Mission: We are a department of the University of Oxford. We further the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.
For #WorkInPublishingWeek our employees share what inspires them to work in the industry
OUP employees spent the morning volunteering to help children whose parents are in prison.
Oxford University Press was established in the earliest days of printing and throughout our 500-year history we have always been home to the inquisitive, the passionate, and the ambitious. We welcome new ideas and fresh thinking, and offer the opportunity for individuals and teams to make their mark.
We are constantly exploring innovations in the development and delivery of world-class content, and engage with academics and educators around the world to find new and better ways to make information accessible. With a presence in more than 50 countries and millions of customers around the world, an idea launched at OUP can have global impact.
Like the University of Oxford of which we are a part, we are committed to uncompromising standards, freedom of expression, and the enrichment of lives through education. We are a charitable organisation and as such prioritise ethical practice; from the strong relationships we build with authors and teachers through to how we reinvest our surplus.
At OUP, we care not only about whether we are achieving our mission, but how we are achieving it. Expressed in the OUP Qualities, we have identified a set of characteristics that describe the behaviours we all need to cultivate and live out every day in order to continue to be successful as a business in the future. These behaviours encourage us to explore, and challenge us to work across boundaries. They set a high standard; a combination of learning and curiosity which will better inform the decisions we make and the impact we have.
We are passionate about making a positive impact. Externally, we are driven to deliver our mission and convinced of the transformative power of education and research. Internally, we strive for high productivity and seek to make the most of exciting possibilities.
We understand and engage with our external global environment. We are curious and inquisitive about the future; we make connections with people, ask questions, innovate and explore. We are open to new challenges and opportunities, and continually look to develop ourselves in order to increase our impact and effectiveness.
As communicators we are confident, clear, and articulate. We flourish in a team environment and apply knowledge and experience to make good decisions, even in difficult conditions.
Above all else we prize honesty, respect and resilience. We are ethical, fair and courageous; thoughtful, considerate and inclusive; determined, optimistic and resourceful.
Our commitment to innovation extends beyond the titles we publish and the resources we produce; it also underpins our approach to personal development. We believe that the skills our people bring to OUP should be just a starting point, and we actively encourage them to expand their abilities in areas which interest them and benefit OUP.
We seek to create an environment of learning and curiosity across the organisation. We invest time and resources into developing our people’s skills, helping them meet their personal ambitions as well as helping us achieve ours. Our development philosophy promotes broader career development and flexible career paths for all, and allows employees to explore opportunities across functions and geographies.
Our approach to performance and development is based on a framework of regular active conversations. These conversations build trust and engagement between managers and their direct reports, and ensure that individual objectives, training requirements, and career aspirations are addressed.
Initiatives such as reverse mentoring and our global Learning Management System are helping embed a culture of ongoing learning and development within the experience and expectation of all of our people.
Our present success and future prospects are critically dependent on the commitment and endeavour of our people. You can be sure you will work alongside a talented team and interact with colleagues across the globe. We value the contribution and passion of our employees, so our philosophy on reward and recognition is designed to not only attract, motivate, and retain people but build a healthy, high-performing culture in our offices worldwide.
The United Nations wants to achieve universal internet access by 2030. In what is termed as the race to connect the next billion, many of the world’s leading tech companies are heavily involved in helping that goal become a reality – and OUP is right at the heart of it.
With a particular focus on spreading high quality English language teaching around the world, we’re partnering with tech companies and social networking platforms on a range of projects. In collaboration with Facebook, for example, we’ve developed a product called English for All for use on their Free Basics platform, which makes internet access freely available to a billion people across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Head of Partnerships & Innovation for our English Language Teaching (ELT) division, Joseph Noble, recently talked to us about a key project his team is embarking upon in Indonesia which aims to deliver education to 75,000 people every day.
The vastness and terrain of the country, means that outside of the main urban centers internet connectivity and the quality of education is poor. The ELT team, in partnership with Teachcast and Indomobil, wanted to change that situation and has already started delivering real-time English based lessons, beamed in via the internet, to people in rural Indonesia. This partnership, which sees each party offering up its own unique experience and expertise is but one of many that OUP is involved with all over the world. Teachcast delivers the skills of one of the world’s leading providers of remote learning and interactive teaching, Indomobil a truck manufacturer in Indonesia brings the means of delivery as well as much needed local knowledge to the table, and OUP provides world class content for lessons and homework.
The race to connect the next billion faces practical issues of connectivity that just do not exist in the developed world and Indonesia presented us with a fair few challenges. So we examined all the possibilities, from drones to balloons, before settling on the solution of using trucks and equipping them with satellite link up connectivity. This method was deemed as the most robust and effective means of achieving our goal. As Joseph points out, “using the satellite trucks we can participate in this race and improve the educational outcomes of English learners in Indonesia.”
“Think of it as a mobile classroom rather than a truck.”
At the moment we have two mobile classrooms out in the field, with a further six on the finishing line in the factory and with an end goal of 500. When fully commissioned this fleet will give us the ability to span the length and breadth of the country and bring not only learning but a connection to the wider world that otherwise simply would not be feasible.
We are committed to supporting diversity in our workforce, and ensuring an inclusive environment where all individuals can thrive. We seek to employ a workforce representative of the markets that we serve and encourage applications from all.
I worked at Oxford University Press full-time (More than a year)
Pros
-Great work culture and great work life balance
-The mission of helping people is at the heart of everything you do
-Lovely people and great, supportive managers
Cons
-A little stuck in the past with its ways of working at times, but open to improvements!
-Notorious for paying less than other employers
Application
I applied online. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Oxford University Press (Oxford, England) in May 2019.
Interview
Friendly and informal. We were split into two groups. The first group did presentations first. Each had to work on their own, one person talking about the topic for 15 minutes to a member of the HR team. Then the second half of the process, was interview 1v1. Talk through CV for five minutes, and then 10 skills questions.
Interview Questions
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