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 to join the team.

What does an Associate Advisor do?

If successful you will become an important part of one of our policy teams. Questions your work may answer include:

• What can employers do to reduce disparities in pay and progression opportunities across gender, race & ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and other characteristics? 

• What can government, regulators and online platforms do to tackle harmful content online? 

• How can we help small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic? 

• How can we help reduce burnout, and improve wellbeing of NHS staff?

• What are the most effective interventions to improve healthy eating and reduce obesity?

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

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

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.

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.

• 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 is a great space for collaboration

• 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.

How to apply

We use this great Applied platform 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 on Applied 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 alongside other applicants. If successful, 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 20th September at 12.00pm at midday

First round (task-based assessments): Week commencing Monday 4th October

Second round (interview): Week commencing Monday 11th October*

* Dates are subject to change but we’ll try not to change them!

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.

• Based in Central London (Westminster) Due to Coronavirus, we have mostly been working from our homes in the UK but our London office is now in the process of re-opening. We expect to be using a hybrid model of working from October with an element of regular working in the office.

• We will need a number of successful candidates to be able to start within the next 3 months but we may also be in a position to offer roles starting in September 2022.

• If you applied for this role back in January 2021 and were unsuccessful in either the online assessment centre or the interview stage, unfortunately we are unable to accept another application from you this time around.

• You will need to have the right to work in the UK in order to be able to undertake this role. We will ask all applicants short-listed for an interview to provide evidence of their right to work during the recruitment process.  If you do not have the right to work for BIT but are the most suitable person for the role we will explore with you whether sponsorship may be an option. However, this may not be possible for all roles.

• BIT colleagues anonymously review each application a number of times. It is a big investment of time for you and us. If we receive an unexpected amount of applications, we may make the decision to focus our reviewing efforts on just one question. We will let you know if that is the 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.