The Social Investment Consultancy (TSIC) Career Opportunities: Apply!!!
We are always interested in meeting talented, passionate people that want to work with us, and so we keep our recruitment open on a rolling basis, and will offer roles to those who we would like to work with, as applications come through.
If you are interested in working with TSIC, we encourage you to apply at any time, using the process below.
About TSIC
The Social Investment Consultancy (TSIC) is an international social impact consultancy dedicated to helping foundations, social enterprises, corporates and charities maximise their social impact. We work with big and small organisations across the UK and around the globe, with our expertise in impact evaluation, social investment, diversity and inclusion, and income generation strategies. We have offices in London, Hong Kong, Accra and Singapore, and experience delivering projects in over 30 countries.
Over the past years, we have been pushing the agenda around diversity in the social investment sector and introduced innovative methodologies and toolkits, such as USERS: Putting users’ voices at the heart of Evaluation and The Diversity Forum Toolkit: Practical resources.
We build our organisation with and around our people, who are our most valuable asset. In 2021, TSIC was no. 6 in Escape the City’s list of best companies to escape to, among the 100 organisations that are leading the way in putting their people and our planet first – and we keep evolving to be an equitable and inclusive place where people feel proud to work. We are a founding B Corp in the UK and hold ourselves to high environmental, social and governance standards.
It’s a particularly exciting time to join the organisation (we know that most job descriptions say that, but it actually is!) – we’re growing more than ever before, and we’re exploring innovative new business models for our global organisation. Bringing about a more equitable world means we have to disrupt the status quo, and we want to model new ways of doing things, both developing new methodologies and approaches to our consultancy work, and building a more equitable, non-hierarchical organisation at TSIC.
So, anyone that joins us needs to be comfortable working in a changing, complex, forward-thinking environment that’s fast-paced. You’ll need to be happy taking initiative and working autonomously, but this means you’ll enjoy flexibility and the opportunity to deliver exciting and strategic work creatively.
We have four values that we live by in our work:
- Thought-provoking and challenging Whilst we are client-focused we maintain an independent perspective, prompting questions that challenge conventional thinking. We want to be a breath of fresh air for our clients. Often ahead of the curve we pursue system-changing solutions.
- Honesty and humility We are authentic and live our truth, acting with integrity. We are not afraid to speak truth to power but we are also not afraid to admit our own mistakes and learn.
- Impact over profit We believe that profits go hand in hand with impact, but if we have to choose, we will always prioritise impact over profits. Informed by our team’s deep commitment to and experience in social change, we always want to do the right thing.
- Warmth We build long-lasting relationships with our clients and collaborators based on being kind, positive, supportive and having shared visions and values.
Our roles and salary structures
Our largest team is in London, with a co-working space and regular team days and activities. If you’re based in the UK, our working week is 37.5 hours, and we offer 30 days annual leave per year including bank holidays, increasing by 1 day for each year of service, up to 33 days. We are always open to discussing adaptations to roles, whether this be part-time roles, job shares, tailored role descriptions or equitable adjustments.
We have colleagues based across our global partners, and in other countries. Your contractual arrangements will be dependent on your country location, role and individual circumstances, and we will discuss the possibilities with you during the interview process.
Our roles and salary structures are summarised below – click here for an overview of key responsibilities and success criteria at each role level.
Analyst
£30,000 FTE starting salary for UK based roles, or equitable equivalent for globally based roles. Each global partner has their own remuneration approaches – we offer potential 9% annual salary increases and 10% profit share across our UK team.
Analysts at TSIC provide support across our consultancy projects, for example conducting desk research and report drafting, and when confident in the role, external facing work such as conducting interviews and client presentations. They take part in internal meetings and activities to contribute to our overall strategy and business plan, and have time to spend on their own learning, development, innovation, wellbeing and pro bono work.
Experience
Analysts at TSIC will have strong research and analysis skills, and comfortable working across a wide range of consultancy projects with a varied workload. With our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we want the sector to better reflect and understand the people it sets out to serve. We believe that this change needs to start within our own team. We are looking for self-starting and curious minds with a strong interest in the social sector and social enterprises. We are particularly keen to interview candidates from a wide range of backgrounds and with lived experience of social issues, and we particularly value lived and personal experience as well as professional experience. We don’t expect you to have an academic background, experience in a consultancy environment or with our service offerings. However, we expect you to have a commitment to developing your skills and expertise across our work, and a can-do attitude.
Consultant or Researcher
£33,000-£36,000 FTE starting salary depending on experience for UK based roles, or equitable equivalent for globally based roles. Each global partner has their own remuneration approaches – we offer potential 9% annual salary increases and 10% profit share across our UK team.
Consultants at TSIC will lead or co-lead their own consultancy projects, leading on project management and client engagement to ensure successful delivery. They will also contribute to ongoing business development through bid writing and pitching, and will take ownership of some organisational development areas to contribute to our overall strategy and business plan. They have time to spend on their own learning, development, innovation, wellbeing and pro bono work, and support others in doing so also.
