Student Recruitment and Communications Officer United Kingdom
Job description
Permanent full time position (FTE 1.0)
The School for Cross-faculty Studies at the University of Warwick is looking for a new Student Recruitment and Communications Officer (SRECO) to join its growing team of professional support services personnel. We are a new kind of academic department at Warwick, offering courses that you might not have heard of and which don’t fit into the academic boundaries of traditional disciplines. Our courses are innovative, expansive and challenging and focus on contemporary issues and problems such as Climate Change, Social Justice, Equality, Sustainability, Food Security and Consumption. Take a look at our website to find out more.
Our undergraduate programmes are attracting increasing numbers of students and we’re expanding into postgraduate, online, professional development and other exciting markets.
The job of the SRECO in our School is very important; shaping the way that we present our School, its staff, students, our courses and activities to the world. The main purpose of the role is to drive the School’s student recruitment activities in order to reach potential students, get them to apply and then convert them to students. The job also involves making sure that communications in general between the staff and students in the School and with our past students and other parts of the University are effective.
So, we need someone who:
- is a professional individual with a proactive attitude and a creative flair.
- has expertise in the design of promotional materials in a range of printed and digital media.
- can write exciting copy and has excellent proof-reading skills.
- can communicate effectively with different groups of people using different methods.
- can organise themselves and their workload; prioritising tasks so that they are completed accurately and on time.
It is possible to work these hours on a flexible basis to suit your circumstances. You could work partly at home and partly in the office as the University is now practising hybrid working.
We will consider applications for employment on a part-time or other flexible working basis, even where a position is advertised as full-time, unless there are operational or other objective reasons why it is not possible to do so.
Our School holds the Athena Scientific Women's Academic Network (SWAN) Bronze award which means that we’ve proved that we operate policies and procedures that aim to ensure family-friendly working and transparent recruitment and promotion systems and that we support gender equality.
What’s more, the University offers a generous annual leave entitlement of 26 days per year plus 8 Bank Holidays, you can save on the costs of travel, dining out, shopping and entertainment with the discounts offered by partner retailers and you can even join our state-of-the-art gym at a special membership rate for staff!
Read on to find out more about this opportunity to work with us in the School for Cross-faculty Studies. website
For more information about the job, you can contact Julia Gretton, Senior Departmental Administrator. Please email: [email protected].
Interview date: TBC
Job Description
JOB PURPOSE
The job involves working with staff in our School and with other professional officers in the University, to further develop, put into practice, manage and monitor the School’s existing promotion and communications plans. These plans support our activities to recruit students to our courses, make the experience of our students fulfilling and enjoyable and help staff to publicize their teaching and research activities. They also aim to maintain contact with our past students (alumni) and raise the profile of the School, both within Warwick University and in the wider community. To do this, you will work alongside and manage other staff undertaking promotional activities within the School.
DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Recruit New Students
You will maintain regular contact with the Faculty of Arts Marketing Executive; working with them to plan and implement activities designed to attract students to our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
You’ll need to research and understand the types of student we want to recruit, as well as be aware of what our competitors are doing, so that you can work on ideas for recruitment campaigns which will give the School the edge over the opposition.
This means that you’ll play a major part in the creation and delivery of recruitment events such as University Open Days, Offer Holder Open Days, Live Chats, and other initiatives (such as competitions) related to the School’s widening participation, employability and outreach activities.
As some of these events take place at the weekend, you will, occasionally, be required to work on a Saturday.
Engage Current Students and Alumni
You will devise and implement various ways of communicating with our current students which aim to make sure that their experience at Warwick and in our School is a satisfying and rewarding one. This will include compiling and distributing Student Newsletters and supporting the promotion of student surveys, as well as regularly generating and posting content on social media.
Our School has a team of current students who work as Ambassadors supporting recruitment and communication activities. You will liaise with the School’s Directors of Student Experience to support the appointment, selection, training and work of the Ambassadors Team.
Working with the University’s Alumni and Engagement Team, you will also create and put into action ideas to keep in touch with students who have graduated from the School. This is so that they stay connected with us and act as our advocates, which can be helpful for recruiting future students. You will compile Alumni Newsletters, create virtual yearbooks and maintain online Alumni Groups.
Promote the School
The SRECO job includes promoting the activities of the School, its staff and students both within the University and to the wider community beyond Warwick. In order to achieve this, you will be involved in generating news items for publication on websites and social media about our aims and achievements, as well as promoting events (such as lectures or seminars) that we’re running or attending.
Promoting a 'team spirit' amongst the School’s staff will be another of your responsibilities. You will be the channel for staff communications, passing on information about the activities of the School’s staff and its students and celebrating their successes.
Produce Marketing Materials
A major part of this job is to design our promotional materials; using a variety of media. These materials need to deliver a coherent and consistent message regarding the opportunities that we offer. They also have to adhere to University branding, visual identity and tone of voice guidelines and conform to the ‘house style’. There are procedures and regulations covering how they are produced, which you’ll need to follow too.
You’ll be involved in producing and distributing written, audio and audio-visual content for use across multiple channels and you’ll be liaising with central University departments (such as Marketing, Communications and Insight, Student Recruitment, Outreach and Admissions (SROAS) and IT Services), as well as external suppliers, in order to do this.
All of the materials that you design and the communications that you deliver must be appealing, useful and accessible to a variety of audiences from a range of backgrounds and cultures.
Maintain Websites and Social Media Accounts
This job carries the responsibility for managing and developing the School’s websites and making sure that they remain a showcase for the School’s teaching and research activities and the achievements of its staff and students.
