Workforce & Recruitment Lead (Children's Services)

Plymouth City Council; Plymouth; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

Plymouth City Council is seeking an experienced recruiter to manage temporary and permanent recruitment across Children’s Services, with a focus on attracting social workers. You’ll work closely with hiring managers to understand requirements, raise requisitions, and manage the full lifecycle while mentoring and supporting onboarding where possible.

You’ll use LinkedIn Recruiter to search for talent, build pipelines, and act as the go-to contact for recruitment queries.

Qualifications

• Experienced recruiter for Children’s Services, covering permanent and temporary roles.
• Proactively attracts social workers and builds talent pipelines.
• Owns end-to-end recruitment lifecycle with hiring managers.
• Uses LinkedIn Recruiter to source candidates and approach talent.
• On-site in Plymouth (Ballard House) 2–3 days per week.

Responsibilities

• Manage full recruitment lifecycle across Children’s Services.
• Raise requisitions and agency orders; act as main recruitment contact.
• Collaborate with managers and support onboarding where possible.
• Build proactive candidate pipelines in a tough market.

Job description

• Please note, this role is not eligible for visa sponsorship and we can only consider applicants with existing right to work in the UK

We’re looking for an experienced recruiter to manage temporary and permanent recruitment across Children’s Services, with a particular focus on proactively attracting social workers.

This is a genuinely hands‑on role. You’ll work closely with hiring managers to understand their requirements, raise requisitions or agency orders and manage recruitment through the full lifecycle, becoming the go‑to contact for recruitment queries and supporting onboarding wherever possible. The role has responsibility for both permanent recruitment and temporary agency delivery.

You’ll also use LinkedIn Recruiter to actively search for talent, approach prospective candidates and build pipelines rather than relying solely on applications.

It’s a tough candidate market, so you’ll need the resilience, persistence and creativity that comes with recruitment experience. If you enjoy finding people and solving difficult vacancies but want to move away from a sales and KPI-driven recruitment environment, this could be a great next step.

You’ll have real ownership of the recruitment you manage, alongside support and mentoring from the Recruitment Operations Manager and the opportunity to develop your experience further.

This is a flexible role, but it is not a fully remote recruitment job. Being visible and building strong relationships with our managers matters. You should therefore expect to work on site in Plymouth (Ballard House) at least 2 - 3 days each week, and more when the needs of the service require it.

If you have any questions, please email Recruitment Operations Manager, Neil Stevens at [e-mail]

This is a genuinely exciting opportunity to use your recruitment skills to make a real difference.

The Disclosure & Barring Service Check requirement for this post is: Standard check.

Plymouth City Council is an equal opportunities employer. All applicants will be considered for employment regardless of age, care experience, disability, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, race, religion/belief, sex or sexual orientation.

As part of our commitment to promoting equality we offer guaranteed interviews to those who meet the essential criteria and are considered disabled, care experienced or are an Armed Forces Service Leaver within the last two years.

Plymouth City Council is proud to be an Age Friendly Employer. We encourage applications from talented people at every stage of their career.

Closing date: Thursday 15 October

Interviews to take place week commencing 19 October