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https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/07/12/talent-scouting/

Talent scouting

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: GDS team, Transformation

Today we published another important update to the Government Service Design Manual to help departments recruit and retain staff with new digital skills. This is one of the services the new GDS Recruitment Hub is offering departments.

Increasingly we need to bring in people with specialist skills that the Civil Service hasn’t been able to call upon before - designers, web ops, product managers, and the like. We’ve created template job descriptions for a set of leadership and specialist roles and we've provided organisational design guidance about how people in these roles should work together. We've also given advice on salaries.

As well as getting hold of the specialist capability that teams need to build great digital services - we must recruit great technology leaders. The governance review that we've been working on over the last couple of months has highlighted the importance of getting in more leaders with experience of transforming big organisations through technology and driving culture change. GDS will help tailor senior job descriptions, sift and interview applicants, and we'll provide specialist recruitment support to help find the best people for these roles.

We'll be updating the manual; we're currently working a framework for technology recruiters, which we'll tell you more about in the autumn. Over the next few weeks we'll be adding more digital specialist job descriptions.

For now though, please email us any questions you have on the Recruitment Hub.

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3 comments

  1. Comment by ICTDigTeam (@ictdigdivideuk) posted on

    The title sounds eye catching. If this service is catering for 35+ also then that is good news. With Social Media taking over digital media It's important that new computing skills are needed more than ever before. Being a returning lecturer myself I feel that the gap between the haves and the have nots is increasing by the decade. The fact that there are so many choices with content management it is crucial that skills needed to learn and manage digital skills are integrated into the educational system earlier on. Computing and ICT skills need to find common ground/platforms to engage digital talent needed for digital service and social media efficiently. Will follow up this new initiative.

  2. Comment by Helen Hardy posted on

    Clearly we will need to recruit more digital specialists, and I'm sure this guidance will be very useful, but these templates don't seem to leave much room for upskilling existing digital enthusiasts in the civil service. It's much easier to teach someone to use content management systems, for instance, than to teach them to focus on user need - but your template for content designers doesn't recognise that and could rule out a lot of people capable of that role. Are you doing separate guidance for internal upskilling / recruitment?

  3. Comment by Talent scouting – Government Digital Service | Public Sector Blogs posted on

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