Workforce Recruitment Officer – MacIntyre School & Children’s Homes

Workforce Recruitment Officer – MacIntyre School & Children’s Homes

Job reference: 005365

Salary: £35,600

Closing date: 20/07/2026

Location: Wingrave

Job Description

Help us find the right people for work that really matters

At MacIntyre, our vision is for all people with a learning disability to live a life that makes sense to them.

We are looking for an experienced Workforce Recruitment Officer to help us strengthen recruitment across MacIntyre School and our Children’s Homes. This is a new, specialist role, created to bring pace, grip and practical recruitment expertise into a busy and important operational environment.

This is not a traditional office-based recruitment role. You will be based across our school & children’s homes in Wingrave, Leighton Buzzard and St. Albans, working closely with our children’s homes and alongside operational leaders, managers, business support colleagues and our central Recruitment Team. Your role will be to help make recruitment work better locally: clearer vacancies, better candidate attraction, stronger communication, quicker follow-through, and a more joined-up journey from first interest through to the first year of employment.

Why this role matters

Recruitment into children’s social care and education is critical. The people we appoint make a direct difference to children and young people’s lives every day.

You will help us attract people who may already have experience in care, education or children’s services, as well as people with transferable skills from other sectors who have the values, resilience and motivation to do this work well.

You will help candidates understand what the work involves, what makes it meaningful, and what it feels like to be part of MacIntyre. You will also support managers to move at pace, hold the line on safe and fair recruitment, and make sure candidates feel welcomed, informed and valued.

What you will be doing

You will coordinate hands-on recruitment and talent activity across MacIntyre School and Children’s Homes, supporting a busy recruitment pipeline of around 200–300 appointments a year.

• Building clear visibility of vacancies, shifts, rotas and future workforce needs;
• Working with managers to shape roles and opportunities in ways that are attractive, realistic and operationally deliverable;
• Leading local attraction activity for Support Worker, Learning Support Assistant and other key operational roles;
• Building local reputation, relationships and word-of-mouth routes so that more people understand MacIntyre as an organisation, the work we do and the opportunities available;
• Strengthening candidate messaging, local storytelling and online visibility;
• Coordinating candidate communication from first interest through to start date;
• Using values-led screening calls so candidates are understood beyond their CV;
• Coordinating look-arounds, realistic job previews and interview arrangements;
• Supporting protected interview slots and escalating where activity is not moving at pace;
• Supporting onboarding flow, keeping-warm activity and early retention follow-up;
• Using data and insight to show what is working, what is blocked and what needs to change.

Whilst you will not make hiring decisions, local managers are likely to ask for your views and insight. Your role is to support, coordinate, challenge and improve the process so that recruitment is treated as the operational priority it needs to be.

About you

You will bring proven recruitment experience and the confidence to get things done. This is not a first appointment into recruitment; we need someone who already understands recruitment practice and can apply that experience in a complex operational setting.

You may have worked in recruitment, resourcing, talent acquisition or a similar role. Experience in social care, education, children’s services or another regulated environment is required, because this role needs someone who can quickly understand safe recruitment, operational pressures, candidate experience and the importance of appointing the right people into roles that directly affect children and young people’s lives.

You will need to be:

• Organised, practical and able to work at pace
• A systematic thinker who can improve processes, handovers and follow-through;
• Confident using recruitment systems, spreadsheets, data and online advertising tools;
• Skilled at candidate engagement, screening and communication;
• Able to build trust with managers, candidates and colleagues;
• Confident to challenge drift, create pace and escalate constructively where needed.
• Able to influence in a busy operational setting where people are managing many competing priorities;
• Comfortable using evidence, insight and professional judgement to improve recruitment outcomes;
• Committed to safeguarding, inclusion and fair recruitment practice;
• Values-led, curious and focused on improvement.

As the role covers our sites at Wingrave, Leighton Buzzard and St Albans, as well as time in Central Office in Milton Keynes, you will need to travel between locations. A full driving license and access to a vehicle is essential.

Working hours and flexibility

This is a 38-hour-per-week role, but it is not a traditional 9 to 5 recruitment job. To reach candidates well, there will be times when some evening or weekend working is needed, whether that is for candidate calls, recruitment events, interviews or keeping people warm at the points they are most available.

In return, flexibility works both ways. We will agree a working pattern that supports the role and also works for your life. So, if an 8am run clears your head, a school drop-off matters, or you need to shape your week around other commitments, we will plan sensibly with you.

What matters is that candidates feel supported, managers get the recruitment grip they need, and you have the flexibility and trust to do the job well.

Working with us

You will be part of a three-way model between MacIntyre School and Children’s Homes operational leadership, the CYP business support team and the central Recruitment / People Function.

You will work within MacIntyre’s recruitment standards, systems, tools and employer brand, while bringing local insight and operational grip to help us recruit the right people into the right roles at the right time.

Initially, the focus will be on getting the foundations right: improving clarity, reducing delays, building relationships and establishing a reliable recruitment rhythm. Over time, the role will help us build stronger talent pipelines, improve candidate experience and support early retention.

What we offer

We provide a range of benefits to reward and thank our staff which includes:

• Six weeks' annual leave including statutory public holidays
• MacIntyre Staff Savings Scheme
• Health Cash Plan which provides money back on core health treatments such as: optical, dental, physiotherapy, chiropody (at reduced cost)
• MacIntyre Sick Pay (qualifying period)
• Life assurance scheme offering valuable benefits to your dependents
• MacIntyre Rewards Scheme which recognises and rewards staff
• MacIntyre Perks which offers up to 6% discount off leading retailers including Tesco, Curry/PC World, Costa and many more
• Access to the Blue Light Card which offers thousands of amazing discounts online and on the high street for emergency and social care staff.
• Enhanced DBS Certificate (cost paid by MacIntyre)
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

Interested?

If you are an experienced recruiter who wants to use your skills in a role with real purpose, we would love to hear from you. At MacIntyre, you will be helping to find people who can support children and young people to learn, grow, belong and live lives that make sense to them.

To apply, please submit your CV and a short supporting statement via our website. Interviews are expected to take place from 22 July 2026.

#IND

Safer Recruitment and Diversity statement

MacIntyre safeguards and promotes the welfare of the children, young people and adults we support. Therefore we work with successful candidates to complete appropriate checks prior to joining.

MacIntyre is committed to promoting equality, encouraging diversity and embracing inclusion among our workforce. We want our workforce to be truly representative of all sections of society and the people we support. As part of this commitment, our accessibility toolbar allows you a number of options: read adverts in another language (including Welsh for our Services located in Wales), change the font to Open Dyslexia, change the colours, and many others. Just click the button marked “Accessibility” at the top of the screen.