Essex County Council
ACL Work Based Advisor
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About The Role
ACL Work Based Advisor
Permanent, Full Time
£29,467 to £34,667 per annum
Location: Chelmsford
Working Style: Fixed-base worker
Closing Date: 26th July 2026
Interviews: w/c 10th August
Adult Community Learning (ACL) Essex is Essex County Council’s provider of lifelong learning experiences for Essex residents. ACL Essex offers qualifications to help people move nearer to, enter or progress within the workplace or gain skills to enhance life chances. The service focuses many of its programmes and activities on the hardest to reach communities within Essex. ACL Essex learners have access to a diverse range of accredited and non-accredited courses which encourage creativity, healthy lifestyles, social inclusion and engagement.
The Work Based Advisor leads a high-quality, inclusive candidate and employer journey for apprenticeships and other work-based programmes. The role provides proactive information, advice and guidance (IAG), manages recruitment pipelines and matching, and ensures compliant onboarding, documentation and early retention. The postholder acts as a trusted point of contact for employers and prospective learners, setting clear expectations for training plans and off-the-job (OTJ) learning and coordinating the steps from vacancy to enrolment.
Operating in a fast-paced environment and collaborating across marketing, curriculum, quality and employer engagement teams, the Work Based Advisor contributes to service outcomes by progressing leads through the pipeline, improving customer experience and providing feedback and insight to inform continuous improvement.
Accountabilities:
- Deliver impartial information, advice and guidance to employers and candidates, supporting informed decisions and improved conversion rates.
- Manage allocated vacancies and candidate pipelines from initial enquiry through to enrolment, progressing activity in line with agreed processes and targets.
- Maintain accurate CRM records and updated pipeline stages in a timely manner to support reporting, forecasting and performance monitoring.
- Deliver employer onboarding briefings using approved materials, setting clear expectations for training plans and off-the-job learning.
- Support early retention activity, including scheduled check-ins within the first ninety days, identifying risks and escalating issues where required.
- Work with marketing and sales colleagues to follow up campaign leads quickly and effectively, translating interest into applications and starts.
- Produce regular activity updates and contribute insight and feedback to support service improvements.
- Embed inclusive practice, accessibility and safeguarding within all recruitment and onboarding activity
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Skills, Knowledge and Experience:
- Educated to Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) Level 3 or above; a formal Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) qualification is desirable (for example, Level 3 or Level 4 Advice and Guidance).
- Experience of recruitment, employability or apprenticeship onboarding within education and training environments, with a track record of converting pipelines into starts and supporting early retention.
- Excellent verbal and written communication and customer service skills, with the ability to influence and manage multiple stakeholders professionally.
- Strong organisation, time management and attention to detail, with proficiency in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and data integrity.
- Understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion, safeguarding and reasonable adjustments in recruitment, with the ability to embed these principles in everyday practice.
- Resilient, proactive and outcomes focused, able to follow defined processes work at pace and balance priorities.
To read more about our business area, please visit: Policy, Economy, Investment and Property
Why Essex?
As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex. With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you.
In March 2026, the Government announced that councils in Greater Essex will be reorganised into five new unitary authorities from April 2028. In addition to this, Greater Essex has been accepted on to the devolution priority programme, where we will work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority. You can read more about these changes, and what this may mean for this role, on our careers site.
Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.
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Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.
At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles, including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.
As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service.
Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.
If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community
If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email ami.fosker@essex.gov.uk
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