Researchers at TSIC are specialist roles similar to Consultants, but focusing on specific areas of expertise. They may take on less broad organisational responsibilities, and instead focus on developing our offers and expertise in particular areas.
Experience
Consultants and Researchers at TSIC will have the experience to lead projects across more than one of our service offerings, usually with particular expertise in one or more. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need experience in a consultancy environment or an academic background, but you will need solid project management and people skills, research and analysis abilities, an ability to problem solve, and ability to manage ambiguity in a fast paced and ever-changing working environment.
Consultants at TSIC tend to be more generalist roles that will deliver across multiple service offerings, whilst Researchers will provide deeper expertise in one or more research topic area or service offering, usually with a relevant academic background.
Senior Consultant or Senior Researcher
£40,000-£45,000 FTE starting salary for Senior Consultant or £38,000-£40,000 FTE starting salary for Senior Researcher for UK based roles, or equitable equivalent for globally based roles. Each global partner has their own remuneration approaches – we offer potential 9% annual salary increases and 10% profit share across our UK team.
Senior Consultants and Senior Researchers at TSIC lead large or strategically important consultancy projects, alongside taking on responsibility for business development and income generation. They will have internal leadership responsibilities and be involved in strategy development and business planning. They have time to spend on their own learning, development, innovation, wellbeing and pro bono work, and support others in doing so also.
Senior Consultants take on more senior responsibility within the business and across the team, whereas Senior Researchers take on more senior responsibility across specialism areas and service offerings.
Experience
Senior Consultants and Researchers at TSIC will have strong leadership and project management experience, with deep expertise in one or more of our service offerings, and a proven track record of business development and income generation. They will also be comfortable taking on senior responsibilities within the business.
Senior Consultants at TSIC tend to be more generalist roles that will deliver across multiple service offerings, whilst Senior Researchers will provide deeper expertise in one or more research topic area or service offering, usually with a relevant academic background.
Skills, experience and commitments across all our consultancy work
We’ve learnt a lot and spoken a lot over the years about the skills, experience and commitments needed for working in a social impact consultancy. Some of these we’ll expect effective practice from you on from day one (e.g. diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, project management), while some of these you may develop your skills in as you work with us, especially if you’re starting at a more junior level. Consultancy isn’t for everyone, so we encourage you to reflect on whether the below working environment sounds right for you.
Skills
- Our consultancy services – you have an understanding of the types of consultancy services we offer, with experience and specialisms in more senior roles.
- Project and client management – you have good organisational skills and you have experience working on complex projects, involving a wide range of stakeholders. You have an understanding of working with clients, especially in the social sector. You have experience in publishing written outputs and in disseminating the findings. You understand what quality assurance for clients entail.
- Data analysis and research – you have solid analytical skills and are able to conduct quantitative and qualitative research independently. This includes, but is not limited to: (1) qualitative data gathering through interviews or focus groups; (2) questionnaire design; (3) different approached to coding qualitative data; (4) quantitative data analysis, data visualisation and a good understanding of statistical methods. You can produce accurate and high-quality outputs in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You are confident in developing research plans in both rigorous and innovative manners. You are interested in emerging trends in research and are familiar with research ethics.
- Problem solving – you embrace different ways of solving a problem and are able to suggest creative solutions to complex problems. You can adapt ways of solving problems according to the changing environment.
- Managing ambiguity – you can cope with ambiguity and uncertainty when the information you have is not the whole picture. You can grow from your hypothesis and adapt to changes.
- Communication and stakeholder management – you have excellent writing, listening, and interpersonal skills, including report writing, data visualisation, interview scripting and presentations, to engage effectively with a range of stakeholders.
Experience
- Fast-paced environment – you can thrive in a fast-paced environment and have experience working in organisations/teams with a nimble culture. Your team members will support you in managing your workload and prioritising tasks, but you need to be able to juggle multiple projects (expect to be working on three to six projects in parallel). You are happy to work within resource constraints.
- Autonomy and independence – you’re happy taking initiative and working autonomously, but this means you’ll enjoy flexibility and the opportunity deliver exciting and strategic work creatively.
- Asking questions and creating space – you are comfortable always asking questions and challenging the status quo where it needs it, including allowing space for difficult conversations when needed.
- Frontline and/or lived experience – you have worked or volunteered with charities, social enterprises, or social-impact projects and/or have lived experience of using charitable organisations’ services.
Commitments
- Diversity, equity, inclusion, intersectionality and anti-racism – you ensure consistent learning and reflective practice in your own work, especially in areas you may hold privilege in. You commit to taking trauma-informed approaches in your research work.
- Open-minded fast learner – you are willing to learn our different areas of work and comfortable to take on constructive feedback.
- Reliable team-player and team leader – you can be relied upon and collaborate with colleagues to deliver work in efficient and thoughtful manner, for both client work and internal initiatives. At more senior levels, you will have experience leading project or research teams and are able to inspire and support your team members.
- Driven change-maker – you are passionate about social change and diversity, equity and inclusion. You have views about the current landscape for research and evaluation and you are passionate about changing it for the better.
