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Are you driven to support educators and businesses to collaborate and promote employment, skills and career opportunities for young people on the Isle of Wight? Are you adaptable, tenacious, determined, positive and resilient with the ability to work in an agile and fast-paced environment?
Established in 2010, Solent LEP is a limited company by guarantee and business-led collaboration between private, public and education sectors across the Solent. Of the 38 LEPs across England, Solent LEP represents one of the most significant coastal gateway regions in the country and is responsible for securing and investing large amounts of public and private sector funding in ambitious projects to create new businesses, jobs and homes.
The LEP also delivers a range service programmes under contract, including the Solent Growth Hub and the LEP's Careers function. Since its formation Solent LEP has benefitted from business expertise and acumen. We have created a new partnership between the public, private and academic sectors in the Solent that represents the diversity of local businesses and communities.
Solent LEP policies and actions are based on clear economic evidence and intelligence from businesses and local communities. Our interventions are designed to improve productivity across the local economy to benefit people and communities with the aim of creating more inclusive economies. As an organisation, Solent LEP prides itself on demonstrating innovation, passion, and commitment for the region by working in a collaborative and inclusive manner with its complex and varied stakeholder networks.
The Isle of Wight Enterprise and Skills Executive supports the coordination of the Solent Enterprise Adviser Network (EAN) and Solent Careers Hub on the Isle of Wight to help schools and colleges improve their Careers and enterprise programmes, employer engagement and local economy linkages.
The EAN bridges the gap between education and employers by pairing individual volunteer Enterprise Advisers (EAs) with a school or college to help build a strategic employer engagement plan and to improve Careers and Enterprise provision within the school. In addition, this will include supporting pilot Primary school engagement programmes on the Isle of Wight. The post will focus everyone’s efforts on programmes and activities that are most effective in motivating young people, supporting independent choice, and supporting positive outcomes for young people.
This shared post between Solent LEP and the Isle of Wight Council will require significant partnership and collaborative working with the Careers Development Manager at Isle of Wight Council and the Operational Hub Manager at the Solent LEP.
The post-holder will attend and support key Careers-related events on the island, develop employer links for a number of activities and programmes, and work with the Careers Development Manager to support schools to work towards the Quality in Careers Standard.
The person
Qualifications and experience required
- Experience of engaging and building relationships with leaders from schools, colleges and businesses.
- Experience of supporting the delivery of programmes or projects with multiple stakeholders.
- A track record of stakeholder engagement and management and of communicating with a variety of audiences, preferably in the education and careers sector.
- An understanding of Careers education, school culture and the challenges faced by schools in delivering Careers and Enterprise; understanding of the current Careers education and corporate social responsibility landscapes.
- An understanding of relevant local and national policy relating to skills and economic development and the issues and barriers to employment faced by young people.
- An understanding of the post-16 landscape including National Apprenticeship Service, Uni-Connect, National Careers Service and T Levels.
Skills and core competencies
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to persuade and influence a variety of audiences and encourage others to use new ways of working.
- Collaborative and good at building relationships at all levels, both internally and with a range of external stakeholders.
- Proactive, with the ability to work independently, prioritising a busy workload, managing relationships with a large number of stakeholders and adapting conflicting priorities and deadlines
- Able to think and plan strategically to measure and drive performance.
- Adaptable, tenacious, determined, positive and resilient with the ability to deal with ambiguity in a changing environment.
- Competent use of a range of digital and IT and social media platforms in order to improve and raise awareness of the direct impact of the network.
- Advantageous - candidate to live on the Isle of Wight and have an awareness of the Island ethos/history
When completing the application form, please thoroughly tailor your application to the 'Who is the Person' points with the use of examples from your experience and attach this as a cover letter in the Supporting Documents section. This is really important or you are likely not to be shortlisted.
We are a disability confident employer - committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible and welcome applications from all areas of society.
What we offer
We really appreciate our employees and fully realise they are essential to our success and look to offer an inclusive, supportive working environment where employees can reach their potentials with a healthy work life balance, offering the following rewards:
- A generous pension scheme
- Up to 31 days annual leave per year pro rata + bank holidays
- Flexible / hybrid working
- A range of retail discounts via our reward portal offering discounts at retailers including IKEA, Currys, Tesco
- Free Access to Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and wellbeing support
- Access to a wide range of training and development opportunities including apprenticeships
- Potential to purchase additional annual leave
- Business travel support and initiatives, including bike loans
