Trainee charity recruitment consultant jobs

Senior Recruitment Consultant (Manager fast-track)

Location

Preston

Length of contract

Full time and permanent

Hours

37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday

To be worked between 8am and 6pm (inc 30-minute unpaid lunchbreak)

Pay Scale

£34,000 per annum plus on target bonus

Responsible to

Operations Director

Holiday entitlement

Paid holiday entitlement of 28 days, plus 8 bank holidays

Plus a day’s leave on your birthday, plus a wellbeing day’s leave

The Role

The purpose of the role is to win vacancies and place ex-offender candidates into sustainable paid employment with local employers. Working towards a promotion to Manager within 6 months, you will then also provide leadership to the Preston office team, being responsible for the management and Recruitment Consultant responsibilities for 70% of your role.

Purpose

We place people with convictions into paid work, so they can build purposeful lives and see their families thrive

Mission

We do this by providing practical employment support, linking them to companies with good jobs

Vision

A  society  where  people’s  past  convictions  don’t  define  their  employment future

Duties and Tasks

There are four main areas of work, all of which are vital to achieving the key positive outcome for the individuals we support: sustained meaningful employment.

1. New Employer Engagement

Expanding our network of employers to generate a regular flow of job opportunities, allowing us to place our candidates into work.

This will require new business development and excellent ongoing relationship management. You will identify which jobs are most sought after by our typical candidates and which are more specialist or occasional opportunities. Equally, you will gravitate towards employers who demonstrate agility and responsiveness in their hiring processes. Your client contacts are more likely to be business owners, divisional managers and site supervisors than social value or EDI teams.

You will:

• Proactively approach local employers who are advertising paid jobs that could suit current candidates on our books, for example through online searching using keywords for skills and industry sectors, sending over candidate details with the goal of obtaining recruitment instructions and securing interviews.
• Speculatively approach organisations that are not currently recruiting but are likely to have suitable vacancies in the future that match the typical skillsets of our candidates.
• Maintain a follow-up database of active and prospective clients and take ownership of industry sectors or geographical areas, in consultation with colleagues, to avoid duplication and maximise reach.
• Visit employers to explain our services, answer questions around protocols for interviewing or hiring ex-offenders and gain a clear understanding of the workplace environment, travel routes and employer requirements.
• Select and submit candidates who you consider suitable for vacancies, advocating for each individual based on your knowledge of them, their references, and the positive changes and efforts you have witnessed.
• Be prepared to positively challenge employer assumptions where you believe reluctance to consider a candidate is unfounded.
• Disclose the candidate’s offending history and risk profile, emphasising their personal attributes and work strengths.
• Guide employers through the interview and hiring process in close consultation with the candidate.

2. Job Finder Support

Interviewing ex-offenders, offering one-to-one job coaching to help them into work and providing ongoing mentoring during their first 12 months of employment.

Ours is a face-to-face, holistic and wraparound service that culminates in our candidates finding good jobs that last, with a wide array of socially inclusive employers. Our job finder support can begin in custody and continue through the gate into the community, or start within the community. Typically, we work with an individual for between one and three months to establish work readiness and continue supporting them for up to a year after they secure employment. Many people remain in touch and return to us for subsequent jobs over a period of years, and we consider our door to always be open.

You will:

• Conduct one-to-one assessments with job-seeking candidates and, using your professional judgement, either accept them directly into our paid-work search services or refer them to partner organisations for pre-employability support where barriers such as substance misuse or homelessness remain significant.
• Work with candidates over several weeks and months as a job mentor, meeting regularly to support all aspects of their job search.
• Help craft effective CVs and disclosure letters, ensuring candidates understand the facts and disclosure obligations relating to their spent and unspent convictions.
• Check that candidates have the correct Right to Work documentation and arrange replacement birth certificates and National Insurance letters where required.
• Book candidates onto relevant third-party training courses, including CSCS cards, HGV driver training and renewable energy qualifications.
• Encourage candidates’ own job search activity, including teaching them how to use online job boards and supporting them to complete online application forms.
• Submit candidates for opportunities available through our network of inclusive employers and proactively seek additional vacancies on their behalf.
• Organise interviews, ensuring candidates have the means to travel and appropriate interview clothing, providing support where required.
• Follow up after interviews, helping candidates manage expectations, process outcomes and rebuild confidence where applications have been unsuccessful.
• Confirm job starts with both candidate and employer, ensuring candidates have access to any required workwear and support with travel-to-work costs.
• Provide practical support where needed, including food parcels, hygiene packs, pre-loaded SIM cards, clothing and utility top-ups.