What you’ll get from working at TSIC
- We are a diversity, equity and inclusion centred organisation – we wouldn’t be able to do the work we do without a diverse team, and without us feeling we can be ourselves at work. We value lived and personal experience alongside professional experience when we’re recruiting new team members.
- We are a truly global team and our team members work remotely from wherever they are based and want, with an equitable global salary scale. We consider applications from anywhere globally. You will mainly be engaging with TSIC global partners in UK, Ghana, UAE, India, Hong Kong and Singapore time zones.
- Our largest team is in London, with a co-working space and regular team days and activities. We have colleagues based across our global partners, and in other countries. Your contractual arrangements will be dependent on your country location, role and individual circumstances, and we will discuss the possibilities with you during the interview process.
- Flexible working to us means not only location, but also flexibility in work hours – we want our team members to thrive not only at work, but in their lives. As a consultancy we do also need to be flexible to the needs of our clients, but everyone has the freedom to plan their flexible working approach around this.
- We also want to be social change agents outside of our core jobs – so if you work 3 days per week or more with us, you will have 3% of your time to dedicate to pro-bono work of your choosing.
- We are a learning organisation, and so if you work 3 days per week or more with us you will also have 5% of your time to dedicate to your own learning, development and wellbeing. We also have weekly learning sessions led by our talented colleagues, regular external training sessions and team days, and generous training budgets – which can be used for training, career coaching and much more.
- We take wellbeing seriously and we have a weekly wellbeing session on different topics from psychology and useful work practices to just playing games and having a chat together. Everyone also has a wellbeing allowance to spend on something they feel will improve their own wellbeing.
- We take a collaborative approach to our operational decision making, knowing that the best way we can build the organisation is by combining everyone’s ideas and expertise. We have a culture of freedom and responsibility, which means we all have freedom to approach our roles how we think best, whilst taking collecting responsibility for each other and the organisation.
- We care about our staff being able to pursue their own goals and dreams, so we have also offered sabbaticals and secondments.
- We are always open to discussing adaptations to roles, whether this be part-time roles, job shares, tailored role descriptions or equitable adjustments. If you’re interested in working with us but the role doesn’t quite meet your needs, just get in touch and we’ll see what might be possible.
How to apply
We are open to different approaches to applying to our roles, recognising one size will never fit all. We suggest one of the following, but get in touch at [email protected] if you have another suggestion.
Choose one of the following application approaches:
- Send a CV and short cover letter, no longer than one A4 page
- Send us a video (no longer than 5 mins) telling us about you and why you’d like to work for TSIC
- Send us your responses to these four open-ended questions (we ask for not more than 850 characters including spaces, but don’t worry if it goes over a little!)
- Tell us about the last project (e.g., at work, at university, in a volunteer position) that you worked on. What were the goals of the project? How did you go about conducting the project? What methodology did you use? How did you involve team members and other stakeholders in the research?
- Tell us about one of your latest achievements. Why are you proud of it? How did you achieve it? What challenges did you encounter and how did you overcome them?
- Tell us about your experience with the social sector, as a user, volunteer or employee. What knowledge and skills do you think you gain from the experience that will help you succeed in the position as an Analyst at TSIC?
- Share an area that you have been working on for your personal improvement or development (e.g., behavioural, technical or professional knowledge and skills). How did you identify it as an area for development? What have you been doing / done to improve this area? What has been the outcome?
Please send your application to [email protected], and include:
- What role you are applying for, and any specialisms you may have within it
- Where you are based, and whether you’d like to apply for a London hybrid (you will need to have permission to work in the UK) or Global remote role
- What languages you speak (you must be fluent in English to work at TSIC)
- Your availability – both in hours per week and potential start dates
- Any adjustments you would need for the recruitment process or the role, or any other requirements that we can support with
We have flexible recruitment processes and will tailor this to the candidates we receive, but the next steps could include an informal chat with one of our team, a formal interview, and/or a written task. If you apply at a time where we feel we wouldn’t have an immediate permanent position for you, there may be an option to explore short-term freelance work through our Associate position – we will let you know if we think there is scope for this.
Our recruitment process commitments
We are an equal opportunities employer, and we recognise and value lived and personal experience alongside professional experience when we’re recruiting for new team members.
We are Disability Confident Committed; we welcome and respond positively to applications from disabled people and will guarantee an interview to any candidate with a disability who meets the minimum requirements for the role. Please indicate this within your application if this applies to you – you do not need to share any details about your disability at this stage.
We will meet individual needs throughout the recruitment process, including making any appropriate reasonable adjustments during the interview stage and to our workplace if selected into post to support colleagues with any form of disability. As a Mindful Employer we recognise that in the UK, people experiencing mental ill health continue to report stigma and discrimination. We are committed to creating a supportive and open culture, where colleagues are able to talk about mental health. We are also committed to ensuring that our employees feel safe in disclosing any mental health conditions and confident that they will be properly supported and offered reasonable adjustments when required.
Unfortunately, we are not able to sponsor visas for this role in the UK. However, we consider applications from anywhere globally, and there may also be opportunity to either be based in one of our global offices, or offer work on a freelance basis.
If you have any questions about how TSIC is an equal opportunities employer please contact [email protected].
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