Essex CareerHub - Terms & Conditions of Use 

The Essex CareerHub Job Board is provided by the University of Essex Student Development Team (SDT) as a free service to enable employers to promote their opportunities to our students and recent graduates.

Please read the following terms and conditions of use and guidelines before placing an advertisement. The placement of an advert on Essex CareerHub job board will be deemed acceptance of and agreement to these Terms & Conditions of use and guidelines.


The University of Essex only accepts opportunity adverts from Companies House Registered Companies, UK Registered Charities and organisations on the following terms and conditions:

The SDT has a duty to establish that organisations registering with Essex CareerHub are legitimate companies offering genuine work opportunities for our students and graduates. We reserve the right to refuse to publish an opportunity should we be unable to obtain sufficient information from the advertiser to satisfy this requirement. (For example if we are unable to find the company registered, there is no website address, the contact email is a private email, there is no landline number for the business etc.)

In addition the more information you can provide about the company and the opportunity the more applications you are likely to attract.

You should clearly detail the nature of the work offered and specify any necessary skills required; please include details about the terms of the employment, including the location of the work, proposed wages, and outline any other employee benefits. You should also state the number and distribution of hours to be worked. 

Employers must ensure that all advertisements are fully compliant with current employment legislation. This includes but is not limited to:

- Compliance with legislation against discrimination in employment on basis of protected characteristics. 

The Equality Act 2010 The Equality Act 2010 (the Act) protects people from discrimination related to ‘protected characteristics’. The protected characteristics included in the Act are: 

  • Age 
  • Disability 
  • Gender reassignment 
  • Marriage and civil partnership 
  • Pregnancy and maternity 
  • Race (includes colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins) 
  • Religion or belief (includes lack of religion or belief) 
  • Sex 
  • Sexual orientation 

Further information on avoiding discrimination can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-discrimination

- Compliance with National Minimum/Living Wage Legislation

Further information on this can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates


The following types of opportunities cannot be advertised on Essex CareerHub:

  • vacancies that pay below the adult national minimum/living wage.*
  • vacancies that pay commission only.
  • vacancies that require an individual to be self-employed or freelance.
  • vacancies where students are employed by a private individual or household. 
  • vacancies where students would be required to work in an individual's home apart from where this is managed by an employment agency.
  • vacancies where there is any form of cost, fee or payment required.
  • unpaid vacancies (except for from UK registered charities offering genuine volunteering opportunities) or where there is genuine exemption from paying the national minimum wage/national living wage.*
  • international unpaid volunteering where participants are required to pay fees or raise funds.
  • international opportunities that are unpaid or have upfront costs and fees.
  • We reserve the right to refuse any opportunities at our sole discretion.

*If you are stating the hourly rate based at National Minimum/Living Wage it must be up to the maximum Living Wage rate for age 22+ to avoid age discrimination.


The SDT at the University of Essex asserts full editorial control over the vacancies submitted to Essex CareerHub and reserves the right to refuse to advertise a vacancy without providing a specific reason.


When recruiting current students the employer should be mindful of students' study obligations and should bear these in mind when negotiating hours of work.

As part of a University-wide policy, the SDT do not encourage the advertisement of part-time jobs for students that require them to regularly work more than 20 hours a week during term time. This is because we do not want students' work to interfere with their studies.

The SDT reserves the right not to advertise vacancies it considers unsuitable for students and reserves the right to refuse to advertise further vacancies from any company which breaches any of the above terms.


Publication of your opportunity

All opportunities submitted via this site are reviewed by a member of the Industry Engagement and Placements Team before publication. We aim to approve all vacancies if possible the same day (working day) but exceptionally within three working days (working days are Monday to Friday 9am-5pm).

Please provide full contact details including postal address, email address and phone number. Please also provide a valid company website. You can specify admin only contact details and student application details with your vacancy profile.

Vacancies are listed on a closed access website - i.e. are accessible only by University of Essex students and recent graduates. You are able to update your vacancy listings at any time via the Essex CareersHub change request facility.


Publication of your vacancy will be delayed where the following is not clear:

  • That your vacancy is paid to at least national minimum/living wage.

Whilst it is acceptable to write "competitive" we have a duty of care to ensure your advertisement meets or exceeds National Minimum Wage - if you do not wish to publish the actual salary please can you add in brackets(Meets or exceeds NMW/NLW) to confirm that your opportunity complies with Legislation

Positions that say £ per shift will need to clearly outline the maximum hours to be worked in that shift so that NM/LW can be calculated as being met.

  • The employment status. It must be clear whether the person will be employed or self-employed - we do not advertise self-employed positions on EssexCareerHub. 
  • Whether there are any upfront payments or fees required - these must be clearly stated - opportunities which require upfront payments from students (fees etc.) cannot be advertised on Essex CareerHub


Note to recruitment agencies

The SDT will only post adverts for specific vacancies. We do not run generic adverts for recruitment agencies. If you wish to advertise a vacancy on behalf of the client you must select that you are an agent for the client and add the clients name - this is for our internal information only - make sure you tick to select to have this information hidden from the published advertisement.

