How we recruit
Find out how we approach recruitment and selection.
At the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew we take the recruitment of our staff seriously and use a blended approach to bring out the best in candidates and ensure robust recruitment decisions. We do this by assessing a mixture of competencies, values and technical experience.
The competencies are the skills, knowledge and behaviours that lead to successful performance. These are linked to our Kew values, which are the things we hold at the heart of our organisation that are our most important beliefs. These include caring about the future of the planet and its biodiversity, cherishing the diversity of our plant collections and seeking it in our workforce, collaborating with each other and our partners, having confidence in succeeding, striving for excellence and trying to improve continuously, and being ambitious with a strong desire to innovate and inspire.
The selection methods vary depending on the requirements of the role but, in addition to a panel interview, we use selection tools such as practical work-based tests, assessed tours, presentations or group activities.
If you have been invited for an interview that includes the above tasks, you will be informed beforehand.
This approach allows candidates to demonstrate their suitability in a variety of different ways, while helping us to identify the most suitable candidate for the post.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Equality, diversity and inclusion is important to us.
A diverse mix of individuals brings a wealth of experience and knowledge, which helps us solve complex problems and achieve our goals.
We want our workforce to be representative and encourage different views and perspectives.
If you apply for a job with Kew, you’ll be assessed on the merit of your application, regardless of your age, gender, sexuality, race, religious beliefs, disability or background, marital or parental status.
During the application process you’ll be asked to complete a diversity monitoring form. If you don’t want to disclose your information, you can always choose “Prefer not to say”. We will use the information provided to help us understand how well we are representing different sections of the community in our workforce. This information is kept anonymous and will not be seen by anyone who is not directly involved in the above reporting. You can remove your data by sending a request to jobs@kew.org. For more information see our Privacy page.
We are a Disability Confident Committed employer; that means we are committed to offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria for the job.
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