So, you’ll need to ensure that our websites use the University’s branding and that their content is up to date, accurate and relevant. The websites should provide a full and reliable source of information about the School and everything that it offers and does.
You will also have to contribute content about the School to web pages that sit at the University level (e.g. the ‘Study’ web pages and the University Prospectus pages) with guidance from the University’s Marketing team.
Running the School’s social media accounts so that they generate interest and encourage engagement with the School, its staff and potential, current and past students, as well as the community beyond the University, is another key part of this role.
Line Management
You will work alongside and manage the Recruitment and Communications Officers appointed to help you and support the School’s promotion and student recruitment activities.
Monitoring and Review
It’s important to keep an eye on the impact that your communications activities are having in order to assess if they are working. So, you’ll need to review and evaluate the effectiveness of your promotional and communications strategies and campaigns using analytical tools such as Google analytics and other metrics. You may want to make recommendations for changes designed to increase the effectiveness of communication activities.
The promotional and communications activities that you’ll be undertaking cost money, so you’ll have a budget to monitor. You’ll have to make decisions about the most effective ways of spending the budget in order to achieve the desired outcomes.
We will expect you to keep up to date with new trends and developments in communications technologies and methods and advise on how we could take advantage of such developments to enhance our student recruitment and communication plans.
Other
We may ask you to do other things as well, but these tasks will always be appropriate for your job and its grade and the skills and experience that you bring.
For further information about the department, please visit the departmental website.
As for our School, it is small but growing rapidly! We are split into three (soon to become four) Divisions:
Liberal Arts - there are five academic members of staff here and one dedicated administrative role which supports the team. The undergraduate course in Liberal Arts has around 100 students on it, and we are in the process of launching a new postgraduate course which will be led by the Liberal Arts Department.
Global Sustainable Development (GSD) – here there are 13 academic staff plus two administrative posts that support the undergraduate courses and two staff to support the relatively new postgraduate programmes. We run 12 first degree courses in GSD; each of which has a variant that enables the student to undertake a work placement or study abroad for a year, and now a postgraduate taught programme, as well as a postgraduate research course leading to a doctorate in GSD. There are around 430 students on the undergraduate courses and 40 on the postgraduate courses.
Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) – this is a research centre that employs 9 people who conduct research into the issues that affect how the way in which we live affects our planet both now and in the future. They try to find answers to how we can ensure both our survival and the survival of the world. They work with other academic staff in the University of Warwick and from elsewhere, including people from industries, governments, charities and other organisations from across the UK and the world, aiming to work out how we can sustain life. The Institute has a Manager and Project Officers that support the academic researchers.
Our fourth Division coming in 2023 will be called Design Innovation. This Division will be the home of a new collection of undergraduates courses focussing on Design for Sustainable Innovation. The Recruitment and Communications Officer is expected to be able to play a major part in the promotional activities leading up to the launch of the courses and recruitment of the first students.
The Officer will be part of a team of administrative staff which looks like this:
A Senior Departmental Administrator – oversees all the administration in the School and supports the administrative staff.
A Postgraduate Programmes Manager – supports the development, launch and administration of the School’s postgraduate provision.
An Employability and Placement Manager - supports students to develop their employability skills so that they have a better chance of getting a job when they leave University.
A Programme and Evaluation Manager – this person works for the Institute for Global Sustainable Development which is a research centre that sits in the School. They provide support to the researchers based in the centre.
An Executive Officer - provides operational support in a number of areas to ensure that the School functions effectively.
Programmes Officers – undertake day to day administration related to the School’s undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
A Finance Officer - this person does all the day-to-day finance related work for the School such as ordering and paying for equipment.
A Student Recruitment and Communications Officer – this post.
We expect to have more staff soon when the new Division launches, including another Recruitment and Communications Officer which this post will line manage.
As our SRECO, you will be the ‘go to’ person in the School for all matters related to marketing and promotion including:
- Open Days and other events aimed at potential students. These will be both in-person activities and online (e.g. Live chats) and you’ll have a major role in designing the format and content of these events, working with other staff in the School and in the University central teams.
- Social media. You’ll be responsible for running our social media accounts; sourcing content for them and scheduling postings.
- Websites. You will look after our websites and make sure that they have accurate and up to date information about the School, what we offer and what we’re doing, and also that they are attractive to the different audiences that will use them to find out about our School.
- Promotional materials. Designing and publishing or overseeing the production of a variety of promotional resources is a key part of this role and one that we hope you’ll find stimulating, as it gives you the opportunity to use your creative talents.
The varied nature of this role means that you will work on multiple projects simultaneously. Your role will include the full spectrum of marketing activities, such as writing newsletters, writing copy for and editing websites, producing social media content, ensuring course content is accurate and up to date, organising and helping to deliver events, and conducting desk-based research.
Our School and the wider University are committed to building an organisation of mutual respect and dignity. We aim to promote a welcoming, diverse and inclusive working and learning environment. We recognise that everyone is different in a variety of visible and non-visible ways, and that those differences are to be recognised, respected, and valued. So, where possible, we go beyond legislation to provide a place where everyone can thrive, supporting all staff to achieve their full potential.
This means that we welcome and encourage applications from all communities regardless of culture, background, age, disability, sex/gender, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion/belief, and sexual orientation. To find out more about our social inclusion work at Warwick visit our webpages here.
The University of Warwick holds an Athena SWAN Silver award; a national initiative to promote gender equality for all staff and students. Further information about the work of the University in relation to Athena SWAN can be found at the following link: Athena Swan (warwick.ac.uk)
The University of Warwick is one of the six founder institutions of the EUTOPIA European University alliance, whose aim is to become by 2025 an open, multicultural, confederated operation of connected campuses.
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