Application Closing Date

2 – The Job Description or Funding Opportunity

Be considerate of other responsibilities and important events your applicants may have. To reduce the stress of clashing due dates, you should avoid setting your application closing date:

At a time when your team are unavailable to assist with issues applicants may have (e.g., last-minute problems which cause a delay in submission, problems with the submission portal, etc).
Over the weekend, or late on a Friday.
Late at night (e.g., midnight), as this encourages people to stay up late checking and finalising their application.
Very soon after the advertisement opens (avoiding tight turnarounds).
On religious holidays (check inclusivity calendars to see religious holidays you may not be aware of).
If possible, during school holidays, especially shorter holidays such as UK ‘half term’, since parents and carers are likely to spend significantly more time in caring responsibilities during school breaks.

You should also make sure your closing date is clear to all potential applicants. This means both placing the information prominently in advertisements and communications, and checking you have clearly stated:

Whether the closing date is AM or PM (you can use the 24 hour clock to do so)
Which time zone the closing date refers to (especially if you expect to have international applicants)
The date and month (to avoid confusion, it can be helpful to write out the name of the month rather than using a fully numeric date: this prevents confusion, for example, as to whether 05/01/2025 means the 5th of January 2025 or the 1st of May 2025).

SECTION 2: The Job Description or Funding Opportunity

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