FAQs

Part-time roles

1. We’re a start-up and need to hire quickly. How fast can you move?

   We can move fast. We prefer to meet you in person to get to know your personality and to understand your start-up culture. Once you brief us on the role we will be able to let you know if we have met any suitable candidates. We can send you candidate profiles within a few days and set up interviews for you to meet candidates as soon as you can manage. Our fastest turnaround from meeting the start-up client, to the candidate starting work, was two weeks.
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2. Can you help companies find candidates in any function?

   We are strong in all functions except IT and legal roles.
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3. Are roles permanent or short-term?

   Nearly all roles are permanent; the start-ups are looking for people who want to be part of the team long-term. We don’t have any short-term projects or consulting roles for candidates.
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Job-sharing

1. What is job-sharing?

   A full time role for one person is replaced by two part-time roles carried out by two people with complementary experience and skills required for the role. The two job-sharers overlap for half a day a week to hand over to their partner. The job-shares are created by dividing the medium to long-term objectives of the full-time role between the two roles.
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2. How does job-sharing work in practice?

   Job-sharer 1 is already working at the company. Job-sharer 2 is recruited through Eat Your Cake. One job-sharer works 3 days, the other 2.5 days. You choose a day to both be in the office for a half day to do your handover.

   The job-shares are created based on the medium to long-term objectives of the previous full time role. You both need to decide and agree on the objectives of your combined job-share. You decide the strategy for the role jointly. Then you take responsibility for your part of the role. You should not divide tasks in half between you. Think of your job-share roles as two long-term parallel roles and your partner as the best informed person about your work, besides you.

   You need to keep your job-share partner well informed about your half of the role so he/she can step in for you confidently on the days you are away. Your partner can take part in meetings with colleagues and external partners/clients and answer questions on your behalf.

   You will need to agree on the best way of documenting progress in your roles so your partner can pick up the reins easily in your absence, when needed. You will also need to decide on the best way to conduct your handovers.

   Eat Your Cake will advise and support you both on all the points above. We recognise that there are differing work and communication styles. This is why the job-sharers make the final decisions about how to make their job-share a resounding success.
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3. How do I know if I would be a good job-share partner?
   • You need to be a team player at heart
   • You and your job-share partner need to take joint responsibility for your role and to support one another
   • You need to have good written and verbal communication skills, be organised and be reliable
   • You have to be a little giving to accommodate the working style of your job-share partner
   • It helps enormously to know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses and

   At Eat Your Cake we will help you find out if job-sharing is for you.
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4. What kinds of roles would suit a job-share?

   Job-sharing is suited to proactive roles in industry in any function. The role needs to have medium to long-term objectives to be appropriate for a job-share. If you have control over how you spend time in your job, it can be probably be done as a job-share.

   Roles where it’s very hard to make job-sharing work are those where client demands are always looming large and there’s no respite from work plus you’re always using your Blackberry (on evenings and weekends). If your role involves lots of fire fighting and reacting to crises, forget about job-sharing. A role which means you are often part of a big transaction, involving multiple parties and with time pressure, is OUT.
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5. How can I move to job-sharing from my current full time role?

   Speak to your HR department and refer them to Eat Your Cake via this website. Eat Your Cake can work with your company’s HR team to help them introduce job-sharing in your current full time role.
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6. What is your unique selling point?

   Our unique selling point is that we invest the time that is really required to make job-sharing a successful initiative for your company. Investing time and energy in understanding your people and our candidates is what counts. Time to get to know personalities, experience and what makes someone tick. We are intrigued by people and their characteristics. We hand-select the candidates for your company.

   We spend the time to get to know your employees and our job-share candidates; personality, skills, career experience, strengths and weaknesses and what really motivates the individual and makes them perform at their best and worst. We do our utmost to bring about optimal job-share matches.

   We have a passion for seeing people have their cake and eat it, knowing this is making an important difference to a changing workplace and home life. Our enthusiasm and belief in what we do should be infectious. See what you think when we meet in person.
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7. What are the benefits of offering job-sharing for a company?
   • Job-sharing helps you retain valuable professional staff and directly saves you recruitment and re-training expenses
   • 30% increase in employee productivity with two job-sharers vs. one full time employee
   • Higher employee retention through improved employee loyalty and increased goodwill
   • Improves probability of higher numbers of female senior managers
   • Opens up the talent pool for your recruitment needs
   • Two brains vs. one applied to an area of the business
   • Better holiday and maternity cover
   • Positive PR opportunity for the company

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8. How long does it take to get started?

   Job-share candidates – send your CV to Eat Your Cake and we will arrange to meet you within a few days.

   Companies
   Here’s an outline of how we will work with you after an initial meeting to understand your needs.

   Week 1 & 2:
   We will ensure that we fully understand your culture when putting forth candidates as job-sharers. We will also understand the motivations, personality and working style of your employee to find the best possible fit.

   Week 3:
   We will craft two roles from the current full-time role and gain agreement on the new roles from the line manager of the job-sharers.

   Week 5:
   The next step is to present several candidates from the Eat Your Cake database for your employee and their line manager to meet and then select the right person.

   Week 6 & 7:
   You interview the candidates and make an offer to a candidate.

   Week 8:
   We provide advice on how to make the job-share function with maximum success.

   Months 1-3 of actual job-share:
   We follow up with your job-sharers and their line manager in the first three months of the job-share to keep it on track.
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