Campus Services (CS) employs over 900 staff with a turnover exceeding £65m in the last financial year. CS plays a key role in the quality of the student, staff and visitor experience, providing services across diverse areas such as the University’s sporting facilities, food and beverage, cleaning, conferencing, hotel operations, day nurseries, Portering, post, branded and own-brand retail outlets, visitor services and attractions (e.g., Winterbourne House & Gardens), student housing, transport, waste disposal and recycling. CS is a highly commercial organisation operating within the University context and has an ambitious strategic agenda, in terms of growing our service profile across both our Birmingham and Dubai campuses.

Sport & Fitness is responsible for operating the extensive sport and recreation provision of the University of Birmingham. It caters for the whole sports continuum from elite athlete to beginner; it supports 6,500 members, 40+ performance clubs, over 50 sports scholars and offers an extensive participation and intra league programme. It stages big events for a number of British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS), national governing bodies and external groups, with spectator numbers reaching 3,000 for an individual event and has recently hosted the Commonwealth games for Hockey and Squash competition as well as swimming and athletics training venues. It services the many different user groups drawn from the University – societies, medical school, groups of friends and departments, and the city – athletic, swimming, football, rugby, hockey, and gymnastics clubs as well as many schools, local authority groups and the more commercial provider.

Role Summary

The University of Birmingham has a proud and illustrious sporting history and we are looking to appoint a Sport Scholarships & Recruitment Coordinator (SSRC) to continue to support the University’s most talented student-athletes. The SSRC will play a key role in the recruitment of talent to the University, as well as its delivery across a range of Sport Scholarship programmes. The role is responsible for ensuring that the highest standards of coordination, administration and programme support are implemented to enable the delivery of both comprehensive, multi-faceted recruitment and scholarship strategies.

You will provide proactive administrative support in the Sport Scholarships department, working as part of the team or on own initiative. You will have the ability to manage your work without needing to refer to others for most of your time. In order to flexibly use resource, you may be given the opportunity to work within the wider Performance Sport team. You will be able to develop a wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, and may also have the opportunity to lead on specific tasks within the team.

Main Duties

• Provide effective administrative support to ensure the smooth running of a wide range of sport scholarships and bursaries offered to student-athletes by the University of Birmingham.
• Act as a point of contact to provide accurate and timely information and advice to internal and external stakeholders on Sport Scholarship processes and procedures, answering queries promptly, providing guidance and resolving queries from initial contact to resolution. This will include recognising when queries need to be referred elsewhere.
• Maintain up to date records of all sport scholarship athletes both in spreadsheets and using cloud-based software, such as Monday.com.
• Take minutes at weekly Scholar Review meetings, athlete profiling and multi-disciplinary meetings to support effective delivery to athletes.
• To support the recruitment of talented student-athletes to the University. This will involve responding to high volumes of sport-related queries via email, social media and telephone. You will also be expected to meet with prospective student-athletes and parents to provide tours and insight to UBSport’s facility and programme offerings.
• Lead on the coordination of recruitment events, assist at Open Days and other targeted recruitment events held both internally and externally to the University.
• Maintain associated recruitment spreadsheets, perform UCAS checks and feed back relevant data for further analysis.
• Coordinate and administer essential processes and events such as scholar interviews, applications, inductions and athlete profiling.
• Process all financial tasks relating within Performance Sport, including making scholar termly payments, setting up new suppliers, raising invoices & purchase orders and receipting of goods.
• Responsibility for regular logging and updating of the finance spreadsheet to ensure the account can be effectively monitored and managed.
• Make timely and accurate bookings on behalf of the Sport Scholarship Manager, Sport Recruitment Manager, Coaches, sport scholars and programme such as facilities, transport, catering and conferences.
• Undertake any other duties that may reasonably be required and which can be accommodated within the postholder’s grading.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics grade C minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
• A solid understanding of sport within higher education in the UK and the demands of performance student-athletes.
• Knowledge of the landscape of sporting National Governing Bodies and their performance pathways.
• Exceptional organisation skills with the ability to prioritise work proactively, independently and as part of a team.
• Ability and track record of working as part of a busy team and working effectively under pressure to tight deadlines while maintaining an excellent level of attention to detail.
• Effective problem solving and decision-making skills.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with a wide range of stakeholders, including students, academic contacts, NGBs and coaches.
• Good IT skills with a working knowledge of standard Microsoft Office software, especially Excel, and an aptitude for learning new IT packages and systems.
• Ability to take responsibility for specific tasks, carrying out duties without needing to refer to others, with scope for some choice and using your own judgment.
• Ability to work on your own initiative and to proactively contribute to improving processes and for proposing new ways of working.
• An understanding of the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace. The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures and how to respond to issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.
• The ability to cope with change in a fast moving, dynamic environment where change is often required immediately.

Informal enquiries to Hugh Sproston, email: h.d.sproston@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here [https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/about/our-strategy