Student Casual – Student Advisor – Student Living – Accommodation and Operations – Grade 2 – 900387

Please note that this vacancy may be taken down early depending on the number of applications received. We advise you to submit your application promptly.

Our offer to you

At the University of Birmingham Worklink is the dedicated student employment service which helps students to find flexible well paid part-time roles that fit around your studies. Each year the University invests more than 2.5 million to employ 3000 of our own students in a wide range of roles supporting our student community into part-time work. Roles available via Worklink include a range of positions including administrative roles support staff such as cleaners or baristas research roles and many more.

Jobs through Worklink help you to gain work experience develop skills relevant for your future career and improve your soft and hard skills in a professional setting. Enhance your CV and get valuable experience ready for graduate roles and feel connected to your university and local community.

Our jobs are flexible and can be scheduled around your academic commitments so you can focus on your studies first. Our team are passionate about supporting students into work. Worklink are based in a central location on campus which is easily accessible for students and can also be contacted online.

Find out more about working through Worklinkhere or via thestudent intranet.

Job context

The University of Birmingham currently provides accommodation for approximately 7000 students who are a mix of undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 150 countries. Student Living is part of the Campus Services directorate at the University of Birmingham and provides accommodation services to every student whether they live in university-owned accommodation or out in the surrounding private rented sector. Further information on Student Accommodation can be found on our web site at summary

The Student Advisor for Student Living will provide customer focused administrative support within the Business Development Team within Student Living. This team delivers an accommodation service to all students at the University of Birmingham. The Student Living Hub located in the retail area of campus University Centre is a student facing service and where this post will mainly be based.

The team play a major role in ensuring university owned and partner accommodation bed spaces are fully occupied and that excellent customer care is always provided. The team handle accommodation applications for over 10000 students each year as well as providing advice information and support to students living in the private sector and is a liaison point for matters relating to the local community.

Student Living is often the first point of contact for prospective students so establishing their needs and providing them with relevant information paired with exemplary customer service is key in this role. This post holder may be asked to support student recruitment activities such as Open Days and Offer Holder Days.

The post holder will provide support to several functions within the service including accommodation bookings transfers private sector contract checking and general advice responding to customer enquiries either in person via the service desk or by telephone as well as completing a range of general administrative tasks.

The summer period is the busiest time for our service when we expect to handle over 9000 calls and 10000 service desk tickets across only a few weeks. The post-holder will provide vital customer service and administrative support to the team working on accommodation bookings over this period.

Main duties

• Being part of a call center responding to customer enquiries relating to a full range of accommodation issues over the phone as well as via the service desk; including complaints.
• Updating the student record database used by accommodation StarRez to ensure students records are kept up to date and that all correspondence is logged in an accurate and professional manner.
• Assisting The Business Development Team Student Living with the allocation of students and academic groups with specific requirements; ensuring the room attributes match the requirements.
• Ensuring the continuity of service by updating notes following customer enquiries.
• Maintain good knowledge of private accommodation options across Birmingham as a city. Information and training will be provided on this area.
• Generating references for students moving into the private sector.

Person Specification

The successful candidate will have/be:

• Experience of working in office administration or other similar role within a customer service/call center environment is an advantage.
• Competence in IT skills and in using a variety of IT systems is an advantage (training on specific systems will be provided).
• Good clear and concise verbal and written communication skills are essential as you will be in regular communication with customers and colleagues.
• Good interpersonal skills and the ability to demonstrate a friendly and courteous manner towards both internal and external customers are essential.
• Ability to work with a wide range of people from culturally diverse backgrounds as well as an understanding of diversity and equality issues.
• Ability to work under high pressure environment.
• Confident phone manner and an ability to work in a call center environment.
• Good team working skills and the ability to work as part of a team of core and student staff.

Further details

This position will be supporting Student Living during our business-critical period. Student Advisors must be fully available from 8^th August to 1^st September as full-time shifts will be required during this time. Please ensure that you are able and eligible to work full-time hours during this period before applying. If you are unsure about your eligibility you can review university working hour restrictions andcontact Worklink if you have any questions.

For any informal queries please contactSandy Csizmadiova ().

The University of Birmingham restricts all students to working up to 20 hours per week during term time for a maximum of 13 consecutive weeks. If your application is successful and your course does not follow the usual academic term timetable (e.g. PGT PGR or PhD student) you and your supervisor must formally agree vacation periods if this role exceeds 20 hours per week. In addition to this please be aware if you are an international student you will be required to apply to the Registry for the appropriate authorised absence.

You are only eligible to apply to this role if you are a current University of Birmingham student. If you are not a University of Birmingham student your application will not be considered.

To work you will need to carry out a right to work checks will need to be completed prior to work commencing.

Regarding the use of AI in applications we review hundreds of applications and shortlist candidates based on their unique perspective motivations and potential.Cover letters generated through or edited by AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT or CoPilot) are easy to identify. They produce generic answers and will not score highly enough to progress. You may use AI tools for research but all written content in your application must be your own work. Authenticity and originality are key to standing out in this process.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive were unable to contact all applicants individually. You can check the progress of your application by logging into the Worklink jobs portal using the same email address you used to apply. If you havent heard back within six weeks of the closing date please assume your application has been unsuccessful.