Bid Assistant

Hi! Please read this page in full before hitting apply – we recruit a bit differently so CVs won’t be accepted!

We’re a small but growing company and we’re looking to hire quickly. We care very much about hiring the right person for us. We’re interested in hearing from anyone looking for something a little different, from all walks of life!

If you need this job ad to be provided in a format that is more accessible to you, or you need to discuss any access needs or reasonable adjustments that might be required, please do not hesitate to email Ella at workwithus@advice-cloud.co.uk and we will reply as a matter of priority.

Introduction:

Advice Cloud are a small consultancy made up of a bunch of friendly people who care about transforming  government and public services to improve the lives of people in the UK.

Our aim is to harness public purchasing power for social and environmental good. To achieve this, we help companies (primarily technology companies) understand how the public sector buys their services. We provide tech suppliers with guidance on how to write and present effective bids, and our project management skills ensure they meet the deadlines. Alongside this, we offer consultancy to companies looking to meet new standards required by the public sector, e.g. Net Zero and Social Value.

We’re looking for someone who can hit the ground running with a big project (multiple clients) we have on at the moment, and beyond that someone who is enthusiastic about a flexible role in areas such as client management, bid services, service development, process improvement and social value.

A bit more about how Advice Cloud work:

Advice Cloud is a Teal business, meaning we work towards self-management, wholeness and our sense of purpose. You can read more about what that means here. We’re constantly working together to make improvements to our approach and processes, and at the heart of it we care about making the business a supportive, transparent, fair and friendly place for all, where we’re each challenged to achieve our ambitions and goals.

Our ways of working have been recently recognised via:

• Finalist: SME Business of the Year at the Brighton and Hove Business Awards 2021
• Finalist: SME Business of the Year at the Sussex Business Awards 2021

We work in line with our values to be socially and environmentally ethical:

• We are Carbon Neutral Certified – you can see our latest carbon emissions report here.
• We have achieved the Social Value Quality Mark Level 1 – in recognition of our commitments to deliver value in the areas of Employment and Volunteering; Education and Skills, Health and Wellbeing, and Economy.
• We are a Disability Confident Employer.

We have made all efforts to make our recruitment accessible and inclusive, to remove biases that are baked into traditional hiring practices. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled or qualified applicants, regardless of their race, sex, gender, disability, religion/beliefs, sexual orientation or age.

Of our core team:

• 50% are women (5/10)
• 10% are from ethnic minority groups (2/10)
• 10% have a disability (1/10)

We’re actively seeking to diversify our team!

What we can offer you:

Inclusive working practices and development opportunities:

• Policies co-created by our team and reviewed regularly
• Work from anywhere – as long as you have a reliable, consistent WiFi connection
• Co-working space membership if desired
• £50/month work from home allowance (after 3-month bedding in period)
• 22 days annual leave plus England Bank Holidays
• Flexible working pattern = 9-day fortnights – 1 day back every 2 weeks to do something for yourself or the community (no impact on salary or holiday)
• Employee Assistance Programme – 24/7 helpline for you and your immediate family
• Annual bonus based on company profit
• A flexible role, with opportunities to contribute to wider business operations
• Unlimited time for volunteering
• Reasonable adjustments to support you if you have a disability
• After 1 year, we'll help you achieve APMP Foundation (Association of Proposal Management Professionals)

Details about the role:

Headline information:

• The role is full-time (typically 9am-5pm but we are flexible) with occasional paid overtime during busy periods.
• The role is home-based.
• You must have a reliable, consistent WiFi connection.
• You will be provided with a company laptop and will be required to agree to our security policies. We stay in contact throughout the day using Microsoft Teams.
• You will need to complete a basic background check, which we will compensate you for.

Advice Cloud take pride in providing excellent service to our clients and offer a 100% refund if they are in any way dissatisfied. Therefore, the person employed in this role should be very customer-focused, as well as having excellent attention to detail.

Key Responsibilities:

• Read and review technical bids written by our clients, in line with our guidance, to ensure that they answer the questions without any room for doubt.
• Provide written feedback, tips and suggestions on how the client can improve their writing, in a timely manner.
• Careful proof-reading for readability, sentence structure, formatting, grammar, spelling and punctuation.
• Help to maintain accurate data on clients’ progress, using our CRM (HubSpot), project management tool (Trello) and file storage (G-Drive).
• Support Client Delivery team with day-to-day tasks as needed, covering client communications, admin, research.
• Exercise self-management and freedom in working collaboratively on a variety of ongoing and new projects; we feel a shared responsibility to deliver our purpose.
• Work in line with our Guiding Principles. 

Key Skills and Values:

Essential:

• Fluent, business-focussed, and technical English speaker and writer
• Ability to work as part of a team as well as independently in a varied role
• Strong attention to detail
• Experience with hard deadlines and measured/scored/graded work
• Calm and focused under pressure
• IT literate, including use of Microsoft Word, basic Excel, Outlook, G-Drive (or similar)

Desirable:

• Project management experience
• Client relationship experience
• Tender/B2B/Technical writing experience

Our ideal new team member would be:

• Aligned to our purpose – that public money can be leveraged for social and environmental good
• Excited about playing a role in growing a company
• Open-minded, curious and keen to learn from others
• Interested in exploring new ways of working and managing a business

If you meet the above criteria and you have a disability, we encourage you to apply using the process below – if you let us know you have a disability, we will offer you an interview.

Application process:

1. Please download our Scenario Questions form at the bottom of this page.
   1. This will contain 5 scenario questions relevant to the role which we ask you respond to in no more than 250 words per question.
2. Submit your responses to the Scenario Questions, along with a 1-page covering letter, to workwithus@advice-cloud.co.uk, no later than end of day Monday 13th June.
   1. Please do not send us your CV.
   2. In your covering letter, we’d love to hear about what has drawn you to the role, and your aspirations. Could you also briefly tell us about something that you have done, or are planning to do (e.g. through your work, while studying, or in your spare time) that contributes to social or environmental good?

Selection process:

1. Your scenario questions will be anonymised and reviewed by our Client Delivery Team.
2. The 3 top scoring applicants will be asked to attend an interview on Friday 17th June, at which point your covering letter will be provided to the Client Delivery Team, who will conduct the interview over Microsoft Teams (or another platform if necessary).
3. We will aim to inform the successful candidate on or before Wednesday 22nd June.

We look forward to hearing from you!