In-Work Support

After employment begins, there can often be unforeseen challenges facing newly employed candidates, particularly recent prison leavers. These may be practical, emotional or lifestyle-related. The strongest opportunity to advocate for a candidate and help sustain employment comes from having built trusted relationships with both the individual and their employer.

You will:

• Advise employers on successfully onboarding new employees during their first few weeks and months in work.
• Help employers understand and accommodate any additional support needs, such as housing transitions, medical requirements or probation appointments.
• Be aware of and navigate any negative Google or media reporting about a candidate’s previous offending, including advising on measures to protect privacy and reputation where appropriate.
• Remain in regular contact with candidates during their first 12 months in employment through check-in calls and meetings.
• Record all candidate and employer interactions and outcome reporting on the Itris recruitment CRM database.

3. Management of the Preston Team (Within Six Months)

You will:

• Line manage and develop the Preston office’s Recruitment Consultants, Trainee Recruitment Consultants and Resourcer, leading by example across business development and candidate support activities.
• Run the Preston office efficiently and effectively, ensuring the charity can carry out its work and, alongside the Operations Director, help develop, agree and implement business, operational and annual plans.
• Identify appropriate methods for monitoring office performance and report regularly to the Operations Director on performance against business, operational and annual plans and budget expectations.
• Ensure the office is aware of best practice and consistently works to achieve this within the constraints set by the Trustees and available resources.
• Facilitate regular group clinical supervision sessions for yourself and all team members.

4. External and Internal Relations

You will:

• Maintain and extend a network of referral partners who can direct candidates to us for job finder support, including charities, Jobcentres, probation services and police teams.
• Cultivate these relationships through regular visits, communication and updates.
• Assist in developing the charity’s local public profile and foster positive relationships with government, statutory, voluntary, private sector and other external stakeholders.
• Monitor changes in the external environment that may affect the charity, proactively advising the Operations Director and taking appropriate action where necessary.

This is a non-exhaustive list of tasks and may be amended from time to time in line with the needs of the charity.

Our Interview Process

This vacancy will close on 6th September, with applications being shortlisted on 7th September.

If you are successful at the shortlisting stage, you will be invited to attend the first stage of our interview process on Tuesday 8th September, between 4:30pm and 7pm, at our new offices in Preston.

We want our recruitment process to give you the opportunity to get to know The Recruitment Junction (TRJ) just as much as it allows us to get to know you.

The evening will begin with an introduction to TRJ from our CEO and Senior Leadership Team, giving you the opportunity to hear more about who we are, our values. the work we do and what it is like to be part of our team. You will also have the opportunity to ask questions in an open audience environment, allowing you to find out more about TRJ, our work and our organisation. Refreshments will also be provided.

You will then have a short, informal, face-to-face conversation with one of our hiring managers. This is designed to be a relaxed opportunity for us to learn a little more about you, while also giving you the chance to ask questions and decide whether TRJ is somewhere you would like to continue pursuing a career.

Following the first-stage event, we will invite successful candidates for a formal final interview.

Key dates:

• Applications close: 6th September
• Shortlisting: 7th September
• Stage One – Recruitment Evening: Tuesday 8th September, 4:30-7pm
• Stage Two – Formal Final Interview: Wednesday 16th September – time to be confirmed

We hope this approach creates a welcoming and informal first stage, giving you a genuine opportunity to learn more about TRJ, meet members of our team and decide whether we are a fit for each other.