It’s an area that can’t sit still.
Evolving to out-do what’s gone before to give our company the tools and support with which it can do its best work.
The majority of the team are based between the London offices and our large site in Frating, Colchester.
It’s a big division, with roles across pretty much every specialism within Technology.
Whether your job is to plan, build or run the day-to-day, there’s always plenty going on and opportunities to leave things better than when you found them.
A combination of projects and daily running of the business, we have jobs to suit all skills. Whether you’re into development or infrastructure, data or testing – you’ll be working collaboratively with colleagues from right across the business.
But what’s it really like?
Who better to share with you what a career in Technology is like at Penguin Random House than the people doing these jobs?
Marketing and Publicity is about breaking through the noise.
It’s how you get – and keep – people’s attention.
It’s also about building audiences and communities for our authors and brands – and keeping them hungry for the next instalment.
Each of our Publishers has its own dedicated Marketing and Publicity team.
The Digital team amplify campaigns across the group and our Communications team look after our corporate voice, both internally and externally.
It’s not about a hard-sell – and often, you’ll have to be creative with your budget. It’s about starting conversations with readers and forging loyalty to an author or brand.
We don’t mind if you’ve worked with books before, or not. What we look for in this area are creative ideas, digital savvy and the persuasiveness and adaptability to see those ideas through every step of your campaign.
But what’s it really like?
Who better to share with you what a career in Marketing and Publicity is like at Penguin Random House than the people doing these jobs?
Our Design and Production teams are in charge of making our finished product.
From cover concept and design to paper type and layout – these are the roles that bring our books from idea to shelf.
Design and Production colleagues work with our Publishers across both print and eBooks.
In the Digital team, Design and Production means apps, games and websites, creating content across all platforms.
In Design, your role is to connect a book with its reader – whether that’s understanding and appealing to a particular genre, or pushing creative boundaries and stopping people in their tracks.
In Production, you will be working with everyone from editors to printers, sales colleagues to data warehouses. Attention to detail, negotiating and running things like clockwork will make sure that every single book published is one to be proud of.
But what’s it really like?
Who better to share with you what a career in Design or Production is like at Penguin Random House than the people doing these jobs?
Digital technology is allowing us to get closer to our readers than we’ve ever been before.
And bonding with our consumers online will ensure that this relationship lasts – today, tomorrow and in the future.
The Digital team leads our consumer strategy across the business.
From Insight and Marketing to Publishing and Digital Development – the team is all about getting close to our readers and bringing our brands to life online.
Whatever your background – whether you’re in marketing or product development – having conviction in your ideas, and the persuasion and practical skill to make them happen, is what we look for.
Digital technology has revolutionised how we consume entertainment – not just books, but film, broadcast and music too. If you’ve worked with digital audiences in any of these areas, we’d love to hear from you.
But what’s it really like?
Who better to share with you what a career in Digital is like at Penguin Random House than the people doing these jobs?
Just when you thought you had the face-to-face interview technique perfected, a new breed of interview has arrived: the digital interview. The concept may be unfamiliar, and even seem a little daunting, but ten years ago, even telephone interviews were fairly rare, so we’d like to spend a bit of time talking you through how to make the best of the experience should you come across it.
First, some background. HireVue is the online platform that Penguin Random House uses as a first stage tool to interview prospective candidates. We don’t use it for every role, but managers are using it more and more regularly in recruitment. From our perspective, it’s a way to potentially shortlist more people, and enable candidates to support their written application by expanding on their experience and skillsets. For candidates, there’s a benefit in that it can be done in the comfort of their own home, outside of office hours, and particularly for those who live outside of London, it’s a saved train fare.
The most common way we use our platform is a non-live environment where candidates can log on and record their answers through webcam on a computer or other device such as a tablet or even smartphone (so you can pretty much take the interview anywhere you like!). There is also a live version of the platform which is set up in the same way to a Skype call, but we don’t use this feature very often.
You will see the questions appear on screen, with time to prepare (and will have a non-recorded practice question to have a go at before you start the interview) and then you answer them by speaking into your webcam. You should prepare for the experience in the same way that you’d prepare for a face-to-face interview, so do think back to relevant examples of your experience as well as thinking about what interests you about the role and company. We also recommend you feel the part by dressing smartly but comfortably (have a look at our guide to this here) and make sure you seat yourself somewhere comfortable, quiet and free of distractions. It will help you feel more relaxed and allow you to focus on the task at hand.
Here’s what to expect from the process:
And it’s as simple as that! We can appreciate it may be a little different not having an interviewer to talk back to you, but we hope that, should you go through the process, you’ll find it a positive and straightforward experience.
We hope you have found this introduction useful – if you have any questions about the process, we would love to hear from you – so please do leave us a comment below and we would be more than happy to help.