International Recruitment Administrator - External Relations - 48627 - Grade 5

The International Recruitment Administrator provides professional administrative support for members of the International Recruitment team based in the UK and globally and is responsible for managing a high volume of independent activity, including while managers are overseas on business both locally and internationally. This role involves proactive coordination of overseas visits, marketing support, administrative assistance, financial management, and event coordination., Manage programme of event activity for the Regional Manager, International Officer and Country Officers, or their representatives (e.g. academic colleagues) across various international regions and International visits in the UK;

• Manage a programme of overseas visits for the Regional Manager, International Officer, and Country Officers.


• Liaise with internal and external partners over booking events, and event set up.


• Attend events on behalf of the International Officer or Regional Manager where relevant, representing the University. This will typically include meeting students in an online booth.


• Assist with coordinating academic/ college and student involvement with events.


• Writing short event reports to help with future event planning and scheduling.


• Raising purchase orders, and ensuring events are paid for on time.


• Writing copy for international enquirer, applicant and offer holder communications in line with the wider contact strategy.


• Ensure communications are professionally produced, managed within the CRM system and their effectiveness evaluated for future communications. This includes systems such as; Dynamics, Zoom, Teams, Gecko.


• Setting up communications for enquirers and applicants via the University's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Monitoring responses and taking appropriate action to resolve issues and encourage response.


• Uploading attended event data to CRM systems.


• Helping to arrange overseas meetings and events.


• Arranging suitable accommodation/flight/travel bookings within budget and obtaining quotes.


• Overseeing freight arrangements for staff to ensure adequate/suitable promotional literature is processed and delivered within the required timeframe.


• Coordinating logistics for events overseas, for example: alumni dinners, pre-departure and receptions hosted either by members of International Relations or other officers in the University.


• Co-ordination of on-campus events, involving overseas agents, regional sponsors and other third-party organisations. Events are likely to range from small to large scale and will require strong project management skills and a high level of attention to detail.


• Coordinate ad-hoc campus visits from prospective students, agents and stakeholders within the specified region, liaising with academic Colleges where necessary.


• Providing other administrative support for the team including arranging travel, servicing meetings, diary management.


Provide administrative and logistical support to external stakeholders, overseas sponsors and agents .

• Regular liaison with the University's representatives and agents in various international regions and international agents in the UK acting as a primary point of contact


• The post-holder will support the processing of agent applications, using the PG Agent Portal, and UG portals (BIRMS) (Banner).


• The post-holder will undertake the processing of overseas agent commission claims, performing necessary checks, regular communication and updating agents and the International Recruitment Team, raising Purchase orders and ensuring the accuracy of checks and payments are made in a timely manner


• Act as a primary point of contact for sponsors on an ongoing basis, in liaison with the Regional Manager and the International Stakeholder Relations Manager.


Provide high-level administrative support to the Regional Manager International Officer and Country Officers, or their representatives across various international regions, and act as the main point of contact when they are out of the office.

This role requires good judgement and initiative as some of the staff are based overseas and UK-based managers are frequently overseas on University business for 2-3 weeks at a time. As such the post-holder will often be working unsupervised as follows:

• Manage diary appointments: Using initiative when managers are overseas to set up suitable diary appointments which ensure the best use of the individual's time, taking into account venue and travel arrangements. Where possible the post-holder will research and respond to these enquiries autonomously.


• Responding to email and phone enquiries in the absence of Managers, using acquired knowledge and judgement to answer more complex issues relating to their work such as qualification enquiries relevant to the assigned recruitment region.


• Act as key point of contact for arranging incoming visits for prospective students, parents, agents, sponsors and other visitors, liaising with academic colleagues where necessary.


• Regular liaison with the University's representatives and agents within a specified region.


• Proactively engage with overseas enquirers and applicants by phone, email, and other media.


Finance: management of regional and team recruitment budgets

The post-holder is required to oversee and manage a number of regional budgets within the International Recruitment team.

This will involve:

• Processing and monitoring of transactions, including cash advances, corporate credit cards, foreign currency transactions, purchase orders and management of income streams. The post holder will be required to use the University's finance system (CORE) in addition to maintaining the office's and team's own financial records.


• Undertaking monthly and quarterly reconciliation of regional budgets, identifying and rectifying any discrepancies and bringing potential under or overspends to the attention of the Regional Manager. Ensuring all financial work is done within tight deadlines.


