Recruitment Manager

The Recruitment Manager will lead and manage the end-to-end recruitment and onboarding cycle for all staff appointments across the Corporation of King’s, including King’s College School, King’s College Junior School and Wimbledon Common Prep School. They will ensure recruitment processes are warm, welcoming and reflective of the ethos and values across the Corporation, while remaining efficient, compliant and aligned with safer recruitment requirements. The postholder will be the first point of contact for all recruitment activity, ensuring a positive candidate experience while upholding the highest standards of safeguarding and data integrity throughout recruitment processes.

• Serve as an important ambassador for the Corporation, ensuring applicants experience the values and genuine warmth of our community throughout the recruitment process.
• Deliver a recruitment experience that reflects the Corporation’s commitment to care, inclusion and respect.
• Manage the operational delivery of the external recruitment lifecycle from vacancy identification to the first day of employment, ensuring a positive candidate experience at every stage.
• Manage recruitment timelines proactively, ensuring vacancies are filled efficiently, within agreed timescales, and that any delays are identified and communicated as early as possible.
• Prioritise and manage a pipeline of concurrent recruitment campaigns without compromising quality or compliance.
• Maintain and update the Corporation’s standard operating procedures for all recruitment activities, ensuring consistency and compliance across the King’s Corporation.
• Maintain an up-to-date recruitment campaign and appointment database to support the accurate and timely sharing of information with relevant staff about adverts, offers and employment decisions.
• Oversee all recruitment advertising, working with relevant staff on the drafting, approval, and placement of vacancy adverts across appropriate channels, ensuring content is accurate, engaging, and aligned with Corporation values to attract high-quality candidates.
• Oversee all communications relating to appointments, coordinating timely and accurate correspondence with candidates, interview panels, and external agencies, and ensuring a clear, professional, and positive experience at all stages of the recruitment process.
• Oversee interview days, ensuring all logistics are effectively coordinated, with a strong focus on creating a welcoming, engaging, and positive experience for all candidates.
• Provide expert guidance to interviewers on designing fair, consistent, and role-appropriate questions and tasks for professional services roles, ensuring alignment with HR best practice and safeguarding standards.
• Manage recruitment for internal responsibilities, ensuring fair and transparent selection.
• Ensure recruitment records are maintained in accordance with GDPR, the Corporation’s data retention policy, and best practice.
• Be the first point of contact in cases for search firms and recruitment agencies as required.

• Act as a safer recruitment champion, ensuring all recruitment activity complies with Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and relevant guidance, providing training for staff involved in recruitment as required.
• Ensure references are secured and verified, and online checks are completed efficiently to facilitate and support recruitment offers.
• Oversee all pre-employment checks, including enhanced DBS checks, right to work verification, qualification checks, medical and other requirements.
• Ensure all checks are completed, documented, and verified before a start date is confirmed, escalating any concerns to the Director of People and senior leaders.
• Maintain and update the Single Central Records (SCR) for both King’s and WCPS accurately and in a timely manner, ensuring full compliance with all statutory safeguarding requirements.
• Conduct regular audits of both SCRs and take corrective action where gaps or errors are identified.

• Working with relevant colleagues, oversee and continuously improve processes by which new staff are welcomed into the Corporation.
• Coordinate the setup of all IT accounts, system access, and staff profiles for new staff, working with relevant senior staff to ensure access permissions are correct, and with the IT team to ensure systems are ready.
• Manage the issue of access cards/staff badges and maintaining accurate records of access permissions.
• Plan and coordinate the delivery of the Corporation’s induction programme for professional services staff, liaising with departments, line managers, and the safeguarding team to ensure all new starters receive a comprehensive and compliant induction, and gathering feedback to make data-driven improvements to programme content and delivery.

• Define, monitor, and report on key recruitment metrics and KPIs, including time-to-hire, offer acceptance rates, onboarding completion timeframes.
• Produce regular recruitment reports for the director of people and leadership, highlighting trends, risks, and areas for improvement.
• Use data insights to drive continuous improvement across recruitment processes.

• Contribute to HR projects and initiatives as required.
• Maintain up to date knowledge of employment law, safer recruitment guidance, and HR best practice.
• Uphold and promote the Corporation’s values in all recruitment activity.
• Support the development of relevant policies and policy updates as required.

• CIPD qualified or equivalent HR qualification.
• Safer recruitment training and experience of managing pre-employment and safer recruitment checks.
• Experience of managing single central record in a school.
• Experience of managing recruitment, onboarding and induction.
• Understanding of GDPR and record-keeping in recruitment.
• Ability to manage multiple recruitment campaigns simultaneously to tight deadlines.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook).
• Experience using HR information systems and applicant tracking software.
• Ability to design and interpret recruitment KPI dashboards and reports.
• Knowledge of employment law relating to recruitment and selection.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to accuracy.
• Collaborative team player with a customer-focused approach.
• Committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.