King's College London

About Us

King’s College London is consistently ranked one of the top 6 Universities in the UK and Top 30 Globally, has a turnover exceeding £1.3 Bn, is the fourth oldest university in England, and is based in the heart of London.

King’s has over 40,000 students from over 150 countries studying in person and online and has over 15,000 employees, based on campuses and offices in central and SE London, delivering a comprehensive portfolio of outstanding and impactful research and education in partnership with NHS Trusts, government departments and other universities across the globe.

Our Vision is ‘To make the world a better place’.

We do this by;

• Enabling student success
• Supporting a thriving staff community
• Delivering sustainable research and innovation excellence
• Using our knowledge with purpose; service and impact

This role sits within HR Operations, part of a vibrant, dedicated and collaborative community of nearly 150 HR professionals supporting staff across the whole of King’s College.

About the Role

Reporting to the Director of HR Operations, the Head of Recruitment will be responsible for providing a high quality and effective service for recruitment of Permanent and FTC staff into all Faculties and Professional Services functions, delivering outstanding customer service to candidates and hiring managers alike. You’ll be responsible for all hiring up to but not including Senior Leadership positions. Each year we support over 3,000 internal and external hires. King’s College is performing well and growing, and we need Recruitment be one of its competitive advantages.

As part of the HR operations Management team, you’ll initially manage a team of Recruitment Advisers and a Recruitment Manager, who has a team of Recruitment Coordinators, totalling c15-20 FTE and operating within a Service Management environment, including working with our Kings Service Centre. We’re looking for an inclusive, supportive and challenging leader who is a natural networker and connector, matching our values.

Supported by the HR Operations Director you’ll have the scope to consider the optimal target operating model and team structures that align best to our differing customer needs and make the most of our strong employer brand. You’ll also work closely with our People Technology teams to get the best out of the systems we use whilst keeping an eye on tools and technologies that will help us deliver even more customer friendly, efficient and cost-effective services.

You will be joining at a time when significant process and policy improvements have been made, paving the way to advance the recruitment offering and drive talent acquisition initiatives.

King’s College is a highly collaborative, professional, open and welcoming place to work, however you’ll need to be adept at working across different stakeholder groups and cutting through organisational complexity. This is significant opportunity for a talented Head of Recruitment to make a real impact and contribute to creating our Thriving Staff Community.

This is a full-time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract. We work a hybrid pattern requiring 2 days per week in our central London office.

About You

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Considerable experience in leading and managing a high performing Recruitment function
2. Ability to analyse, develop and improve recruitment operating models to cater for varying customer and business needs
3. Excellent Stakeholder Management skills with the ability to present and influence stakeholders at all levels
4. Experience of designing and embedding customer centric process improvements and recruitment strategies
5. Experience delivering employee and manager training programmes
6. Thorough knowledge and understanding of employment law and inclusive recruitment practices
7. Analytical and able to interpret and summarise key themes from a variety of HR Metrics
8. Knowledge and practical experience with digital recruitment tools and technologies, including ATS implementation and optimisation
9. Proven experience in managing differing and conflicting priorities

Desirable criteria

1. CIPD Qualification or Relevant Professional Development
2. Experience of working within the Higher Education Sector
3. Understanding of AI developments relating to recruitment technology and policy

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held on Thursday 5th December.

We are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.