Decisions, decisions – with just 48 hours to go, you will soon be deciding which political party to vote for in the election. Amongst many of the employment issues open for debate, each party has different views on the upcoming National Insurance rise, how they would maintain UK job security and how they would create jobs over the next 5 years. Like in politics, all of us have many things to consider when it comes to job hunting too. In my experience, no one factor comes out as a clear winner when I ask people what criteria they use for their job search. The most common questions I find people ask themselves are:

• How long will the commute be from home ? 
• Does it give me the right next step on the career ladder ? 
• What are the hours of work ? 
• Does the position require International travel, and how much ? 
• Does the company offer a flexible working pattern ? 
• Is the salary and benefits package comparable or ideally higher to what I currently earn ? 
• Is the company in a sector I understand ?
• How big is the company, is it a recognisable brand ?

This blog is going to focus on the last question, and it will really help those who have decided their next role needs to be in a large UK blue-chip company, the type of business that employs thousands of people worldwide and has a highly recognisable brand.

From a recruitment perspective, these global giants use a variety of techniques to source candidates for roles. Whilst many are likely to operate PSLs (Preferred Supplier Listings) with both generalist and specialist recruitment agencies (read our E-books for further explanation), many are also using a Direct Recruitment Model (DRM). This is where they employ In-house recruiters, usually with an agency background in a specialist field, who are tasked with filling every role the company has, whether easy or hard to fill, temporary or permanent, and UK-based or International.

One distinct advantage of being a global company is that millions of people have heard of their name – who doesn’t know of Vodafone, Barclays and Tesco for example. As part of this DRM, they can use this brand awareness to their advantage, and for many years now have been using a careers link on their main website where you can search on roles by specific job category, geographical location and job type. I don’t believe you will get the same responsiveness or service that you would from a good relationship-driven recruitment agency, or a large choice of jobs (you are only looking at one company site after all).

However, it would be a shame not to use such sites if you are keen to find your next role in an International corporate business, and you use this approach alongside the many others we talk about in our E-book. As a starting point to help you, I have listed below direct links to the Largest 30 Listed companies here in the UK by turnover, and the link will take you direct to their career / job page where you can search at your leisure for open job vacancies. If you apply online, you should hopefully get an automated response thanking you for your application, but if you can, I would also recommend you take a note of the contact name attached to the job posting. I would advise you contact them directly by phone if you have not heard anything in say 10 working days, as you will need to know where you stand with your application, particularly if you have other interviews going on too.

Good luck with it, and do let me know how you get on.

Leslie Fearn

Career Websites for the Largest 30 FTSE-listed UK Companies

Anglo American

Aviva

AstraZeneca

Barclays Bank

BAE Systems

BG Group

BHP Billiton

BP

British American Tobacco

Cadbury Plc

Centrica

Diageo

ENRC

GlaxoSmithKline

HSBC

Imperial Tobacco Group

Lloyds Banking Group

National Grid

Prudential

Reckitt Benckiser

Rio Tinto Group

Royal Bank of Scotland

Royal Dutch Shell

SABMiller

Scottish and Southern Energy

Standard Chartered

Tesco

Unilever

Vodafone Group

Xstrata