Careers

Your CV and covering letter are qualifying filters and nothing more. Of the two, your CV is way less important. Your covering letter, however, should tell us:

• who you are
• what you are about, both in and out of work
• what lights your fire
• what you detest doing
• what your long-term ambitions are and how Arbtech aligns with that
• and finally, present a summary of your strengths and weaknesses (along with a note about how you compensate for those weaknesses)

We've taken the time to spell all this out for you, so don't miss anything out. Pro tip: your standard of written English is being assessed here, so make sure it's flawless.

If successful, we'll invite you for a technical interview at Head Office (or via Zoom, if you live outside of the northwest) with a senior or principal consultant, to feel out whether you can walk the talk. This is also a great opportunity for you to ask arbtechers what it’s really like to work here and get answers to questions that under normal interview circumstances, you might feel uncomfortable asking a senior manager or business owner.

We have a culture of truth at arbtech, so you can ask anything you want.

And here, anything means anything.

Pro tip: Expect to be asked a lot of questions about your experience and to provide examples of your recent work (you can redact client details, but you must be able to demonstrate the competences you claim). Don't embellish your talents. You'll see why in stage 4.

If you made it this far, well done. You only have two hurdles left...

The first hurdle is a 'cultural fit' interview with Robert Oates (again at Head Office, or via Zoom), where you can both talk about what makes you happy and motivated, why you want to come to join arbtech, what our culture and mission is, and what would enable us to keep you here for the long-long-term.

At this point you'll be expected to have had a good look at our website and social channels and asked enough questions in your first interview to know a little bit about the company. If you're not a graduate, expect questions like, "What do you think is the number one opportunity we're missing?""

This stage is rooted in the thesis that you can train skills, but you can't train personality. We want people to be as comfortable being 'themselves' in work as much as they are out of it, because authenticity at work allows people to build meaningful relationships with one another and become friends.

Pro tip: Be yourself. When we ask you about long-term ambitions, just be honest. If you want to run a bakery, be an astronaut, are studying law at night school or want to start a competitor to arbtech down the line, that’s all fine. If we think you’re the right fit for our culture, then it won't affect our decision at all. In fact, if we are a good fit for each other, when the time comes, we'll help you along your way.

Pass that, and you're almost in.

Finally, there will be a practical assessment (aka 'the live test') for most graduate and consultant ecologist/arboriculturist roles. Here, we get creative and set you a task that ostensibly you should be able to complete with ease. You might be asked to survey a paying client’s site and report to us with a super-tight deadline (normally; 1700hrs, same day), so we can see how you operate under pressure. Be aware though, that we don't just look at your report. We look at your attitude, your communications both internal and with the client, and little things, like can you turn up to the right place at the right time with the right kit? A remarkable percentage of people fail here, so now is not the time to take your foot off the gas.

Pro tip: This is a basic test of your competence and suitability. It challenges you to organise yourself and be self-disciplined, communicative, and punctual. If you’ve got this far, it's because we want you, so don’t screw it up by being late, forgetting equipment or not proofreading your work before submission.

Nota bene: we also survey the site ourselves. This means good or bad, your report and site notes won’t ever be seen or used by the client. This also means we have a nice benchmark for comparison.

If you ace this, we'll make you an offer. Good luck!

Prior to starting, we'll ask you to complete some forms and supply us with some payroll information. We'll set you up on all our systems (you can do this while working notice, as we won’t ask you to actually do any work) and introduce you to the team. Concurrently, we’ll organise all your survey kit, office stuff, and your PPE and apparel, along with a few goodies. We also need you to get some mandatory online H&S training out of the way, and will ask you to book any courses (we pay, don't worry) or otherwise things we need or organise to deploy you to sites e.g., first aid, DBS check, CSCS card, etc.

Pro tip: get well ahead of the game so that your first week can run as smoothly as possible.

Week one will normally be a placement in Chester for a few days, where you can meet the head office team, management, and some of the local consultants.

Regardless of seniority or the type of role, we normally buddy you with a consultant and you'll be sent out on site each day to understand the survey process (if non-technical staff) get used to the Arbtech way of doing things (if consultancy). This is great opportunity to share your knowledge and ideas about how we can improve, so even if it's your first day, don't be shy.

Back at the office, you'll have sit down sessions with our finance manager, who will take you through some HR related stuff like booking holiday, claiming expenses, setting up your company credit card and talk about payroll; and the HQ admin team, who will walk you through our online CRM and project management systems, so that your admin is undertaken in line with the way the company works.

If you want to know what it's like to apply and work here, we strongly recommend watching James Fielding's video series on his journey into ecology.

Pro tip: ask questions and take notes! It's a pretty full-on few days.

Probation is 12 months, with a 6-month mid-term review.

Unless you're a manager.

Then it's two years.

Your first month is survey after survey after survey. It really is the deep end. You have all the support you could ever want or need from colleagues in your discipline team, management, and the staff at HQ – but it's still hectic.

The idea here is to force you to get into a routine that is stable and will stand the test of time. Our experience is that if you start out easy and build up the pressure gradually, people don't develop the discipline and organisational skills necessary to work at full clip… and tend to wrap up themselves in a world of hurt without speaking up about it until it's too late. Better to go out of the gate fast and then ramp it down a bit, than let a new recruit think they are doing great and then suddenly have a mountain of reports to write and not have developed the skills to deal with it/feel embarrassed to ask for help, because up to now they've been "crushing it".

Either way, there are very few perks that we keep back until you've passed probation, so other than the fact you have full reviews in 12 months, it's business as usual from day 1.

If you have any more questions about recruitment and selection, drop us an email: [email protected] and we'll be happy to discuss them.

Otherwise, see our current vacancies here.