Enterprising Futures Co-ordinator

Salary: £30,805 - £31,637 with progression to £34,132 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 21 April 2025

The Role

We are looking for a passionate, motivated professional to support the Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy, an initiative founded by Newcastle University graduate, philanthropist and entrepreneur Rob Wood.

As part of a £1.25 million donation, the Academy will advance the University’s enterprise and entrepreneurship offer to students and graduates as well as our outreach work in secondary education.

Based within the UK Recruitment Team, you will lead the design and delivery of a range of activities and initiatives, forming the secondary school element of the Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy, to engage and inspire young people to learn about and experience enterprise and entrepreneurship. You will also assist with a wide range of activities organised by the UK Recruitment Team.

Whilst based in the UK Recruitment Team, you will work closely with The Academy’s Project Manager and colleagues in the University’s Entrepreneurship and Start-Up team, to support other areas of The Academy activity as appropriate.

In order to be successful in this role you should be a creative problem solver, who can prioritise workload to both design and deliver engaging content. You will have demonstrable experience of working with initiative and passion. You will have excellent interpersonal skills and be able to build relationships with key stake holders along competent written and verbal communication skills.

You will work under guidance of Student Recruitment Manager, in a role that is not only extremely rewarding but offers opportunity to personally develop and input your creative ideas.

If this sounds like a role that interest you, and you require further details please reach out to Mary Kelly (Student Recruitment Manager) at mary.kelly2@newcastle.ac.uk

To apply please upload a CV along with covering letter evidencing how you meet the key criteria as outlined in person specification of the job description.

Interviews will be held Tuesday 6th May 2025

The post is fixed term until 31st July 2028.

Key Accountabilities

• With support from the Student Recruitment Manager, you will lead the development and delivery of in school and on-campus events and activities for young people from schools and colleges across the UK for the Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy. This will include:
• Organisation and delivery of events and activities
• Development and delivery of presentations and workshops in schools/colleges to a range of audiences including young people, parents/carers and school staff
• Develop a range of resources to include online and multi-media content creation
• Lead staff training to ensure quality control and ongoing quality improvement, including supporting the recruitment, selection, training and management of over 100 Student Ambassadors, mentors and students reps on an annual basis to support these events
• Contribute to the ongoing evaluation of all events and activities, to evaluate the impact, appropriateness, effectiveness and impact for the target audience/s. Prepare relevant evaluation reports to ensure continuous improvement of activity and to report back to The Academy
• Attend school and college visits throughout the UK to deliver activities, presentations and other appropriate outreach and awareness-raising sessions in schools/colleges.Develop and produce appropriate publicity / marketing information (print, web¬based and new media) to raise the profile of the Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy and its activities among target audiences
• Manage an agreed budget to support the delivery of higher education outreach activities, including forecasting, keeping accurate records and completing financial reports as required by The Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy
• Develop and maintain effective relationships with a range of senior key stakeholders across the Academy to support effective delivery of the programme
• Where appropriate, line management responsibility for members of the Outreach Ambassador/Support Team, managing and overseeing the workload of team members, co-ordinating regular update meetings to review progress against agreed aims and objectives, and to ensure effective workflow across the team. Carrying out Conversations and Priorities Reviews (PDRs) for members of staff, as well as recording annual leave and sickness
• Support for national student recruitment activity. This could include leading on the organisation of student guides for the Autumn and Summer University Open Days (including the recruitment and training of student guides, allocation of roles and monitoring of student performance and attendance to ensure quality of delivery), the organisation of pre-application campus tours, and post-application Offer Holder Expeience Days
• Support the representation of the University at a range of Higher Education recruitment events throughout the UK including large undergraduate Higher Education conventions, smaller recruitment and careers events in individual schools and colleges, and other recruitment events as may be identified during the course of the year

The Person 
 

Knowledge, Skills and Experience
•    Awareness of enterprise and entrepreneurship in an educational context to support skills development
•    Excellent interpersonal skills, with ability to develop effective working relationships and negotiate with key stakeholders, including those at a senior level
•    Ability to handle difficult and often sensitive situations
•    Ability to communicate clearly, orally and in writing, to a variety of audiences
•    Experience of delivering presentations or public speaking to a range of audiences.
•    The ability to plan and organise intensive, complex, customer-oriented events or projects, including evaluation of effectiveness/impact
•    Excellent time-management and prioritisation skills with the ability to manage a complex workload
•    Flexibility and a positive approach to tasks, activities and situations
•    Excellent team working skills with the ability to initiate, develop and maintain productive working relationships with key stakeholders.
•    Attention to detail, excellent IT and proven financial management skills
•    Initiative and a creative approach to problem solving
•    Willingness to work some evenings and weekends
•    Full, clean driving licence
•    Willingness to travel throughout the UK and stay overnight, as required
•    Receive Enhanced Disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service

Desirable
•    Web authoring and print production skills
•    An awareness of the UCAS application system and recruitment and admission cycle for university students
•    An awareness and understanding of the issues affecting the progression of students from widening participation cohorts entering Higher Education
•    Awareness and understanding of the range and levels of qualifications offered by students and the entry requirements for Higher Education
 

Attributes and Behaviour
Communicating
•    Tailors content of communication to the audience, changing style, tone and format appropriately
•    Uses face to face communication regularly; team meetings, one to ones, informal discussions/chats, briefing sessions etc
•    Can hold attention of others using appropriate techniques; questioning, rhetorical questions, changing tone and pace of voice and animated style
Planning and Organising
•    Sets own priorities in conjunction with team and area objectives
•    Uses systems and tools to ensure records and audit trails are clear and up to date
•    Ensures that others know how process and systems work
Team-working
•    Shares relevant and useful information with others
•    Willing to help others and share workloads
•    Respects the value that different views bring to the team
Understanding others
•    Clarifies understanding of others to avoid misinterpretation
•    Adapts own response to take into account cultural differences, behaviours and perspectives
Delivering Services
•    Sees other departments and colleagues as “customers” and follows through on their enquiries and requests
•    Keeps fellow team members up to date with progress
•    Takes responsibility for achieving own targets
•    Pays attention to detail
•    Strives to deliver high quality results

Qualifications
A degree and/or relevant professional qualification or relevant experience

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 28014