Job Description
The Careers Group is looking to recruit an Associate Director (Careers & Employability) Goldsmiths, University of London / Senior Head of College Careers Service as part of The Careers Group, University of London.
This role is the strategic and operational lead for Careers and Employability at Goldsmiths, University of London which, at Goldsmiths, is designated the Associate Director (Careers & Employability). It is one of several Associate Director level posts within the senior management team of the Student Experience Directorate at Goldsmiths. As with the majority of member institutions of the University of London, the Careers and Employability service is part of The Careers Group, University of London. This means that the post is also a Head of College Careers Service within the Group and a member of the collective Senior Management Team of the Careers Group.
Heads of College Careers Services are employees of the University of London, but fully deployed to, based at and embedded within, the relevant member institution, in this case, Goldsmiths. All Heads in The Careers Group have dual reporting lines: the post holder will be responsible to the Director of The Careers Group and to the Director of Student Experience at Goldsmiths.
The Associate Director (Careers & Employability) is a key role for the University and is the post responsible for the leadership, development, resourcing and management of the Careers & Employability department. The role provides an experienced careers professional the opportunity to lead the enhancement of the student experience through the delivery of exemplary services and the development of the institutional co-curricular offer. This role has a particularly strong focus on academic partnership and ultimately this work should ensure that all graduates have the opportunity to leave Goldsmiths with the skills they need to thrive in their chosen field. The role-holder will be responsible for the implementation of the institution’s Employability Strategy, working with senior colleagues from across the University to ensure that its principles and practices are fully understood and implemented. They will be challenged to improve the University’s outcomes in supporting its students into graduate employment and further study as measured by the Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS).
The Associate Director (Careers & Employability) will be pivotal in the development of a working culture based on the highest professional values, including but not limited to: embedding equity, equality, diversity and inclusion and tackling structural inequality; cross functional team work; customer service; innovation; and university wide collaboration.
The role is being advertised as a fixed term 1 year position from 1 August 2022.
An overview of The Careers Group
The Careers Group, University of London was established over 100 years ago and is the largest network of higher education careers services in Europe. Its mission is as follows:
Our Group exists to make each of our member services the best that it can be strategically and operationally in the context of its institution and to ensure that each service is demonstrably better as a member of the group than it would be if it were not.
As a collective, our Group will be highly visible as thought and practice leaders in higher education careers and employability nationally and globally. In turn, the leading edge thinking and practice will enhance delivery in member services and bring reputational benefits to the University of London centrally and to member institutions.
The Careers Group, University of London is an expertise-led, collaborative membership organisation, set up to serve predominantly, but not exclusively, the member institutions of the University of London. The Group comprises the careers services of City University London, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmiths University of London, King’s College London, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, the Royal Veterinary College, SOAS, St George’s Medical School, St Mary’s University, University of London and UCL. There is additional provision for the School of Advanced Study, the Institute of Cancer Research, technē, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and London Arts & Humanities Partnership. All the institutional services are closely aligned to the learning and teaching, student experience, employability and enterprise strategies of the institutions that they serve. The group has over 250 staff and serves a population well in excess of 150,000 students, researchers and graduates.
The Group HQ is at Senate House and contains the Director's office and a small central team which supports the institutional services by coordinating recruitment and resourcing, providing training and professional development, supporting research and evidence-based practice, overseeing the creation and curation of shared resources, and undertaking special projects on behalf of member services and the Group as a whole. Senate House is also the base for the Head of College Careers Services for the smaller specialist institutes of the university.
In October 2020, The Careers Group began implementation of a new action plan for Equality and Diversity, shaped by external expertise in social justice and anti-racism, and led by the new Director of The Careers Group, Dr Kate Daubney. This plan takes both a collective and individual approach to reviewing learning and practice in equality and diversity, striving to improve our understanding of the differences in and the impacts of lived experience, both across our staff community and among our students and other partners. We are seeking to address structural inequality and obstacles to progression in our organisation through a range of actions including: establishing an internal Advisory Panel of staff to inform the Group’s strategic priorities; reviewing our manager progression processes, experiences and data; and embedding approaches to building and maintaining safe spaces for all.
The University of London created a new academic strategy during 2020, which includes the establishment of a new Centre of Excellence for Careers and Employability, which will be one of five new Centres of Excellence in the University. The establishment of the new Centre of Excellence for Careers and Employability will initiate a period of review and reflection for The Careers Group, both senior leadership and colleagues in all member services, to determine how best to use the concept of the Centre and the community of staff to enable services to meet and respond to the swiftly changing landscapes of higher education and work. Part of this review includes developing new approaches to enable The Careers Group, through the senior leadership and staff, to demonstrate our commitment to creating a safe space for all staff and to celebrating and promoting equality and diversity, through our culture, processes and community across all member services.
Further information
For more information on the role, please read the Job Description and Job Pack attached.
To be considered for this opportunity, please submit your application by clicking ‘Apply for job’ at the bottom of this page before the closing date at midnight on Tuesday 3 May 2022.
Interviews will be conducted on Wednesday 8 June or Thursday 9 June 2022 and may be in person or virtual; candidates will be advised when they are invited to interview.
If you would like to have an informal conversation about the role, please contact Louisa Green at l.green@gold.ac.uk (after 20 April 2022), or Katy Gordon at k.gordon@gold.ac.uk (before 20 April 2022), to arrange time to speak.
If shortlisted, please notify us on tcg.hr@london.ac.uk before booking an interview if you are likely to incur travel expenses as part of your involvement in our selection process, as we will only cover these if agreed in advance.
We look forward to receiving your application.
The University of London is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive working environment where we can all be ourselves and succeed. We particularly encourage applications from members of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities as this group is currently under-represented in senior levels within the University. All appointments will be made on merit, based on the criteria identified in the job description.
Pursuing excellence in education and equal opportunities.