Recruitment and Engagement Manager

RECRUITMENT AND ENGAGEMENT MANAGER

Salary: Pt 26-28 (£40,182-£42,060 (FT)) pro rata salary, likely to be between approx. (£35,450-£37,107) subject to experience working days and continuous service

Hours: 35 hours per week, term time only plus 10 days working during school holiday periods
Location: Across Federation schools
Start Date: As soon as possible

Could you help us find the people who will make a difference in our schools?

We are looking for an exceptional Recruitment and Engagement Manager to join our growing Federation of schools at an exciting stage of its development.

You do not need to have worked in a school before.

What matters to us is finding the right person: someone who is an outstanding communicator, exceptionally accurate, highly organised and able to bring fresh thinking and innovation to the way we recruit and engage with people.

This is a newly developed role with the opportunity to make a real impact. You will lead and coordinate recruitment across our schools, developing clear, efficient and consistent systems and processes that make recruitment easier for managers, provide an excellent experience for candidates and ensure that the highest standards of compliance are maintained.

We want someone who can combine creativity with precision. Someone who can write an engaging advert that makes people want to work with us, but who will also notice when a salary, date, contractual detail or safeguarding statement is not quite right.

About the role

Working as part of our Core Staff Federation Leadership Team and reporting to the School Business Manager, you will work closely with colleagues across HR, Payroll and Compliance.

You will take responsibility for coordinating the recruitment journey from vacancy through to appointment and onboarding, establishing high-quality systems, templates and resources that can be used consistently across our schools.

Our schools are part of one Federation, but they are not identical. Each has its own history, community, culture and character. A key part of the role will therefore be developing recruitment campaigns and materials that communicate the benefits of being part of the wider Federation while authentically promoting what makes each individual school a great place to work.

You will develop and maintain school-specific recruitment packs alongside a comprehensive suite of Federation templates and resources covering every stage of the recruitment process.

You will also help us develop how and where we recruit, using digital platforms, recruitment marketing, candidate feedback and data to identify new ways of reaching talented people.

We are looking for someone who:

• is an outstanding written communicator and can produce engaging, clear and highly professional content;
• has exceptional accuracy and attention to detail;
• is highly organised and enjoys creating systems and making processes work better;
• can bring new ideas, creativity and innovation to recruitment and candidate engagement;
• demonstrates sound professional judgement, integrity and discretion;
• understands the importance of consistency, compliance and following robust processes;
• is confident working with people at all levels and can provide professional advice and appropriate challenge;
• can manage competing priorities without compromising accuracy or quality;
• is comfortable using technology and keen to identify smarter and more efficient ways of working;
• understands that a great candidate experience matters from the first advert through to a new employee's first day; and
• wants to be part of a collaborative team that is developing services across a growing Federation.

What is more important than a school background?

Experience in recruitment, HR, marketing, communications, professional services or another relevant environment could all provide the skills we are looking for.

School experience would be helpful, but it is not essential. We can help the right person develop their understanding of education, safeguarding and safer recruitment requirements.

What we cannot teach as easily is the instinct to check something one more time before pressing send, the ability to turn ordinary information into excellent communication, or the desire to continually ask:

“How could we make this better?”

Those are the qualities we are particularly interested in.

Why join us?

You will be joining at an exciting point in our development, with genuine scope to shape how recruitment works across our schools.

Rather than simply administering an existing process, you will have the opportunity to develop it: creating better systems, stronger resources, engaging recruitment materials and a consistently high-quality experience for candidates and recruiting managers.

You will work alongside experienced colleagues across HR, Payroll, Compliance and wider business services as part of a supportive Core Staff Federation Leadership Team.

Most importantly, your work will help us attract the talented teachers, leaders and support professionals who make our schools successful.

If you are a great communicator, meticulous about detail, professionally curious and full of ideas about how recruitment could be done better, we would love to hear from you.

The Federation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff to share this commitment. The successful applicant will be subject to our safer recruitment procedures and all appropriate pre-employment checks.