Must haves:

• High levels of personal and emotional resilience and the ability to stay calm during challenging and pressured situations.
• Ability to manage a busy workload and adapt to change in a fast-paced service.
• Knowledge of safeguarding with the ability to assess and manage risk independently.
• Understanding and knowledge of mental health issues.
• The resilience to work shifts when almost all time is spent on the phone, remaining engaged, active and responsive on every call.
• Excellent IT skills including Microsoft Office, call handling, and CRM systems.
• Ability to learn and become competent with new technology and systems.
• Data entry skills.
• Ability to multitask and focus on calls, whilst entering data and communicating effectively via IT systems.
• Ability to work within and meet service KPIs on call length, utilisation and other key targets.
• Ability to maintain clear boundaries with callers.
• Understanding of the issues facing older people, particularly the impact of loneliness and isolation on older people.
• Ability to respond in a non-judgemental, empathetic, respectful and friendly manner in all situations.
• Excellent interpersonal, customer service and communication skills, with the ability to adapt communication style to meet the needs of the caller.
• Ability to navigate challenging topics of conversation with good listening skills and excellent conversational skills.
• Ability to adhere to policies and procedures.
• Being a positive team player.
• A commitment to promoting equality and diversity.
• A passion for supporting older people.

Additional Information

Supporting statements and anonymisation

Candidates are expected to provide a supporting statement that explains how they meet the competencies annotated with an 'A' in the job description, to assess suitability for the position. Age UK acknowledges and accepts that AI may be used to support the application; we do expect candidates to personalise experience, knowledge and skills and failure to do so, may result in your application being rejected.

Please submit a Word version of your CV as it will be anonymised by our recruitment system when you apply for a role. Our system is unable to anonymise supporting statements and heavily formatted CVs. Please could you remove any personal information including your name before you upload to support our inclusive recruitment process. All equalities monitoring information is also anonymised and not shared with the hiring panel. Your name and address will only be known to us if invited for interview.

Reasonable adjustments

Disabled job seekers can access reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. All requests for reasonable adjustments are considered on a case-by-case basis, in collaboration with the disabled job seeker to best meet their needs, by contacting the Recruitment Team. Disability disclosures will be kept confidential and only shared on a need-to-know basis to support the implementation of adjustments. Disclosures will not be used to inform hiring decisions.

Age UK is committed to safeguarding adults at risk, and children, from abuse and neglect. We expect everyone who works with us to share this commitment.

Early application is encouraged as we will review applications throughout the advertising period and reserve the right to close the advert at any time.

Age UK politely requests no contact from recruitment agencies or media sales. We do not accept speculative CVs from recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.