Alumni Engagement Manager

Reports to: Science Training and Career Development Lead

This is a full-time, permanent position on Crick terms and conditions of employment. 

Summary

The Francis Crick Institute is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King's College London. It is a registered charity whose purpose is to conduct biomedical research into all aspects of human health and disease.

The Crick is a world-leading centre of biomedical research and innovation, promoting connections between researchers and disciplines and between academic institutions, healthcare organisations and businesses. Dedicated to research excellence, the institute has the scale, vision and expertise to tackle the most challenging scientific questions underpinning health and disease. It is a world-class institution with a strong national role — training scientists and developing ideas for public good. 

Our alumni/staff/student community, CrickConnect, was established in 2019 to facilitate networking, collaboration, and career development within the global Crick community and to foster an ongoing sense of belonging and engagement for former Crick staff and students.

The CrickConnect Alumni Engagement Manager reports to the Academic Training Team’s Science Training and Career Development Lead, and works across the Academic Training and Communications teams, to develop, manage, curate, and support the CrickConnect community. You will play a pivotal role in managing the community and online platform, engaging and training current and alumni staff and students, generating content to engage members and reporting on community growth, development, and activity. You will also utilize CrickConnect to organize career development and mentoring activities to support the network’s community.

The role presents an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated and ambitious individual to lead the strategy development and day-to-day running of the CrickConnect platform, to help shape the Crick’s alumni relations strategy, and support the ongoing growth, career development and impact of the global Crick community.

Key responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities will evolve and change as CrickConnect and our career development, alumni tracking and mentoring activities grow and develop.

The duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to:

CrickConnect strategy, management, and delivery

• Lead on alumni engagement strategy development and activity,
• Facilitate networking, collaboration, and mutual support across the CrickConnect community,
• Cultivate and grow the network, including internal recruitment of current staff and students, external recruitment of lapsed alumni, and validating new registrations.
• Collaborate creatively with the Crick’s Communications Team to curate and produce a variety of engaging content for publication on the CrickConnect community website,
• Oversee all community communications, including a regular monthly newsletter,
• Deliver a programme of remote and in-person events to engage community members,
• Report on the impact and development of the CrickConnect community, to demonstrate return on investment,
• Manage the back end of the CrickConnect database, liaising with the network’s online platform provider as appropriate,
• Manage the community website, including technical support for members,
• Provide exceptional customer service and support to members.

Career development programme delivery

• Support the Scientific Training and Career Development Lead to develop and deliver the career development programme for current staff and students,
• Organise and administer the Crick’s monthly careers talk programme,
• Manage the Crick’s work placement programme for our Early Career Researchers (PhD students and Postdocs),
• Recruit, engage, and manage alumni volunteers to support the Crick’s career development programme.

Alumni next destination tracking and reporting

• Track the next destinations for all Early Career Researcher alumni,
• Manage and maintain the Next Destinations Database,
• Provide regular reports on Early Career Researcher next destinations for management and senior leadership.

Mentoring programme strategy and delivery

• Work with the Head of Learning and Development to develop and deliver the Crick Mentoring Framework programme strategy,
• Promote the Mentoring Framework across the CrickConnect and wider Crick community, including recruiting new programme participants and volunteer mentors,
• Organise and administer regular mentor/mentee training workshops in collaboration with our external trainer,
• Onboarding and matching of programme participants,
• Collect and report on feedback from participants and programme impact.

Key experience and competencies 

The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: bold, imaginative, open, dynamic and collegial, in addition to the following:

Essential 

• Excellent organisation, administration and IT skills.
• A proven track record of successfully planning and delivering projects to deadlines, working flexibly and effectively.
• Ability to work pro-actively, demonstrating a high degree of initiative.
• Ability to work independently, and collaboratively, as part of a team, and with different teams.
• Ability to establish and maintain strong working relationships with colleagues at all levels in an international setting.  
• Excellent communication skills, including ability to collect, assimilate and present information and analysis clearly and in a compelling manner, both verbally and in writing, for various audiences, strategic communications and campaign planning.
• Experience of working with an online alumni community, or other online community.
• Experience of using social media for community engagement.
• Ability to produce emails and e-newletters to drive CrickConnect sign-ups and engagement, and promote best practice.
• An understanding of scientific research, academic and/or education organisations and careers.
• Educated at least to degree level or equivalent, or have several years of relevant work experience. 

Desirable

• Experience of writing articles and creating video, audio and other content.
• Experience of digital publishing, and the ability to produce, commission and publish inspiring digital content (news, interviews, etc.) to engage staff and alumni audiences.
• Database management experience.
• Training or knowledge sharing experience. 

 Please contact hr@crick.ac.uk with any questions.