Employer Liaison Officer - Dubai Campus

Heriot-Watt University; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 60,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An established university is seeking a dynamic individual to lead employer engagement and student recruitment initiatives. This role focuses on building strong relationships with employers to enhance career opportunities for students and graduates. The successful candidate will be responsible for planning and executing career fairs, employer presentations, and targeted events to connect students with potential employers. Join a vibrant team dedicated to supporting student employability and making a significant impact on their career journeys. This is an exciting opportunity to work in a forward-thinking environment that values innovation and collaboration.

Qualifications

• Educated to Degree Level or equivalent practical experience required.
• Experience in developing and maintaining external client relationships is essential.

Responsibilities

• Manage employer relations for student recruitment and career events.
• Develop strategies to enhance employer engagement with students.

Skills

Organizational Skills

Interpersonal Skills

Networking Skills

Analytical Problem-Solving

Customer Service

Education

Degree Level Education

Tools

Relevant IT Packages

Job description

Organization Name: Registry and Academic Support

Location: Dubai Campus

About our School / Directorate and Team:

The Global Registry and Academic Support Directorate supports our students and staff across the full student life-cycle from enrolment to graduation.

The Directorate has responsibility as the definitive record-keeper of all student information, programme and course details, as well as leading services that help students settle and stay at the University. This includes providing professional help and advice through a range of support and wellbeing services.

The Directorate supports academic and professional services staff across the University in a number of areas, including: academic, institutional and student related Regulations and Policies, and global, national and institutional quality matters.

It delivers these services through five Divisions, each managed by a Global Head, and two Heads of Campus Registry and Student Services:

• Student Life
• Head of Registry & Student Services – Dubai Campus

The Student Life Division in Dubai is made up of five areas:

Student Service Centre: A single point of access for students that delivers a consistent student experience, including face-to-face and virtual services (e.g., enrolment, student account payments, student records, etc.)

Student Records: Responsible for the management of back-office functions to support the Student Service Centre, acts as the definitive record-keeper of the student record, and manages standard / consistent processes for all student transactions (e.g., transfer, Temporary Suspension of Studies, etc.).

Wellbeing: Provides a range of services to support the student journey including support for people of determination, mental health, and retention activities.

Careers and Graduate Futures: Delivers career and employability advice to students and recent alumni, working closely with local and global employers, and with Heriot-Watt’s Schools supporting the employability strands.

Student Engagement: Supports the Student Council, and coordinates activities and events for students to facilitate their extra-curricular development and build community.

Purpose of Role

The Careers and Graduate Futures Service aims to assist Heriot-Watt University students and graduates to make informed career choices by providing a professional, high-quality career guidance and information service for students and recent graduates of Heriot-Watt. We work closely with employers and academic Schools to support students by developing the skills they need to maximise their employability. The Careers and Graduate Futures Service is dynamic, forward-looking and proactive in helping the University enhance the employability of our students. They work with a wide range of organisations across all business sectors to ensure that students can access a wealth of work experience, internships and graduate opportunities to support their readiness for life once they have completed their studies.

The focus of this role is to manage all student and graduate recruitment related employer relations on behalf of the Careers and Graduate Futures Service. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in business development and employer engagement to maximise relationships. They will support and understand the needs of employers who are looking to attract and recruit our graduates, promote take-up of our services and deliver a programme of events designed to bring students and employers together.

Candidates must possess excellent organisational and interpersonal skills, be able to demonstrate strong networking skills and have the ability to build rapport quickly to develop and maintain strong working relationships.

This role will work closely with other teams within the Student Life department, specifically Careers Advisors, Student Engagement and the Student Council to improve engagement with the service.

This post reports to the Careers and Industry Engagement Manager.

