Careers With Frontline
Frontline is a charity with a focus on social work for children and families. It works to improve social work in the UK by training staff to empower the people that need support. Frontline has worked with 98,000 families through a variety of support programmes and creating a community.
At least half a million children in the UK don’t have a stable home environment and need the support of social workers to survive. Frontline recruits passionate individuals who prove themselves through hands-on experience and hard work, in order to transform the lives of some of the UK’s most disadvantaged children.
Types Of Frontline Jobs
The charity works by offering training and development opportunities for social workers, social work managers, and senior leaders.
There are also a range of other career opportunities for other roles required to keep the charity running in areas such as operations, digital learning, fundraising, social media, and public affairs.
How To Get A Job At The Frontline
Frontline provides a lot of great recruitment tips, which guide you through what is looked for in an application and how to make yourself stand out during the process. You should make sure that you meet the entry requirements and have done plenty of research on the role to show that you are committed to the industry.
The current vacancies page shows all available opportunities across the country - there are offices in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newcastle. This includes the graduate and internship programmes for charity and recruitment.
Frontline Application Process
Due to the nature of social work and Frontline's aims to revolutionise the sector, there are a lot of steps in the application process to ensure they hire the right people. As well as the educational requirements, there are multiple selection assessments, including aptitude tests and background checks.
Frontline Self Selection Quiz
The self-selection quiz is an opportunity for you to get to know what it might be like as a social worker. The quiz is structured much like a situational judgement test and presents you with typical scenarios you may find yourself faced with on the job, then asks you to choose which reaction you are most likely to have.
This is not a formal assessment and should not deter you from going forward with your application, but it is a useful tool to gain some insight into working life.
Frontline Application Form
On the application form, you will have to input your educational background to ensure that you meet the minimum requirements. Then there are two competencies based questions. Frontline is looking for you to demonstrate your experience; commitment to working with children and families; and your understanding of Frontline's mission and ethos.
Frontline Online Aptitude Tests
As soon as you submit your application, you will be invited to complete two aptitude tests. The two tests are a verbal reasoning and situational judgement test.
Frontline Verbal Reasoning Test
A verbal reasoning test, which demonstrates your ability to process complex information. These tests assess your reading and communication skills by asking you to read large blocks of text and filtering out key information, which is an important part of social work.
Frontline Situational Judgement Test
A situational judgement test, which shows how you might respond to certain situations. Similar to the self-selection quiz, you will be presented with different case studies and example workplace scenarios, then asked to choose a response that most closely reflects your own. This shows employers your personality and understanding of what professional conduct is in this sector.
Frontline Video Interview
The next stage of the recruitment process is a video interview. This is an asynchronous interview, meaning that you will not speak with anyone, but record your responses on a remote interviewing platform.
During this interview, you will be asked questions about your motivations, leadership qualities, and experience of working with people. It is your chance to really show why you want to work with Frontline and how you embody their values and goals.
Frontline Assessment Centre
The assessment centre is the final stage of the application process. These typically take half a day to complete and run from September-January, either at the London office or online.
During the assessment centre you will be asked to complete five activities including a written exercise, competency-based interview, group activity, role-play and final interview.
Frontline Written exercise
For the first part of the assessment centre you will have to write a mock report from a fictional brief and evaluation.
Frontline Conversation With A Care-experienced Young Person
For the second part of the assessment centre you will have a brief, competency-based interview with a young care leaver. This will assess how you communicate and establish rapport with clients.
Frontline Group Activity
The third part of the assessment centre involves a mock unit meeting, during which you discuss cases and must demonstrate your ability to work well within a team.
Frontline Role-play
The fourth part of the assessment simulates a home visit in a typical workplace scenario. You will be paired with an actor, who will play the part of a family member and you will have to role-play a visit regarding the information you were given beforehand.
Frontline Interview
The final part of the assessment centre is a competency-based interview with a qualified social worker. This will demonstrate why you want to be a social worker and what makes you a good fit for the role.
Frontline Pre-employment Checks
Pre-employment checks are used to verify information about you that allows you to be a social worker. This includes your educational qualifications, criminal background, right to work status, and references.
Tips To Get Hired At Frontline
Read Up On The Frontline Competencies
Frontline provides lots of resources on what kind of person would be right for the programmes and social work in general. The essential competencies show what skills you need, but also tell you a lot about the kind of work you will be doing and if it's right for you.
Ensure This Is The Right Job And Career
You can take the self-selection quiz on Frontline's website to see how well matched you are for a career in social work. However, the best way to know what is right for you is to try and get varied work experience and take on lots of volunteer placements for hands-on experience.
Practice Frontline Aptitude Tests
The aptitude tests are an important part of the screening process as they help shortlist a high percentage of applicants early on. Therefore, doing practice tests is the best way to ensure that you will do your best and have a better chance of scoring highly enough.
Consider The Type Of Leadership Qualities Required at Frontline
If you are applying for Frontline, particularly the Firstline and Headline programmes, then you should get to know the leadership qualities expected by Frontline. Frontline expects you to be a leader in the community, which means encouraging growth, empowering families, and supporting change through your influence.
