status means that the resident labour market test will not apply in your case.

• Some of the personal data you provide to Applied when you apply for a role with The Behavioural Insights Team will be passed on to The Behavioural Insights Team for the purposes of (a) reviewing your application; (b) inviting you for interview; and/or (c) offering you a job and getting you set up as an employee/contractor. For full details on how BIT collects and uses your personal data please visit our website - https://www.bi.team/bit-global-recruitment-privacy-notice/ 

• If your application is not successful, any personal data provided to us by Applied (including any personal data relating to equal opportunities monitoring as set out above) will be retained by The Behavioural Insights Team for no longer than 6 months after the application deadline has passed (other than in exceptional circumstances where we may need to retain your personal data for longer), at which point your personal data will be securely deleted. We only keep your information for that period in order to allow us to comply with relevant legal obligations.