 

Unpaid Internships and Work Experience

The University of Essex job board policy is that we do not manage or advertise unpaid extra-curricular internships, jobs or placements of any kind or sites that do, except for genuine volunteering opportunities offered by a registered UK charity. (Extra-curricular means that the placement is not an accredited part of/is outside the student's degree course).

We are only willing to promote internships and work opportunities that comply with UK legislation on National Minimum/Living Wage.

Our policy on unpaid internships is also underpinned by the following key principles:

  • Most unpaid extra-curricular internships (i.e. outside of the students' course) and unpaid work opportunities are illegal as they breach National Minimum/Living Wage legislation.
  • All internships and work opportunities promoted by the University of Essex should be accessible to all our students and graduates, including those unable to afford to work for free.
  • Unpaid internships and opportunities to gain experience can further disadvantage and therefore discriminate against already economically disadvantaged students who are unable to work for nothing providing inequality of opportunity to our students and graduates.
  • By restricting opportunities to those that can afford to work for free, an employer is significantly restricting their recruitment marketplace and their access to many talented individuals and holding back those who are unable to take up such opportunities.

As a University, we do not want to encourage an internship and work experience culture that disadvantages a large percentage of students and graduates and contradicts our widening participation agenda.

We do recognise that unpaid opportunities exist, and can provide useful experience, we also know that they are common in many industries, but where students are doing work we believe they should be paid and as a University service we are choosing to make a stand against the culture of unpaid internships and work experience in the UK so that interns are no longer forced to see an ‘opportunity’ to work for free as a ‘great opportunity’.

Interns have been able to claim back pay in the courts where they have completed an internship, or other period of unpaid work and have been able to prove they met the definition of “worker” status as defined under National Minimum/Living Wage Legislation – in addition you may not be aware that by offering something in return i.e. references, lunch, experience etc. you are even more likely to be in breach of this legislation – ironic though it may seem - please do seek legal advice to ensure you are not inadvertently breaking the law.

 

Year Out/ Sandwich /Industrial Placements

Please note that schools and departments within the University may have additional criteria for placement opportunity providers, especially those offering 12-month placements as a year out; an approval of a placement opportunity for advertisement on Essex CareerHub does not infer an endorsement of the full criteria a school or department may require. Please ensure you discuss this with students prior to making a recruitment decision, or contact the relevant department for guidance.

 

Feedback

Your feedback is crucial to the continued provision of this free service. We also like to hear about any University of Essex students and graduates introduced to you and subsequently placed within your organisation via Essex CareerHub.

You can email us directly at: employerlink@essex.ac.uk. 


Recruiting through the Essex CareerHub Job Board

The SDT accepts no liability in relation to the introduction and subsequent employment of candidates for employment via Essex CareerHub. The University shall bear no liability for loss, damage or delay whatsoever arising in the performance of these services and in particular caused by circumstances beyond its control (of whatsoever kind).

Applications made by students and graduates to employer vacancies are confidential and under data protection the University does not have automatic right to know that a student or graduate has applied for any position - therefore we are unfortunately not able to pass on communications or messages to the student or graduate on behalf of the employer if they are unable to reach them for whatever reason (unless the student has given us express permission to do so).

The employer shall independently satisfy themselves as to the suitability of any employee and shall be responsible for taking up any references and appropriate checks - such at Right to Work checks - for the applicant should they so wish before engaging the student or graduate

Contracts of employment are between the student or graduate and the employer. It is the duty of the employer to meet all statutory legal requirements with regard to students and graduates employed via this jobs board.

Further information on employing people can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/browse/employing-people

Employers should treat all candidates the same and assess their applications on merits and suitability for the job alone. It is the responsibility of the employer to let all candidates know the result of an application as soon as possible.

In order to fulfil your obligations as an employer, we suggest that you provide information to all candidates called for interview of the documentation that you require to assess eligibility to work in the UK. You should also consider giving potential employees the option of indicating if they will need assistance from your company in applying for immigration permission to work in the UK.


Collection and use of your data

If you submit job vacancy details online, you will be asked to provide your contact data. Please note that in using this service you agree that your contact data will be stored within the Essex CareerHub online database. 

We never sell, rent or share any of the information we collect by this method with any third party outside of the University. 

Your contact data will be used to administrate the job board, and we may contact you as necessary using this data for the purpose of administrating the job board.

In addition we may use any information you provide to aid our strategic development, inform our marketing activity and audit usage of our job board. 

For full details see our Privacy Notice here: 

 https://careerhub.essex.ac.uk/Employers/Privacy_No...

For more information contact us: employerlink@essex.ac.uk