Employability Adviser

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Employability Adviser

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our team as an Employability Adviser based in the Advice and Guidance Team within Student Futures.

The role will involve you supporting students to develop their employability skills, you will do this in a range of ways, including individual appointments, engaging workshops, events and input to the calendar of activities offered by Student Futures during the year.

Based at the Centre for Student Life, you will work as part of a hybrid working team. Spending at least two days on campus with the option to work from another location alongside this, which is according to business need and may vary at different times of the year. The University is committed to offering this flexibility, wherever the role and business need allows, supporting work-life balance.

This role is full time (35 hours per week), fixed term until July 2025.

Salary: £32,332 – £34,980 per annum (Grade 5)

To find out more about this role please contact the Advice and Guidance Manager, Claire Osman – [email protected]

Cardiff University offers many excellent benefits, including 37 days annual leave (plus bank holidays), pro rata for part time staff, local pension scheme, a cycle to work scheme and other travel initiatives, annual increments up the pay scale, and more. It is an exciting and vibrant place to work, with many different challenges and is a proud Living Wage supporter.

Date advert posted: Wednesday, 13 September 2023

Closing date: Saturday, 30 September 2023

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds who have the ambition to create a University which seeks to fulfil our social, cultural and economic obligation to Cardiff, Wales, and the world. In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Job Description

Key Duties

• Deliver groupwork sessions in a wide variety of formats, tailoring materials to the audience as appropriate and focussing on accurate, informed content and engaging delivery.
• Contribute to supporting students through the Cardiff Award process and support students with the graduate recruitment process by providing information and advice in person and by e-mail.
• Research and write careers information resources across academic disciplines on key employability topics, both online and in print.
• Collaborate with staff across the Service to ensure successful delivery of our programmes with engaged students and graduates.
• Establish working relationships with key contacts, developing appropriate communication links with the University’s Schools/Directorates and outside bodies as required.
• Investigate and analyse specific issues related to employability, conducting research as required, supported by advances within Student Futures and the University employability agenda.
• Raise the profile of Student Futures with stakeholders in face-to-face interactions, online engagement and social media channels.
• Supervise specific project teams on an occasional basis to accomplish key objectives.
• Undertake a variety of administrative duties to support the department.
• Advise other employees across the University within the field of employability as required.
• Maintain own professional development and expertise about the employment market and graduate recruitment, to provide up-to date advice to students.

General Duties

• Ensure that an understanding of the importance of confidentiality is applied when undertaking all duties.
• Ensure compliance with University policies on employability, relevant professional guidance and employment legislation.
• Abide by University policies on Health and Safety and Equality and Diversity.
• Perform other duties occasionally which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.

Person Specification

Important notice:

• It is the University’s policy to use the person specification as a key tool for short-listing. Candidates should evidence that they meet ALL of the essential criteria as well as, where relevant, the desirable.
• As part of the application process you will be asked to provide this evidence via a supporting statement.
• Please ensure that the evidence you are providing corresponds with the numbered criteria outlined below.
• Your application will be considered based on the information you provide under each element.

When attaching the supporting statement to your application profile, please ensure that you name it with the vacancy reference number, e.g. Supporting Statement for 17219BR.

Essential Criteria

Qualifications and Education

Degree/NVQ 4 or equivalent Professional membership/experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Experience of working within careers, work experience, student enterprise or another student-facing context.

Able to demonstrate professional knowledge of careers work, work experience, employability and/or enterprise to give advice and guidance to internal and external customers.  

Ability to set up standard office systems and procedures and make improvements as appropriate.

Customer Service, Communication and Team Working

Ability to communicate conceptually detailed and complex information effectively in a groupwork context with small and large audiences.

Evidence of research skills and strong written communication skills to produce both information resources and marketing materials, with the ability to tailor written communication style to the web and social media.

Ability to work collaboratively in a team, across teams within the service and by building professional working relationships with colleagues in the wider University.

Planning, Analysis and Problem solving

Evidence of ability to solve problems using initiative and creativity; identifying and proposing practical solutions and resolving problems with range of potential outcomes.

Evidence of ability to work unsupervised to deadlines, planning and setting priorities for own work and that of others and monitoring progress.

Other

A willingness to undertake further training and development.

Desirable Criteria

Postgraduate/Professional qualification in relevant discipline.

Experience of working in a Higher Education environment.

Fluency in Welsh, written and oral.

Additional Information

This Employability Adviser post sits within a busy team and will work alongside other advice and guidance professionals in Student Futures. This role works mainly with students, supporting and empowering them to develop their employability skills.

A typical week will involve a mixture of delivery, to large and small groups as well as in a one-to-one setting, helping students to discover stages of their career journey. This delivery takes place both in person and online depending on the business needs of the service. This role will develop relationships across Student Futures to support the range of opportunities our service is able to provide, for example access to the employability pathway, The Cardiff Award.

This role plays an important part in raising the profile of Student Futures with effective materials and activities and develop effective working relationships across the service and wider University to increase student and staff engagement.

Job Category

Admin / Clerical