Summary of Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Act as the primary contact for employers to plan, market and deliver an agreed programme of career fairs, employer presentations and targeted events to enable employers to connect with Heriot-Watt Students
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with employers, understand their requirements and develop a strategy to raise their profile at Heriot-Watt
• Implement initiatives to raise the profile of Heriot-Watt and its students with employers
• Contribute to Careers and Graduate Futures strategic planning and innovative development to ensure the Service’s key objectives are achieved
• Maximise the use of our Careers and Graduate Futures online portal to support employer engagement and advertise activities, internships and graduate roles
• Maintain appropriate statistical records to contribute to the development of effective information management
• Identify and pursue new business opportunities aimed at increasing the number of employers and opportunities, including internships and graduate roles, available to Heriot-Watt students
• Gather feedback from students and employers to review and further develop our services
• Gather information on relevant industry events and other benchmark services
• Work collaboratively with colleagues at our Edinburgh and Malaysia campuses to ensure a consistent and equitable student experience globally
• Work to and deliver on key performance indicators in line with the 2025 corporate strategy
• Look to enhance the student experience through the delivery of high quality and efficient services
• Ensure compliance with local regulations, policies, procedures, and rules applicable to student matters, processes and events
• Support projects or initiatives across the University, which support the achievement of strategic and operational objectives, and the enhancement of the student experience
• Other duties as assigned to support the mandate and goals of the Registry and Academic Support Directorate, and the wider University. This list of duties is therefore not exhaustive

Education, Qualifications & Experience:

• Educated to Degree Level or equivalent practical experience in the workplace
• Experience of working within a similar environment as outlined above
• Competent in the use of relevant IT packages with the ability to critically analyse and enhance the use of online technology within a service delivery context
• Proven relevant experience in successfully developing and maintaining external client relationships
• Well developed interpersonal, influencing and presentation skills, able to understand and communicate complex issues effectively
• Ability to empathise with and understand the needs of students from a wide variety of backgrounds
• Analytical problem-solving skills
• Self-motivated with a proven ability to establish and maintain strong working relationships
• Ability to research, analyse and present complex information effectively with good attention to detail
• Demonstrable excellent customer service
• Demonstrable ability to work quickly, flexibly and accurately in a dynamic, changing and pressured environment
• Experience of working closely with stakeholders across all levels of the organisation
• Demonstrable professional and proactive approach.

Desirable:

• Experience of Higher Education
• Experience of Business Development
• Specific IT software package knowledge

Special Factors

Requirement to work at weekends or out of hours during peak periods

Heriot-Watt University Values

With a history dating back to 1821, Heriot-Watt University has established a reputation for world-class teaching and professionally relevant, leading-edge research, which has made it one of the top UK universities for business and industry.

We are a vibrant, forward-looking university, well known for the quality of our degrees with employers actively seeking out our graduates. Heriot-Watt is also Scotland’s international university with an unsurpassed international in-country presence. We deliver degree programmes to circa 30,000 students in 143 countries around the world, have a further overseas campus in Dubai and boast the largest international student cohort in Scotland.

At Heriot-Watt we’ve created an environment that nurtures innovation and leadership - where our researchers, staff and students can realise their potential and develop their ambitions.

We are proud of our collegiate atmosphere and integrated teaching and research approach which has helped to build a community of committed academics and highly motivated students. Our focus on careers delivers results and we’ve an excellent reputation for graduate employability.

In addition to the Edinburgh campus, we currently have campuses in the Scottish Borders, Orkney, Dubai and Malaysia. For all of our campuses we aim to provide stimulating, supportive environments conducive to effective learning and research, where staff and students can excel. At Heriot-Watt, we have an established set of values that help us to nurture innovation and leadership, and show our commitment to continuous improvement and development in all our activities.

Our values describe our deeply held beliefs and our community spirit. They characterise not only how we are as a higher education institution but also frame how we want to be. Our values are:

• Belong
• Collaborate
• Inspire
• Celebrate

As a learning, living and working institution, we use our values as the building blocks of how we go about doing our work and how we each conduct ourselves as members of Heriot-Watt University. They represent what binds us together as a University community and help us to become the best at what we do.