International Admissions Manager
Description
International Recruitment Manager – Claremont
Purpose of Role
The International Recruitment Manager plays a pivotal role in driving student enrolments and supporting the school’s growth objectives. This is a commercially focused position, requiring strong sales acumen, proactive engagement, and the ability to convert interest into confirmed enrolments. The role goes beyond traditional admissions administration, prioritising business development, customer engagement, and market growth. By building strong relationships with families, agents, and partners — and by approaching every opportunity with energy and commercial awareness — the International Recruitment Manager ensures that the school attracts, secures, and retains a strong pipeline of international students.
Key Responsibilities
Student recruitment and conversion:
- Act as a commercial driver for international enrolments, with accountability for meeting and exceeding student recruitment targets.
- Proactively identify, pursue, and convert new opportunities — ensuring a strong and steady enrolment pipeline.
- Engage with prospective families and agents in a persuasive, consultative, and solutions-oriented way, highlighting the school’s strengths and value proposition.
- Ensure every enquiry is followed up with urgency and commercial acumen, aiming to secure visits, registrations, and confirmed enrolments.
- Represent the school with confidence at interviews, tours, fairs, and events, both in person and online, to generate new leads and close enrolments.
Market development and partnerships:
- Build and expand relationships with international agents, feeder schools, and other strategic partners to drive student recruitment.
- Actively explore and open new markets, leveraging both existing networks and new commercial opportunities.
- Maintain up-to-date awareness of competitor offerings, market dynamics, and parent expectations, feeding insights into recruitment strategies.
Retention & customer engagement:
- Play an active role in supporting student retention, engaging directly with families at risk of leaving and providing solutions to encourage continuity.
- Partner with school leaders and the Regional Admissions team to strengthen parent satisfaction and loyalty, reinforcing long-term enrolments.
- Ensure that every family experiences a highly professional, warm, and customer-focused admissions journey that builds trust and advocacy.
Brand & Representation
- Serve as an ambassador for the school in all interactions, showcasing its international positioning and competitive advantages.
- Support the organization of recruitment-focused events such as open days, agent familiarisation visits, and promotional activities in key markets.
- Collaborate with Marketing to adapt messaging and materials for different audiences, ensuring consistency and impact in communications.
Other Responsibilities
- Undertake such other reasonable responsibilities or tasks as may be assigned by the Principal, Head of Admissions, or Regional Head of Admissions.
Candidate Profile
Essential Attributes
- Strong commercial mindset with proven experience in sales, business development, or customer-facing roles (ideally in education, but transferable experience from B2B or service industries highly valued).
- Demonstrated ability to identify, pursue, and convert opportunities with resilience and drive.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the confidence to engage diverse stakeholders and build strong relationships.
- Proactive, adaptable, and solutions-oriented, with strong soft skills that enable successful interactions in a fast-paced environment.
- High cultural sensitivity and awareness.
- Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities.
- Team player with collaborative spirit.
Desirable
- Experience in international education or student recruitment.
- Familiarity with CRM systems (e.g., HubSpot, Engage) and reporting tools, though strong commercial and sales skills are prioritised.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).
- Language skills beyond English, especially French or other widely spoken languages, are an advantage.
Skills, Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor’s Degree from a relevant field (business administration or similar).
- Preferably multilingual (native English is a must).
- Familiarised with both, U.K., and international markets (demographical, social, and cultural knowledge).
- Demonstrable experience in the commercial “service” sector (ideally in the educational sector and the student recruitment, enrolment, and retention fields, but not a “must”).
- Strong data management, analytical skills, for accurately, analysing admissions data.
- Articulate, communicative, and able to present information in a concise and professional manner.
- Organisation skills: well organized and able to prioritise tasks.
- Excellent skills in Customer Experience.
- Critical thinking.
- Leadership skills: ability to manage self and work in cross functional teams.
- Ability to initiate opportunities for self and others and to find solutions to ensure tasks are completed within specified timescales.
- Ability to negotiate, persuade and motivate others.
ISP Principles
Begin with our children and students. Our children and students are at the heart of what we do. Simply, their success is our success. Wellbeing and safety are both essential for learners and learning. Therefore, we are consistent in identifying potential safeguarding and Health & Safety issues and acting and following up on all concerns appropriately.
Treat everyone with care and respect. We look after one another, embrace similarities and differences and promote the well-being of self and others.
Operate effectively. We focus relentlessly on the things that are most important and will make the most difference. We apply school policies and procedures and embody the shared ideas of our community.
Are financially responsible. We make financial choices carefully based on the needs of the children, students, and our schools.
Learn continuously. Getting better is what drives us. We positively engage with personal and professional development and school improvement.
ISP Commitment to Safeguarding Principles
ISP is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
All post holders are subject to appropriate vetting procedures, including an online due diligence search, references and satisfactory Criminal Background Checks or equivalent covering the previous 10 years’ employment history.
ISP Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
ISP is committed to strengthening our inclusive culture by identifying, hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing teammates regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender expression, age, disability status, neurodivergence, socio-economic background or other demographic characteristics. Candidates who share our vision and principles and are interested in contributing to the success of ISP through this role are strongly encouraged to apply. Safeguarding & Safer Recruitment
Claremont School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All post holders are subject to appropriate vetting procedures and satisfactory Criminal Background Checks or equivalent covering the previous 10 years employment history.
About Claremont
Claremont School is an independent day and boarding school. The Nursery and the Prep School are based in St Leonards on Sea, and the Senior School is in Bodiam, East Sussex. The school is nonselective and welcomes children and young people from a large catchment area spanning 25 miles. In addition, one third of the students in the Senior School are international boarding students.
Children join Claremont aged 2, and the school offers a British curriculum throughout with GCSEs and iGCSEs at KS4, and A Level and BTechs at KS5. In addition, the school delivers outstanding programmes in Performing Arts (winning an award for outstanding School for Performing Arts in 2021) and in football where students can join the Football academy and look to become professional players.
Results and Value-Added at Claremont are outstanding, with Senior School results beating national averages year on year, as well as more local independent selective schools. We believe that successful schools are the ones that put learning at the heart of everything they do, always aiming to create rounded individuals that can forge successful careers and lives, in a rapidly changing world. Claremont aims to be the School of Choice for the local area, and supports its young people to excel in all that they do in a safe and inspiring environment.
Claremont School is also part of the International Schools Partnership (ISP) group, comprising committed colleagues in financially responsible schools around the world, where learning is at the heart of everything we do for our students, colleagues, and parents. We are committed to getting better, all the time.