Regional Manager – East Midlands Gateway

Remote based; with frequent travel across region.

£32,000 to £35,000 DOE, plus 25 days holiday & pension

Monday – Friday 35 hours per week

Career Ready is an award-winning agent for change. Over the last 18 Years, Career Ready has been transforming the lives of more than 150,000 Children and Young People across the UK. We believe that every young person, regardless of background, deserves the opportunity to enjoy a rewarding and successful future and to progress to a sustained, positive post-school destination.

We are working in partnership with SEGRO to recruit a Regional Manager to support the launch of a new partnership to deliver the transformational Career Ready 16-18 programme within local schools/colleges across the East Midlands Gateway. This new partnership will inspire the next generation of employees across the East Midlands Gateway and will help young people, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds - to meet their full potential.

Across the Midlands we are currently engaged in working with schools and colleges in Staffordshire, East and the West Midlands. This role will expand our reach in the region, into the East Midlands Gateway (Leicester and Leicestershire) an area of huge opportunity and need for young people. Our Career Ready programme is based on our Skills for Career Success learning outcomes, delivered by employer volunteers. The core pillars of our programmes are a series of structured masterclasses, mentoring, workplace visits and  four-week internship. Last year 98% of students aged 16-18 leaving our Career Ready programme went on to positive destinations.

You will be joining Career Ready at an exciting time following the launch of our most recent strategy 2021-2024. We are on a drive towards growing our work across the U.K with employers to support and invest in young talent. This role will support us over the next three years, as we grow our work and solidify our position as a sustainable charity that boosts social mobility for more young people across the UK. 

About the role

This is a significant opportunity for a new Regional Manager to lead on a landmark employer partnership and be at the centre of innovating to create partnerships locally. Identifying the schools/colleges and students who will benefit most from the programme, to ensure we are having the greatest impact possible on the lives of the young people. There will also be opportunities to collaborate and be creative, as well as being autonomous in how you run and develop programmes with your schools/colleges and employer accounts.

The Regional Manager will be responsible for launching the Career Ready programme across the East Midlands Gateway and will help to :

• Raise awareness and aspirations of career opportunities for young people across the East Midlands Gateway;
• Promote local industries and social mobility within local communities;
• Support participating students with practical and ‘real life’ learning opportunities
• Provide a sound medium to long term pool of young people entering the local workforce;
• Develop a pipeline to entry level roles with our students;
• Provide a significant volunteering programme to support local employer volunteering and skills opportunities.
• Deliver a robustly evaluated community investment for programme, with impact data for social value reporting.

Main duties and responsibilities

Regional management

• Stakeholder mapping and outreach to onboard new employers to support schools within the region.
• Recruit new schools/colleges to enrol on the programme for September 2022 in agreement with targets.
• Strategic account management and reporting for the Career Ready and SEGRO Partnerships.
• Project management of running the Career Ready programme working on a regular basis with schools and colleges e.g. support internships, managing events for students and corporate supporters, etc.
• Account manage relationships with regional and local corporate supporters and regional or local operations of national corporate supporters.
• Promote the contribution of Career Ready and awareness of Career Ready to potential supporters and assist in engaging their commitment to give both practical and financial support.
• Provide regular communication and reporting to the Lead Manager for the Midlands and external funders.
• Set up and Manage the  Local Advisory Boards (employer board) – for your region.
• Help support mentor volunteers with their programme support.
• Ensure that all regional management information is submitted to the organisational database (Salesforce) in a timely and accurate way.
• Support schools and colleges in delivery of internships and work placements.
• From time to time there will be need to deliver sessions to skills and careers leads and to groups of young people within the school and college setting.

National and strategic management

• Contribute to the corporate work of Career Ready.
• With the Chief Executive, Director of Programmes and Midlands Lead Manager  - monitor the state of Career Ready in the region and seek ways to promote its achievements and improve the service given by the central staff team.
• Attend meetings and training days .

Profile raising

• In conjunction with senior staff and the communications team, work to raise the profile of Career Ready in the Regional Manager’s area, and its key stakeholders in the regional and local media, business and education communities.
• Undertake public speaking and media engagements as required to promote the work of Career Ready in the Regional Manager’s area.                                       

Events

• Assist schools and colleges on our programmes to plan, manage and run events to promote Career Ready to potential corporate supporters, students, parents / carers and the local community, and be prepared to present at such events.
• Attend national Career Ready events such as A Capital Experience.
• Arrange and manage regional events including launch events, mentor icebreakers, work place visits.
• From time to time, Regional Managers may be required to deliver programme materials (e.g., assemblies, masterclasses etc.)

General

Promote a commitment to high standards of service, and to equality of opportunity through leadership, policy development and good practice. You will be able to build local partnerships with schools, colleges and employers with a view to growth with the Career Ready strategic plan. An entrepreneurial spirit allied with a can-do attitude will go a long way.

Person Specification

• Target driven, but able to balance financial and non-financial objectives.
• Entrepreneurial with the ability to follow through and achieve results.
• Forward planner with excellent time management skills.
• Able to deliver targets and objectives, often alone, but also to rise above the detail and take a strategic perspective.
• Able to communicate effectively in a wide variety of situations, including formal speaking engagements to large audiences.
• Able to reach, network with and communicate to a wide range of stakeholders and potential stakeholders including senior business people, principals of schools and colleges and students.
• Able to operate corporately as part of the Career Ready team.
• Consultative and supportive management style.
• Skilled negotiator, internally and externally.
• Ability to use databases, Word, excel, PowerPoint and other ‘Office’ packages.

A flexible approach to working hours is essential as ‘out of hours’ meetings are common within the requirements of this role.

Experience

One of the following:

(i) Preferably three years in an education role.  Experience could have been gained in schools, FE colleges or not-for-profit organisations, but the successful applicant must be able to gain credibility with senior managers in a variety of educational institutions; or

(ii) Three years experience in a not-for-profit organisation involved with young people; or 

(iii) Three years experience in a community development or Corporate Social Responsibility role in a company; and

Evidence of commercial awareness and proven experience of account management.

Appointment will be subject to a 3-month probation period during which time the contract may be terminated with one week’s notice.

An enhanced criminal record (DBS) check will be required for the role.

The role is home based (remote working)

Salary & Benefits

• £32,000-35,000 per annum, depending on experience.
• Plus 6% contribution to personal pension plan, subject to 3% employee contribution
• Annual leave: 25 days per annum plus bank/public holidays. The Charity is also closed between Christmas and New Year and there are an additional 2 days of leave available in August.
• Interest-free season ticket or bicycle purchase loans.
• Access to both our Reward Gateway Portal and an Employee Assistance Programme
• Annual Work Anniversary Gift Voucher

Application

If you are interested in the role then please submit a CV and a covering letter stating why you believe you are suitable for the role, giving details of your current salary.

If you would like to discuss this role further before applying, you are welcome to request a call back.

The closing date for applications is 5.00pm on Sunday 30th January 2022 and interviews will take place virtually in week commencing 7th February

Registered Charity Number 1092891