Employment Consultant

Employment Consultant – Social Impact – West Midlands

A through-the-gate role working with a small team, supporting people at the end of their time in prison find and sustain work on release.

Are you passionate about making a real difference? Want to help shape and grow a dynamic employment initiative reducing reoffending and changing lives through work?

Do you have experience working – In Recruitment? In a prison? With hard to reach people in the community? All 3?  Are you good at building strong working relationships? Do you want to use your skills in a totally new way?  If the answer is, “yes”, keep reading as we would love to hear from you.

We are looking to strengthen our high-performing team at "Inside Job" based in Birmingham city centre, with a motivated and enthusiastic senior person who can help facilitate the growth in impact we are planning.

About the Role

You will:

• work in prisons and in the community;


• build relationships of trust with our Candidates, keep them motivated and focussed pre and post release and ensure they have relevant support needed to maintain employment; 


• be responsible for helping grow our network of employers and guiding them through the model and support we offer;


• organise Interview Surgeries in Prisons, supported by the Inside Job Recruiters, preparing Candidates, pre-release planning and following up;


• have weekly meetings in Prison with our peer-worker team members (our "Recruiters")and together co-ordinate a 3-monthly pipeline of Candidates coming up for release;   


• help organise the training of the Recruiters in this specialised field, work closely with our trainer, upskill yourself on areas which may be new to you;


• help build a collaborative network around the prison to support the Candidates, building relationships with key staff and organisations in particular, the Prison Employment Leads (with whom we work closely), Governors, Probation, DWP, “Departure Lounges”, training providers, housing co-ordinators, CFO Hubs and other charities;


• maintain accurate and timely data on all Candidates (in line with our data security protocols);


• attend networking events which will raise the profile of Inside Job.

Note: this role requires a car for regular travel and will require Prison Security Clearance (if not already obtained) 

About Us

Inside Job is charity programme - an Employment Consultancy with a difference. It was co-created by us with someone serving a prison sentence (now a team member). It continues to be developed and delivered by people with lived experience. We recognised that a specialised service was needed to help overcome the huge barriers people who have served a sentence can face to re-enter the workplace. Inside Job is a service which bridges the space between the employers who want to use their recruitment policies to achieve social impact, and people who are in prison. A service which understands those challenges and works collaboratively to remove them.

It is a job worth doing and not just for the individuals who we support into work. Employment reduces reoffending by 50%. There are c310,000 children in the UK with a parent in prison. You can enable people to change their narrative – to become proud, working parents.

Inside Job is effective because:

• We recruit and train people serving sentences as Inside Job Recruiters who as peer workers build a candidate pipeline in prison and work closely alongside the Community Team (you);


• We take employers into prison to interview the prepared candidates – they make job offers on the day;


• The community team of Employment Consultants support candidates through the gate before release and afterwards to help make a job a reality.

We are an award-winning organisation (winner of the Robin Corbett Award in 2020 for Prisoner Reintegration and 2 High Sheriff Awards). We are powered by individuals with shared purpose and who are passionate about what we do.

We are currently working with 4 prisons in the West Midlands. We have the opportunity to reach more people and deliver more impact. To support this we are now looking to recruit a motivated and empathetic, self-sufficient and professional person to join the team.  

About You

You are:

• able to approach new businesses to talk about the Inside Job offering and confident to conduct presentations;


• an effective communicator at all levels, including the ability to motivate and inspire others;


• well organised and have strong administration skills (MS Office);


• warm, approachable and flexible;


• tenacious and resilient;


• able to drive and have a car – the role requires regular travel to our prisons across the West Midlands;


• comfortable working in an office-based environment (Birmingham city centre), on site (prisons) and occasionally from home; 


• creative and pragmatic – someone who thrives in a small, dynamic team which is passionate about what it is trying to achieve;


• able to write good CVs and disclosure letters and have strong writing skills;


• comfortable using social media, in particular LinkedIn;

Experience in 360 recruitment and/or working in a prison (ideally 5+ years) would be a plus but not essential.

Benefits of working for us:

Be part of something truly innovative and have real social impact.

Competitive pay with 25 days annual leave and mileage for work travel from our office hub.

Join a talented team of high performers. 

Work with a wide variety of people from those serving sentences, to Prison Governors, employers to official agencies.

Commitment to Diversity: At Inside Job we value equality, diversity and inclusion. We are wholeheartedly committed to the principle of equality and opportunity, both as an employer and as a provider of services. We positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, martial status or pregnancy, maternity or convictions.