Assistant Ranger

**About The Role**:
We’re looking for a highly motivated individual with sound knowledge and experience of practical habitat, conservation and visitor management, preferably in a Country Park or visitor attraction setting, to join our small and friendly team at Avon Heath Country Park near Ringwood.

You will make a real difference and have a genuine impact across the 300 ha Country Park and outlying sites, which are home to all six British reptiles and rare birds such as Nightjar and Woodlark.

Come rain or shine, your love of wildlife will inspire others as you strive to deliver exemplary habitat management and visitor service.

We offer great training opportunities in practical habitat management, ecology and visitor services and invest in our staff’s future.

If you're passionate about wildlife conservation and countryside management, want to work with others that share your passion and want to share it with others, then this is the role for you.

**What you will be doing.**

A key member of the park management team, you will work closely with the other Rangers to deliver the day to day running of a popular Country Park with 300,000+ visitors every year to ensure a great visitor experience and the 300ha of SSSI Lowland Heathland that we manage is kept in tip top condition (Dorset has around 2.5% of the world’s remaining Lowland Heathland).

This is a wide and varied job role, involving the maintenance of public areas, repairs and installation of site infrastructure, conducting ecological surveys, delivering educational sessions and our events, as well as developing projects and interpretation materials. You will be working face to face with the public on a daily basis so a positive, can-do attitude is essential.

Under the leadership of the Senior and other Rangers you will work closely with the team to learn the role and tasks, to develop your skills and experience whilst bringing your own unique set of skills to the job. You will also be part of the wider Park team with our colleagues at the Cafe and Nature Nursery.

You excellent communication skills will help you deal with the myriad of enquiries we have from our visitors.

We are a friendly and welcoming team who collaborate together to develop ideas to improve our visitors and volunteers experience, and are always open to new ideas and ways of working.

**Further Information**:
There will be a practical session as part of the interview process so all interviews will need to be held on site. However, if this is too short a period then we could interview the week after.

**About Us**:
We’re passionate about making Dorset a great place to live, work and visit. Working for us should be no exception.

At Dorset Council we:

- provide more than 450 services to over 300,000 residents
- have ambitious aspirations
- are excited about our future
- care about Dorset and all the people who live here
- know that all roles make a difference and that our employees are key to our success You will:

- have access to a range of employee benefits
- be part of an organisation that supports each other to grow and succeed
- have access to range of training opportunities which will help with your personal development and career progression

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role.

We also look for applicants who share our commitment to our behaviours. We will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

This role is UK based and we will need to establish your Right to Work as part of the appointment process.

We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant.