Become an Associate Advisor with the Behavioural Insights Team

Salary: $76,500 per annum plus super and benefits

Job type: Full time permanent

Location: Sydney preferred, but open to remote workers based in Melbourne and Canberra. Sydney-based office location, currently work-from-home.

Are you passionate about making the world a better place? Do you have a deep interest in human behaviour? Do you believe in gathering and using evidence from diverse perspectives to determine what works and what doesn’t? We’re looking for someone who is curious, collaborative, innovative, and keen to make a difference to join our Australian team.

We believe that if you understand how people make decisions in the real world, you can design and deliver better policies and services. We work with government, NGO and private sector partners to design human-centred solutions that are creative, low-cost and scalable — and we robustly evaluate our recommendations to make sure they actually result in better outcomes.

So who are we? We are The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), a world-leading global consulting organisation and the world’s first ‘Nudge Unit’. We’re on the lookout for our next Associate Advisor to join our Australian team and support our portfolio of work.

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and building a diverse workforce. We strongly encourage applications from all backgrounds, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, LGBTQI+ people, and people with a disability.

About you

If you’re passionate about using your knowledge and technical skills to design better policies and services, you might just be the person we’re looking for!

We’re searching for a dynamic all-rounder to support both our evaluation and policy/project work across our domestic Australian portfolio and APAC International Development portfolio. This is a junior role that would suit a high-performing go-getter with an Honours degree or higher, who is just beginning their career in research and behaviour change and/or has 1-2 years of work experience. The role is designed for someone who is keen to get hands-on experience to develop their research and consultancy skills.

Our team comes from a variety of academic backgrounds, including economics, psychology, research methodology, neuroscience, anthropology, design, public policy and more. We encourage candidates who have an interest in and understanding of what drives human behaviour to apply.

What you’ll need

We’re ideally looking for someone with some combination of these skills, experiences and qualifications (although we don’t expect you to tick every box, and will offer support and training to help develop these skills):

• Strong writing skills and ability to translate academic work for non-academic audiences

• Strong verbal communication and people skills

• Beginner to intermediate level of technical research knowledge, including basic understanding of inferential statistics, trial design and quantitative and qualitative analysis

• Beginner level of applied technical skills, including using software such as R for basic data cleaning and coding tasks

• An ability and willingness to learn and develop skills, especially technical skills

• A good understanding of the behavioural science literature and how it can be applied to help solve policy problems

• An ability to work well under pressure and meet deadlines

• Experience conducting desktop research and basic experience using and analysing data sets

• A Bachelor degree with honours or higher (Masters or PhD) in a relevant subject area (including but not limited to behavioural economics, psychology, sociology or evaluation methods — what’s most important is your critical thinking skills!)

What you’ll be doing

As an Associate Advisor, you will:

• Assist in the design and delivery of projects across a broad range of policy areas

• Help design and implement randomised controlled trials

• Conduct quantitative and qualitative research, including surveys, interviews, participant-observation and desktop research

• Conduct basic technical research tasks, including power calculations, coding, randomisation and trial analyses — you’ll be supported to learn and sharpen these skills on the job

• Prepare a range of materials, including trial checklists, ideas notes, literature reviews, journey and process maps, presentations and workshop materials

• Write draft reports, policy papers and proposals

Why work for BIT

• While we work in a fast-paced field, we provide a supportive environment where you’ll learn and grow with on-the-job training from our experienced team of experts. During your time in this role (commonly around 2-3 years), we’ll help you to build the diverse range of skills you’ll need to progress your career at BIT.

• You’ll be part of an innovative and agile team working at the forefront of cutting edge, evidence-driven applied behavioural science.

• We encourage flexible working and have a culture which enables this. This includes flexible start and finish times, and an IT set up which allows for easy working-from-home options. We are also willing to consider part time or a job sharing arrangement.

• We offer a range of benefits, including a health and wellbeing allowance, Employee Assistance Program and other wellbeing services, a phone allowance, and a generous paid parental leave policy.

How to apply

Does this sound like you? Fantastic! We’d love to hear from you.

We use a platform called Applied to reduce bias in our recruitment, so that we can find the best person for the job — regardless of their background — by assessing role-related skills. You’ll need to answer a few work-based questions, which will be anonymously marked by our team. Our selection is based on performance in these questions, rather than on CVs. Candidates with top scoring answers will be invited to the next round. We don’t see CVs until the interview round.

Application notes

The application process has 4 stages:

1. An online application and test

2. A written and statistics test (to be completed by 19 September)

3. A skills-based interview (week commencing 27 September)

4. A group-based interview (week commencing 4 October)

Only applicants successful at each stage will progress to the next stage. Further information about each stage will be provided if you progress to that stage. Due to the volume of applications we receive we may not be able to provide personalised feedback, but aim to do so for candidates who make it through to the final round(s).

You must have the right to work in Australia. Unfortunately, we cannot sponsor visas.

The Behavioural Insights Team is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and is determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.