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Ref: 50038893
JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Title:
Business & Community Liaison Manager
Department:
Career Development Centre, Student Affairs
Reports to:
Employability Manager
Job Purpose:
To lead the management, development and delivery of CDC
employer engagement initiatives in order to enhance student
employability and career development
Grade:
NG6
Principal Accountabilities:
1. To develop and manage collaborative relationships with leading national and
local recruiters and employers whilst expanding the CDC employer database
in line with the University’s External Engagement Strategy and CDC’s
Strategic Objectives.
2. To manage employer related projects that increase work-related opportunities
for students and graduates and form a key part of CDC strategies, taking full
responsibility for their design, implementation and allocation and management
of staff resource. This includes projects like the Annual Careers Fair and
similar employer linked projects and initiatives
3. To raise the profile of CDC across the university and work closely with
academics to increase student exposure to employment opportunities.
4. To manage the Business and Community Engagement team, which includes
Volunteering, UWAS, the Information and Employability Assistant posts. The
post holder may also have to manage other appropriate support staff when a
project requires additional resource, ensuring an excellent standard of
customer care is consistently achieved.
5. To oversee the collection of accurate data and to generate regular employer
liaison reports, analyse areas for improvement, to set actions and implement
these.
6. To consolidate all employer communications, making all correspondence with
employers consistent across the department.
7. To introduce new processes and procedures to increase the efficiency of
administrative tasks associated with employer liaison.
8. To be responsible for the marketing of employer related services to students,
staff and employers. This also includes the development of updated marketing
material promoting the benefits of working with the University.
9. To represent the University by actively participating in AGCAS EL task group
meetings and keep up to date with NASES, AGCAS and AGR publications in
relation to employers
10. Undertake any other such duties within the competence of the postholder as
may be assigned by the Employability Manager.
Context of the post
The Business & Community Liaison Manager oversees all Business and Community
Liaison activity for the department, tasked with growing and developing both the
number of employer contacts and level of interaction with employers with a view to
expanding work opportunities available to our students.
The post holder will be expected to develop close effective relationships with
university departments involved with employers, employability and services to
students working towards the delivery of the University’s External Engagement
strategy.
The job will involve managing all aspects of business and community liaison within
CDC, working with employers, students, CDC and academic staff.
Although the post holder will be primarily based at the main CDC office at 101 New
Cavendish Street, regular visits to all other sites will also be required to promote CDC
services.
The duties of the post include both people-facing responsibilities as well as working
with systems and resources. There is a high emphasis on communications with our
clients, specifically employers but also with students, graduates, academics, other
university staff, and on IT-based information management through careers-related
software, databases, and website content management.
There is also a marketing aspect to the role particularly in promoting CDC services
and employer events.
CDC is the careers service department at the University of Westminster.
A major aim of the department is to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction. We
achieve this by continually undertaking exciting projects and initiatives that ensure
our services are cutting edge and underpinned by customer feedback.
CDC places the website at the heart of its service in delivering Careers Education,
Information and Guidance to all key stakeholders – students, graduates, academics,
employers and the wider community.
CDC offers a wide range of employer events and presentations and facilitates
employer involvement in the curriculum. This is backed by research into labour
market intelligence and into current trends in education and recruitment, careers
guidance and development of employability skills.
CDC has particularly good links with the local business community. Small and
medium sized enterprises make up a large proportion of London businesses and
many make full use of CDC’s free on-line vacancy service to fill their temporary, part
time, vacation, placement and graduate vacancies, gaining access to a large pool of
skilled undergraduates and graduates.
CDC staff work in cross-functional teams to contribute to employer liaison,
development of the website as well as on collaborative projects, within the University
and with external partners. Our partnership projects span Teaching and Learning
development, FE and community links, employability and employer engagement.
We are committed to continuous quality improvement in services we offer and work
towards gaining Matrix accreditation.
CDC is organised into 3 teams – Business and Community Services, Careers
Consultancy, and Placements and led by an Employability Manager. The department
is part of the University’s Student Affairs Directorate.
The University is a large cosmopolitan university with 3 campuses in the West End
and a large campus at Harrow, and has over 22,000 part-time and full-time students,
including more than 5,000 international students, from diverse backgrounds from the
point of view of age, entry qualifications, ethnicity, race, disability, religion, sexual
orientation.
Dimensions
The role will line manage the Business and Community Engagement team which
includes Employer Liaison, Volunteering, UWAS and the Information team and the
Employability Assistant post(s) and, as a result, will have supervisory responsibility
for the Talent Bank.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Qualifications
Essential criteria
Degree (or equivalent)
Desirable Criteria
Relevant client facing/ event
management / marketing / recruiting
experience.
Training and
Experience
Previous client facing experience,
establishing new relationships and
maintaining current ones, ideally in a
University or recruitment related
function.
Employer liaison and marketing
experience/
recruitment services experience.
Experience of dealing with multiple
stake holders at various levels.
Report writing and presentation skills (to
analyse data and present in accurate
format using Excel and Powerpoint).
A track record of enhancing the
efficiency of relevant processes and
procedures through the development of
new systems.
Experience of owning and managing
project based initiatives with excellent IT
skills (word-processing, spread sheet
and database packages, email and
Internet research).
Staff management experience.
Experience managing and promoting
events.
Aptitude and
abilities
Highly developed professional
interpersonal skills including oral and
written communication.
Ability to work on own motivation and
within a team to get results and show
initiative.
Excellent at paying attention to detail,
Experience working
within Higher
Education
organising and prioritising work and
working accurately under pressure
Personal
Attributes
Must enjoy working as part of a busy
team.
Must be flexible to adapting to an everchanging environment.
Have a high level of commitment and
motivation.
Have a pro-active approach to problem
solving.
Must thrive in a target-driven work
environment
Other
At certain times of the year there will be a requirement to work some overtime.
Although based at 101 New Cavendish Street, candidates will be required to
undertake activities/events at the other university sites in Central London and
Harrow.