• Working with the External Relations Finance team as well as the wider University Finance team to ensure payments are made in a timely manner, tracking of payments is correct and for problem-solving.


• Providing managers with costing and pricing of activities and projects as required.


Marketing

The post-holder is required to undertake some tasks to support marketing on behalf of the International Office.

This will include:

• With oversight of the International Officers, managing and developing the content of the country webpages, including proactively making updates and improvements to current content.


• Contributing to the development and production of international marketing materials. Including; Liaising with the University's Creative Media team and other recruitment teams such as Undergraduate Home and Postgraduate.


• Deliver, support and develop regional student contact and conversion strategies that will use student data to its maximum potential, improving overall enrolment.


• Compiling student and alumni profiles for marketing purposes. Production of digital assets; including supporting in writing copy, liaising with our in-house design team and sourcing images while upholding the brand guidelines.


Information Management and other enquiries

• Use Customer Relationship Management (Dynamics) to optimise the conversion of enquiries generated at recruitment events.


• Regular use of the web content management system (Contensis). Maintain a selection of 'country pages' on the International Recruitment web pages.


• Actively engage with applicants and offer holders through various sources.


• Responsibility for a few regional inboxes providing support to the International Officer and Country officer, ensuring the team is regularly communicated on updates and escalating enquiries where required. This will mainly involve answering student enquiries, school councillor enquiries, sponsor enquiries, event invites and agent enquiries.


• Dealing with a wide range of complex enquiries and correspondence independently, or exercising judgement to redirect them to senior colleagues or other departments within the University.


• Use the University's student records and finance reporting system to produce and analyse reports e.g. applicant status updates, and budget transaction reports.


Support for other recruitment-related activities

• Take responsibility for a key administrative function to support recruitment and conversion activities. For example, this could be co-ordinating procedures for international scholarships (e.g. benchmarking against competitors, monitoring volume, convening selection panels, acting as key point of contact for internal scholarship enquiries). The nature of the administrative function assigned to individual administrators may change from time to time, so the above is by way of example. The post-holder is expected to be flexible regarding such tasks.


• Engaging with current students and student societies to generate content for promotional materials.


• Contributing to other activities, including undertaking reception duties, helping at Open Days and other promotional events on the campus, representing the University at UK international recruitment events, providing cover for other members of our team as necessary and any other duties as requested by the Head of International Recruitment.


• Working with internal teams to deliver broader recruitment activity.


• Proactively reviewing, maintaining and developing the content of webpages.


• Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.


• Supporting additional initiatives and projects as required as part of the University's strategic plans for student recruitment., This role will require the exercise of personal initiative within and beyond the department and with external contacts.


Finance and budget administration

A significant part of this role is to support the International Recruitment Team on budget administration as well as our stakeholders in timely payments.

Planning and organising

The role is required to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium-longer-term horizons without daily supervision.

Internal and external relationships

You will liaise with internal colleagues and stakeholders University-wide and also with external stakeholders.


• Minimum of GCSE grade C or 4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent level 2 qualification or relevant work experience evidencing numeracy and literacy.


• Experience in administering complicated budgets is essential and familiarity with foreign payments and transactions is beneficial.


• Proficiency in word processing.


• Computer literacy, including experience of electronic communications as well as experience of using the Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel and Outlook. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.


• Experience in administering complicated budgets is essential and familiarity with foreign payments and transactions is beneficial., Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own (and sometimes others' workloads) to manage time effectively, work on own initiative, progress tasks concurrently and work to deadlines.


• Excellent interpersonal skills, to be able to deal with contacts at all levels, whether dealing with students, academic staff, or external contacts such as vice-chancellors, embassy officials or sponsors.


• The postholder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.


• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.


• A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.


• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.


• Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work


• Accuracy and attention to detail.


• Excellent customer service skills


• Computer-literate: articulate, confident, and competent in the use of database systems, electronic communications, and spreadsheets.


• Experience with written content for print or online material.


• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.


• Cultural sensitivity: awareness of the international perspective of the work of the department in terms of the diversity of the student body and our relationships with overseas organisations.


Event management experience would be beneficial.

Level of previous experience required :

Significant prior administrative experience in a busy office; familiarity with an academic and/or marketing environment would be advantageous.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham, We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy . You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website .