HQ Armed Forces Recruiting - Senior Occupational Psychologist

Are you an experienced Occupational Psychologist looking for an opportunity to apply your professional expertise in a role with national impact?

Join HQ Armed Forces Recruiting and help shape the future of Defence recruitment. You will provide specialist psychological expertise to support the design, validation and continuous improvement of selection and assessment processes used to recruit personnel into the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force.

Working within a multidisciplinary team, you will use research, analysis and evidence-based practice to ensure recruitment decisions are fair, effective and aligned to organisational needs. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the transformation of Armed Forces recruitment and directly influence how future talent enters Defence.

Headquarters Armed Forces Recruiting (HQ AFR) will deliver integrated tri-service recruitment for the Armed Forces to build and maintain force levels able to meet Defence outputs. The Armed Forces Recruiting Service (AFRS) contract has recently been awarded to Team Serco and collaborative transition activity has now commenced.

A role in HQ AFR is a superb opportunity. You will be at the forefront of a significant change, shaping the future recruitment for all three Services into a tri-Service delivery from 2027 and into steady state.

This is a high profile, collaborative and engaging environment with keen interest from senior staff across Defence. You will be working within a diverse team, including military personnel, civilians, and external providers, which provides opportunities for learning and networking. The role offers a real chance to develop skills and demonstrate capabilities, which will provide clear tangible evidence to support you to potentially fulfil your career progression ambitions in the future.

You'd be contributing to the Armed Forces' ability to attract and retain the best talent, ultimately supporting national security.

If you're looking for a challenging, rewarding, and transformative role, this could be a great fit for you.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Due to the nature of the role, part time and job share arrangements may be considered, subject to the requirement that full-time hours are fully covered (or business needs are met).

The role requires an individual to develop and deliver Occupational Psychology research, evaluation and consultancy projects within Armed Forces Recruiting Services. Projects will focus on supporting Officer, Soldier, Sailor and Aviator selection activities conducted both online and at various locations across the country. This will include managing the ongoing governance and maintenance of the psychometric testing and development of a process to conduct training needs analysis for calibration of psychometric test criteria.

The Ministry of Defence recruits over 25,000 Military Personnel per annum, with applications from more than ten times that number. We employ into more than 70 roles, each with varying criteria in their selection requirement. Given the distinct functions and professions delivering key outputs for the MOD, using data to aid understanding of the impact and continued predictive power of our selection process is critical to the performance of our Armed Services.

Key responsibilities:

• Support Principal Occupational Psychologist in their role as delegated lead for validation of assessment.
• Manage and maintain all aspects of the Defence Aptitude Assessment cognitive test, including, developing and delivering psychometric analysis for governance of the Defence Aptitude Assessment and developing, trailing and quality assurance of new and updated Defence Aptitude Assessment test items.
• Maintaining the test delivery, whether that be item integrity or support the IT team in delivery.
• Manage a trainee occupational psychologist, providing technical direction and line management. Ensuring access to development opportunities and mentoring.
• Provide regular reporting on specific assessments.
• Develop and deliver psychometric analysis for governance of the Defence Aptitude Assessment.
• Develop, trial and quality assurance of new and updated Defence Aptitude Assessment test items.
• Engagement with supplier assessment design teams to suggest improvements or change. Collating evidence and suggesting improvements or modifications to assessment approaches.
• Manage trials and evaluation of any updates to selection assessment through the life of the contract.
• Development of a portfolio of behavioural research addressing known training and recruitment challenges.
• Participate in wider research community of behavioural scientists within the services and its Defence partners.
• Manage and conduct Training Cognitive Needs analysis to support calibration of Cognitive score cut-off and behavioural criteria.
• Lead working groups and regular meetings chaired by either the Senior or Principal Psychologist.
• Manage projects to identify new military role assessment requirements as they arise.
• Manage Systematic Literature Reviews as required.
• Maintain BPS Chartered Psychologist and HCPC Occupational Psychologists status.

• Completion of Stage 2 Qualification in Occupational Psychology with BPS conferring eligibility to become a Chartered Psychologist with BPS and registration with the HCPC.
• Or completed a professional doctorate in occupational psychology conferring eligibility to become a Chartered Psychologist with the BPS. .
• Psychometric Training – Test user, Ability (BPS).

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign and includes technical skills (occupational-psychology-profession-skills-and-standards-july-2024.pdf)). Each element will be scored accordingly, and the successful candidate will be appointed on merit.

Please ensure that at the application and interview stages of the campaign you review the Success Profiles Framework link for information on format and style to assist you in the demonstration of your skills and experience. You have 250 words to answer each Behaviour (competency style).

Candidates will be required to provide CV details to include job history and previous skills and experience.

Candidates will be required to provide a statement of suitability in no more than 750 words which should demonstrate how your experience meets the essential criteria of the role.

At sift, you will be assessed against your CV and Statement of suitability and the following:

Behaviours:

• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical Skills:

occupational-psychology-profession-skills-and-standards-july-2024.pdf

• Psychological assessment at work
• Learning, training and development

Applications will be sifted on all Success Profile elements, but in the event of a high number of applications, the sift will be conducted on your Personal Statement and CV.

At interview, you will be assessed against the following:

Behaviours:

• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical Skills:

occupational-psychology-profession-skills-and-standards-july-2024.pdf

• Psychological assessment at work
• Learning, training and development

Applicants will be required to demonstrate the following experience at interview -

• Applying an occupational psychology evidence-based approach to inform decision-making in a selection and assessment context.
• Applying the consultancy cycle.
• Highly professionally curious, with a strong commitment to your continued professional development.
• Conducting quantitative analysis in either a research or selection context

The deadline to submit applications is as per advert details.

A minimum of 3 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews.

Further information:

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. This role does not meet that category, and we will not sponsor a visa. It is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system.

Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

The Ministry of Defence requires all candidates who are successful at interview to declare any outside interests. These declarations will be discussed with successful candidates following the interview process and before a formal offer of employment is made, as some outside interests may not be compatible with MOD civilian roles. This will not, in the majority of cases, prevent employment in MOD, but it is a measure that must be taken to ensure that appropriate mitigations can be put in place to manage any potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest from the first day of employment.

The Ministry of Defence adopts a zero-tolerance approach to unacceptable behaviours, which includes bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, and victimisation. You will not be eligible and will not be considered for this post if you have been dismissed from a role for such unacceptable behaviours within the last five years. This will also apply if you resign or otherwise leave a role but, because of an adverse decision, would have been dismissed for gross misconduct had you continued in that employment. Pre-employment checks will be carried out.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.