Careers & Placements Officer

University of Hertfordshire - Office of the Vice-Chancellor (OVC) Lifelong Learning and Employment

Location: Hatfield

Salary: £28,778 pa with potential to progress to £32,080 pa by annual increments, UH5

Hours: Full Time

Contract Type: Permanent

FTE: 1.0 FTE

Duration of Contract: Permanent

Annual Leave: 25 days plus standard public holidays and an additional 4 days including the closure of our office between Christmas and New Year

Location: Hatfield – plus some flexible homeworking

Main duties & responsibilities

The successful candidate will work across the University SBUs and in co-creation with our students to ensure a coordinated and efficient service is provided to students and academic schools in relation to placement management and approvals. The role has specific responsibility for working with students undertaking placement opportunities during their degree course with a focus on assisting our PG international students.

You will deal with student, academic and employer enquiries for all aspects of placement activity including ensuring the smooth running of the administrative function of placement approvals, alongside working proactively to encourage take up of placements through activities such as phoning or emailing. The role also includes supporting students and graduates with the development of CVs, covering letters, general recruitment processes and directing them to further sources of help within the wider team.

The role contributes to a range of innovative additional services within the Careers & Employment Service, to ensure UH students and graduates are fully supported with all aspects of employment related activity.

Skills and experience

Strong administrative skills including drafting letters and data entry are essential for this role, as is providing a front-line service to clients/customers. Hence experience working with key stakeholders as well as proven customer service skills are also vital. You must be able to demonstrate strong communications skills, both written and verbal, and show that you have a good understanding of customer care. You must have good IT Skills, including a good working knowledge of MS Office (word, excel and PowerPoint) and other common computing applications (email and internet) and databases.

This role requires you to be able to compile, interpret and report on data related to the work of the team. You must be able to work calmly and systematically in a busy working environment whilst meeting agreed deadlines, this may require you to work flexibly within your contracted hours so to respond to specialist events. This role requires you to be able to work with conflicting priorities, working well under pressure with minimum supervision, whilst demonstrating initiative and the ability to learn new skills.

Candidates must also have excellent attention to detail supported by a methodical approach to work tasks, and maintain a polite, helpful and confident manner.

Qualifications required

A-levels (or equivalent qualification) or proven professional work experience.

Please view the job description and person specification for a full list of the duties and essential criteria via the 'Apply' button above. Please attach a personal statement showing clearly how your skills and experience match the Person Specification.

We regret that we are unable to offer UKVI sponsorship for this post; applicants will either hold UK Right to Work, or demonstrate access to UK Right to Work, before an offer is made.

Contact Details/Informal Enquiries: Dan Weiss, Senior Careers and Placements Officer d.weiss@herts.ac.uk

Closing Date: 08 October 2025

Interview Date: Week commencing 03 November 2025