MBA Recruitment and Admissions Officer - College of Social Sciences

Background

Birmingham Business School is recruiting a part-time Recruitment and Admissions Officer to support an ambitious MBA recruitment strategy. As we diversify our portfolio to offer Degree Apprenticeship opportunities as well as flexible full and part time options in the UK and overseas, we are looking to enhance the professional services support to this area. The postholder will work alongside a permanent MBA recruitment and Admissions Officer to deliver an enhanced service to prospective students, with a particular focus on Executive MBA and DA routes.

Summary of Role

The Student Recruitment and Admissions Officer plays a key role in delivering the Business School's internationalisation and student recruitment strategies. As a world-leading internationally focused business school, Birmingham Business School attracts more than 3,000 new students every year from across the world. As part of our refreshed strategy we expect the range and nature of these partnerships to change significantly over the next 5 years to support the continued diversification and growth in our student intake and to underpin our internationalisation strategy.

Working closely with the Partnership and Student Recruitment Manager, Programme Directors, Admissions Tutors, and colleagues in the College and External Relations, you will be part of the professional services team who will ensure recruitment is to target, specifically from overseas markets in to the School's key portfolio of programmes: undergraduate, postgraduate taught and MBA educational portfolio. Specifically, you will have responsibility for supporting recruitment and admissions on to one of these key areas.

Main Duties

• Working with the Partnership and Student Recruitment Manager, Admissions Tutors, and the College Marketing and Communication team, contribute to the development and delivery of comprehensive student recruitment and conversion plans for the School's programmes, which support the delivery of the School's internationalisation and student recruitment strategies, taking a lead on relevant plans as appropriate.
• Support the identification, development and implementation of supplementary and innovative recruitment strategies as appropriate to launch new programmes or to target specific markets and programmes.
• Act as an initial point of contact for prospective students, agents, collaborative partners, and admissions tutors in the School, providing advice and guidance on a range of complex issues and devising and implementing an appropriate School induction programme, to ensure that staff involved in student recruitment and admissions are provided with an appropriate induction and ongoing support and guidance for dealing with day to day queries.
• Act as the initial point of contact for Executive MBA Degree Apprenticeships programme enquiries from prospective students and company clients, attending meetings with clients and individual learners where appropriate, and taking responsibility for assessing and making decisions on applications
• Make a significant contribution to the development, delivery and review of an annual programme of student recruitment and admissions related activity and events, including: ensuring appropriate School representation at recruitment events e.g. Open Days, Applicant Visit Days, recruitment fairs both in the UK and Overseas; undertaking UK and overseas visits to recruitment events and key partners; recruiting, training and managing a team of student/alumni ambassadors to assist with events; ensuring systems are in place to collect the details of prospective applicants and to provide appropriate follow up information; organising and setting up relevant publicity information at each event; and, designing and delivering presentations to students, agents and or other parties.
• Working with the College Marketing and Communication team, collect and prepare information for the development of a range of promotional materials and a contact strategy to support student recruitment, conversion and admissions.
• Collectively with the School's data team, colleagues in External Relations and the College, monitor and review recruitment and conversion data and produce management information and contextual commentary, highlighting any areas of opportunity or concern to inform the development of ongoing recruitment and conversion plans.
• Acquire and maintain an up-to-date knowledge of the portfolio of courses offered across the school, in order to provide appropriate advice and answer questions from prospective students, in addition to developing an awareness of competitor programmes in order to contribute to the periodic review of the School's portfolio of programmes.
• Support the School's student recruitment and admissions related processes to ensure they are efficient and compliant with University procedures and contribute to the ongoing review, revision, and documentation. This could include assessing and making decisions on applications via the SITS system, escalating to academic colleagues where appropriate, and coordinating and undertaking admissions interviews.
• Support the development and administration of scholarship awards, including: developing the case for targeted scholarships, establishing criteria, working with Admissions Tutors to select recipients, managing scholarship budgets, and ensuring appropriate documentation is maintained.
• Acquire and maintain an up-to-date knowledge of University and government policies and procedures for Higher Education admissions whilst also ensuring knowledge of wider organisations such as UCAS, UKVI, Students Loans Company (SLC) as relevant.

Person Specification:

• Educated to Degree level or equivalent relevant experience in a similar role.
• Considerable experience in student recruitment, admissions or marketing, ideally in the HE sector, and an understanding of the student recruitment and admissions cycle and an awareness of issues affecting higher education (nationally and internationally).
• Exceptional customer service skills and a track record of delivering excellent customer experience.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a proven ability to work with a range of stakeholders including prospective students and academics; establishing personal credibility and winning support.
• Excellent communication skills; written, oral and presentation skills.
• Attention to detail and the ability to analyse data to formulate clear proposals/reports on complex matters.
• Proactive, highly motivated and well organised and the ability to manage, prioritise and delegate a range of complex tasks, completing them to the required deadlines.
• Aptitude to work autonomously but also able to work as an effective team member.
• Willing to do things differently with a flexible, creative and proactive approach.
• Excellent IT skills and an aptitude for learning new packages to support student recruitment and administration.
• Willingness to work flexibly, sometimes outside of normal working hours and across the country or overseas.

Informal enquiries to Andy Hammond - a.m.hammond@bham.ac.uk .

We value diversity at The University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

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