Nice way of advertising a job but not advertising a job. I like your style sir.

But to get back to the crux of your question. It depends on the JD. And the renumeration for the position. Also have you specified lots of requiremnts for the job? Is the room for progression? How big a team will they be joining? 

If the requirements are to specific then you've reduced your talent pool, if the pay isn't commensurate for the position again, reducing your talent pool. If it's a small team, I'd say that progression would be dead mans shoes so not exactly appealing to the younger members of our profession, who would want to progress.

Saying that, I find it strange that people change jobs so quickly, when I was looking for work a few years ago, the recruitment agencys were all saying that I should be looking to change positions/jobs every 3-5 years. Is that still the case.

Thank you Mark and Peter,

Your points are interesting and well worth us reviewing when we look again.  However, we do seem to have gone from lots of applicants and the need for filtering, to a handful of applications, which appear to be very speculative.

Regards,

Mark

I actually left a H&S consultant job for a council in the South West just before x-mas.  I lasted a year.  I took a 10k pay cut to go there because the flexible working & benefits seemed to outweigh the drop in pay.  If I only I knew how dull the job would be. They used COVID as an excuse to do nothing, I mean nothing, they wouldn't even let me review policies, but in every teams meeting they all said they were busy.  My Manager was dreadful, I did however take it upon myself to study & get my level 6 completed whilst I was there & pushed to get on what few audits I could just to help with my NVQ.  Council culture was alive & well.  I've since left for a 15k payrise to be H&S Manager elsewhere, yes i have to communte & it's more stressful but it's better than being sat home wiggling my mouse on teams.     

Many councils want the earth (moon AND stars) for peanuts

Doesn't inspire confidence when a potential employer chooses to pursue a dispute which generates a massive public health issue - composting in the streets is not green

I have been approached numerous times in recent months regarding vacant positions. Anecdotally, it appears that a lot of the more experienced H&S personnel have retired during COVID, or moved into self-employment. I was sought after as I was relatively young (less than 45) and have plenty of experience.

Many of the roles would have been completely out of my areas of experience, and I was not at all suitable, however they were seemingly desperate. Obviously I turned the roles down, as my inexperience could cause a lot of harm.

I would sugget the sector needs a training push at entry level to ensure we have replacements as the top end continue to move away from the sector. Until this happens there will continue to be a struggle to fill vacant positions. Although, that being said, it has pushed our "market value" up considerably. Positions are running at around £10k more than they were at the beginning of the pandemic, in my experience.

Not that any of this helps you, just some observations.

From what I have seen, the relationship between qualifications and salarys is shocking. Companies want the world, but don't want to pay for it.