Heriot Watt is entering an exciting phase in terms of development of its professional services. They have centralised and re aligned their recruitment and Admissions Teams in Edinburgh and are embarking on a journey to develop a new structure for their Dubai Campus and recruitment hub. The Student Recruitment Manager will take responsibility for managing, shaping and delivering the overall student recruitment strategy – for Global College UG, PG students and research degrees. The role holder will be leading on all student recruitment activities in the market, ensuring that Heriot Watt attracts, converts and enrols prospective students in line with recruitment targets. The Student Recruitment Manager will be providing expert advice to the Directorate in Dubai and global hub in Edinburgh on relevant direct and indirect recruitment opportunities, maximising those, shaping tactical delivery and overseeing the team of domestic recruiters and customer service advisors.

Job Purpose

• Bringing together you knowledge of the local UAE and international markets with understanding and customer service expertise you will be an exceptional collaborator and commercial manager.
• Bringing others along with you to drive rich engagement at both university, academic school, subject and programme level to optimise achievement of student recruitment targets.

Responsibilities of Student Recruitment Manager

Strategy, planning and management responsibilities

• Play a significant role as a member of the Marketing and Recruitment Directorate management team, working with Regional Director of Recruitment, Associate Regional Director of Prospect Experience, and the Director of Marketing and Recruitment to deliver against student recruitment targets for Heriot Watt Dubai Campus,
• Identify, interpret and translate university strategies to MRAC localised strategies and operational planning.
• Keep abreast of current developments in the student recruitment and admissions space and feed these into the strategic and operational planning.

Recruitment Events of Student Recruitment Manager

• Managing a portfolio of recruitment events for all academic schools, both on campus, virtual and external recruitment fairs, including undergraduate open days, conversion events, applicant days and postgraduate recruitment fairs. Shaping the overall vision for customer experience at those events, planning and coordinating the delivery with relevant stakeholders
• Proactively working with colleagues from across the university to shape, plan, prepare and implement all events, ensuring customer needs and focus are maintained, and making sure that Heriot Watt is positioned throughout the event experience. Operational management of events will require liaison not only with academic departments, but equally facilities, security, catering and other professional services such as finance and students’ services, and external suppliers and contractors.
• Organise and manage members of staff within the service and liaise with colleagues across Heriot Watt Dubai before and during events to ensure smooth running of events.
• To recruit, train and manage teams of student ambassadors at open days and other recruitment events, ensuring they are properly briefed to represent Heriot Watt and its brand.
• To research, evaluate and further develop the value of Heriot Watt’s student recruitment events, tracking effectiveness and keeping abreast of other institutions’ events, and make recommendations for future activity.
• Working with colleagues in the wider Marketing and Recruitment Team, Schools and Services to promote and maximise attendance by target audiences at their recruitment events

Customer Service and Admissions Management

• Delivery of the end to end customer journey for prospective enquirers and applicants, driving conversion, managing enquiries and applications to all HW Dubai academic schools to meet ambitious recruitment goals, both long and short term.
• Responsible for driving conversion and enrolment within the Dubai Global College.
• Management of local recruitment advisors, ensuring that team take full accountability for both direct student recruitment activities, and conversion via customer service excellence.
• Ensure admissions and conversion approach and associated processes enable the university to optimise achievement of student recruitment targets with significant accountability for conversion from enquiry to application and application to enrolment.
• Accountability for all KPIs across the customer journey from enquiry to enrolment, leading on and managing the admissions service and consultants both locally and with an outsourced partner.
• Together with the Associate Director of Prospect Experience, delivering on overall customer communication and engagement plans aimed at measurably increasing conversion rates at all stages of enquirer and applicant journey, it is essential that the role holder is able to provide innovative ideas to develop experiences that showcase their brand, but also drive enrolments to the relevant group of schools.
• Establish & implement an effective enquiries management framework linked both locally & across relevant regions to optimise recruitment to HW Dubai Campus. But also support recruitment to other campuses – supporting the wider move to global recruitment hubs.

What Will You Do More

• Work with relevant academic, recruitment and marketing colleagues to set, review and implement admission entry requirements. Aligned to the competitive localised landscape and university key performance indicators.
• The Assistant Student Recruitment Manager will be responsible for ensuring that customer satisfaction across all engagement points is paramount. Need to embed relevant measurements across a range of events and customer focused activities. Understanding of a competitive environment, customer needs and the ability to work creatively. Lead with strategic goals in mind are essential to recruitment success of the university.
• Embed and optimise new processes, approaches and ways of working both in house and across any outsourced partners.
• Championing the delivery of a service excellence culture across all departments of the university.

Team Management

• Ensure all staff within the division have a clear understanding of their role and alignment to University strategy.
• Working with the Regional recruitment manager to ensure operation maintenance and effectiveness.
• Build strong working relationships with colleagues across HW Dubai, UK and Malaysia. Ensure the team is providing a high quality service in line with delivering the HWU strategy.
• Proactively develop links between teams and ensure successful collaboration across the directorate and university.
• Manage performance & development via the institutional performance development review processes for relevant team members in HW Dubai Prospect Experience group.

Championing Change

• Assess and lead on change management, working with other teams to influence and manage stakeholder expectations.
• Manage the implications of change on the teams, maintaining team morale and service levels.
• As part of the change process, ensure that changes are carried out with minimal risk and disruption to the University.

Citizenship

• Demonstrate the university values at all times through performance and behaviour.
• Participate in ad hoc duties to support the team/university and for personal development.
• Support newer or inexperienced colleagues within and outside the university by offering support, help and advice.
• Provide mentoring support (informally and formally).
• Positively promote the university internally and externally through positive behaviour and supporting university wide activities.
• Build partnerships to advance the university’s strategy.

Job Requirements of Student Recruitment Manager

• Educated to first degree level or equivalent practical experience in the workplace.
• Minimum 2 year experience in similar role.
• Experience of managing/leading a customer service focused team.
• Experience of delivering customer focused events.
• Experience and skills in monitoring and improving service experience.
• Experience of utilising CRM systems for lead capture and conversion purposes.
• Experience in developing and utilising reporting dashboards to monitor customer service excellence.
• Demonstrable experience in managing projects and change including integrating new areas of work and balancing conflicting priorities.
• Demonstrable experience of managing resources, workloads and changing priorities for self and others.
• Experience of leading and managing a team.
• Experience in a customer service related role outside of the higher education sector.
• Experience working overseas.
• Knowledge of higher education admissions criteria related to domestic,  international and foundation students.
• Experience in managing in house commercial events focused on delivering both brand affinity and robust customer acquisition targets,.
• Experience in developing and implementing virtual customer experience i.e. live chat, virtual events, chatbots.

Skills & Knowledge Desired of Student Recruitment Manager

• Proven ability to think strategically and to develop, plan, prioritise and deliver service wide objectives.
• Good track record of developing and maintaining positive working relationships with internal and external customers, peers, stakeholders and others.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and influencing skills.
• Demonstrable flexibility and resilience.
• Demonstrably collaborative and proactive.

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