Alumni Relations Officer

Department: Graduate Employment and Entrepreneurship

Location: Role can be based in London (West and East London), Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds Campuses (On-site)

Type of Contract: Permanent

Working Pattern: Full Time - 40hrs Per Week

Salary: £29,000pa

GBS is a higher education provider offering a range of sector-relevant courses across ten campuses in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. Working in partnership with several of the UK’s leading higher education providers, we deliver vocational, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in finance, accounting, business, construction, tourism, healthcare, and more.

Our Vision: Changing lives through education.

What We Do: The Employability and Entrepreneurship Department at GBS is dedicated to preparing students for successful careers and business ventures. It offers tailored one-to-one guidance, a dynamic online Careers Hub via Handshake, and a structured Employability Award that builds critical job-seeking skills through Bronze to Platinum levels. Students gain practical experience in CV building, networking, and real job applications, including tools like ChatGPT.

The role: The Alumni Relations Officer will develop and maintain the relationship between GBS and our growing number of alumni. Your key task is to build up our Alumni programme and to manage the relationship between GBS and its graduates, including informing them about the Graduate Outcome Survey. This will be done through communication with the alumni community by newsletters, events, on-line events, in-person events and other resources.

You will work closely with the Graduate Employment and Entrepreneurship Team in tracking our graduates as they move into future employment and explore opportunities for our internship and volunteering programme.

Where alumni have not secured graduate level progression, you will be signpost them to the Careers Consultants for support. You will work closely with the Marketing Department in creating and distributing communications for our alumni.

You will also help build a community of external stakeholders to support our alumni, including local employers, public bodies and third sector organisations.

Please note, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this position.

What the role involves:

This role is largely about communication and support. You will keep alumni connected to each other and GBS, to encourage and promote the professional development of alumni on an individual basis, including helping them to secure graduate level outcomes where necessary, and to keep the alumni community aware of the institutions’ developments, including work placement opportunities and achievements.

Duties:

To communicate with our alumni and external stakeholder communities.   

To populate and maintaining the alumni database.   

To work with marketing distribute an alumni magazine/newsletter. 

To provide content for the alumni publication. 

To arrange networking events, reunions and other events, both in person and on-line, for alumni members and external stakeholders. 

To encourage engagement from alumni and external stakeholders to support extra-curricular events, GBS development and promotion, and volunteering and placement opportunities.  

To promote the alumni community to current students and external stakeholders.  

To contribute to strategic planning for the direction of the alumni office. 

To help maintain the alumni website, Careers and Placement platform, and online community.  

To source discounts, benefits and services for alumni members and raising awareness of those.  

To communicate with local businesses and organisations to arrange benefits packages for alumni members. 

To keep alumni informed about the Graduate Outcomes Survey and ensure that they feel prepared for it.

To track the employment status of alumni and refer them to the Careers team if they have not achieved graduate level outcomes in the period up to the Graduate Outcome Survey.

To promote any notable alumni success stories.

To undertake any other duties as may reasonably be required, including administrative and evaluation duties appropriate to the role.

What Experience/Skills are required:

Essential:

Hold Further or Higher Education level qualifications

Achieved a minimum of GCSEs grade C or above in Math’s and English (or equivalent)  

Good project management skills are required in this role  

You will be expected to work to deadlines and prioritise workloads  

Demonstrate highly developed interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to influence, collaborate and interact effectively with a range of stakeholders.  

Understanding of and passion for both higher education and for working with a diverse student body, especially mature students from a widening participation background  

Flexibility with time and travel is required as you will occasionally be required to work outside of regular working pattern over weekends and evenings, and travel to our various campuses   

Good IT skills working on all Microsoft packages

Desirable:

Qualified to degree level

Professional qualifications in the areas of administration and marketing are desirable 

Experience of university administration or marketing duties

Willing to work occasional weekends and evenings, and to go travel to our various campuses  

Experience of working with a customer relationship management (CRM) system

What We Offer

25 days annual leave, plus 8 public holidays

1-day extra leave per year of service, up to a maximum of 5 days

Workplace pension scheme

Tuition reimbursement for career development courses

Flexible Benefits: Cycle to Work, Workplace Nursery, Techscheme and much more

Perks@Work discounts platform, wellbeing centre and much more

Reward and recognition programme

£500 award employee referral scheme

Discretionary annual performance bonus

I will be starting a Masters in Careers and Employability Guidance in January, and this has been supported by my manager who allows me to manage my time and diary how best works for me. We are also given constant upskilling opportunities and encouraged to attend both internal and external learning and development events. — Kira McCormack (Professional Services Employee)

GBS is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and providing a workplace free from discrimination or harassment. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and communities. We take our core values seriously and work hard to create an environment where everyone feels welcomed