Most people think university recruitment is straightforward: a job opens, you advertise it, interview candidates, recruit someone. Finished.
In reality, it's often more complex work that brings together people, policies, and a changing job market. As a university, we recruit for a wide variety of roles: academics, researchers, professional services staff, technical specialists, operations teams; attracting talent from across the globe.
We also understand that if you’re the person doing the recruiting, recruitment isn't the main part of why you’re here and it's another thing to fit in, on an already full plate.
And that's why we’re starting this blog which will be written by members of our recruitment team who support our university community. We'll explain what happens, share what we've learned, and explore the "why" behind what we do.
Over the coming months you'll find posts about:
- What happens behind the scenes of recruitment
- Why certain steps take time, and why shortcuts often don't work
- The small decisions that shape how candidates experience your process
- What the university job market looks like right now, and how we're using data to support our work
- The initiatives and tools we're introducing to improve how we attract and select talent
- How the recruitment teams keep everything moving
- Guest slots for recruiting managers to talk about a recruitment drive that's gone really well, and why
- Behind the scenes on an unusual recruitment campaign
We want to hear from you
We know if you’re a recruiting manager you’ve got competing priorities. We know candidates are navigating unfamiliar processes. And we know recruitment can sometimes feel like a black box, where things go in and decisions come out, but what happens in between isn't always clear.
We want to try and change that by sharing what we see, hear what you're experiencing, and working together to make things simpler where we can.
Whether you're a recruiting manager, a curious colleague, or someone considering a career in recruitment, we hope these posts give you a clearer picture about what we do, and we'd love to hear from you.
Sarah Sutton, Deputy Director (Talent)
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