School Service Provider Directory Manager

We're looking for values-led, content-minded database-loving, marketplace enthusiast to join us at We Are In Beta as our School Service Provider Directory Manager.

Your role will be to build, manage and promote a community driven database of school service providers and organisations members of our 18,000+ community recommend to each other.

Why?

Finding and quality assuring providers on a limited budget in schools is hard. The database will help school leaders do just that so they can spend more time delivering the best education possible to their students.

About We Are In Beta.

We Are In Beta is an online community of 18,800+ school leaders and teachers which helps them share and learn how they get the best outcomes for their students.

We believe most of the solutions to schools’ problems are in schools already. Or at least, in the minds of the brilliant people who work in them.

Our job is to find them and share them widely, so nobody has to figure it out on their own.

Imagine a day when you can find someone - or something  - that can help solve any problem you’re facing, whenever you need it.

A day when every student has leaders and teachers who are equipped with the most successful strategies and networks to improve their education.

Join us to help us build that future for our schools.

We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning.
 

What do we do?

To work towards that future:

1. We research great practice so our members can discover it and be inspired by it.

2. We produce and share practical content with great schools through events, webinars, podcasts and resources - so they can learn from others’ successes (and the failures too).

3. We build communities of practice so colleagues can meet and grow together

Some stats we’re really proud of:

In just 4 years we’ve grown the online community to over 18,800 school leaders and teachers.

• 3,400 - MATs and schools we are connected to

• 2500+ resources have been shared by our members - if each one on average takes two hours produce - in reality it's probably more - that’s more than… 

• 3.1 years' worth of others’ work each and every one of our members can access just by being a part of the community

• 3,710 policies and resources from successful schools and MATs we have curated, analysed and shared.

• £1,500 - the amount we save a school each time they access the research they ask us to do for them.

• 870,000 hours - the number of hours it would have taken members to discover the insights we've shared with them had they done the research on their own in silos.

• £25 million - the amount it would have cost schools had they funded those research hours themselves 

• 1.5 million - the number of miles our members would have had to have travelled to meet our expert presenters in case study schools had our community not existed online.

• 8,500 people came to the National INSET Day in Dec 2020 when the government left schools with almost no time at all to plan an end of term INSET. 

We are just getting started. Join us to write the next chapter

What's the role?

Your role will be to design, build, grow and promote a database of organisations, who offer products and services to schools, which have been recommended to by our members.

How you’ll be driving our mission forward

• Research and map the education marketplace

  • Understand the challenges schools buy in services to solve

  • Learn about the different providers who exist to solve them

• Design, build and manage the database school service providers

  • Define and codify the data architecture which governs the database

  • Categorise the providers by type, objectives, buyers, beneficiaries and more

  • Use no code tools to build and operate the directory

• Produce top of funnel content to promote the database, which attracts schools and providers sign up and contribute to it

  • Set and manage schedules of promotional content

  • Write valuable, practical, sharable and engaging posts on LinkedIn and Twitter about the providers and the database

• Design and build the user experience and information flows

  • Map out users journeys (both schools and providers) through the directory experience

  • Design and write sign up forms so schools and providers can access the database

  • Design and write submission forms so schools can nominate organisations and organisations can request to join the database

• Automate processes to improve user experience and your administration workload

  • Design information flow processes which manage engagement on both school and provider side

  • Use tools like Zapier, Aitable, Email and HubSpot to automate information flow and email notifications

• Cultivate a community driven approach to building the database

  • Encourage school leaders to make nominations of organisations who should be included

  • Encourage providers to request they be included and contribute testimonials

• Research and design quality assurance mechanisms

  • Design ways to gather quality assurance information from schools

  • Design ways for providers to demonstrate their impact

Who are you?

• You believe in the power of education and social justice

• You believe the answers to most of education's problems are in schools already (but understand some need some external help).

• You believe schools should be able to access quality assured provision at an affordable price without spending weeks researching.

• You value diversity in all respects.

• You love researching and discovering new solutions, organisations and marketplaces.

• You have a keen interest in marketplaces and review platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Checkatrade, Trip Advisor, Trustpilot

• You are a project manager who plans, tracks and delivers on objectives across several workflows on time, every time.

• You are comfortable managing different audiences who maybe at different stages of their customer life journey

• You have a spreadsheet (with pivot tables) for pretty much everything and like to design systems and processes to make things more efficient

• You're happiest when you are classifying complex systems into simple categories

• You get huge satisfaction from designing systems that create smooth information flow

• You relish using new technologies

• You enjoy planning and writing valuable top of funnel content on social media eg Twitter and Linkedin

• You get a kick out of designing lead magnets and getting sign ups

• You enjoy developing relationships from scratch often by email or social media

What experience do you have?

It’s not essential you tick every box. But the more boxes you can tick the better. It goes without saying, we can help you gain and learn from the experiences you haven’t had yet.

• Ideally, you are/were an experienced teacher and/or school leader with experience of working with 3rd party service providers

• You've had experience buying from (or at least working with) external organisations in schools and evaluating the impact of their work OR you've worked for an organisation that sells into schools in their marketing and sales departments

• You have a strong understanding of the types of problems service providers work to solve, which organisations exist in the education marketplace, the different types and their approaches and who the key buyers, users and beneficiaries of their work might be in schools.

• You've managed a school budget (or at least understand how tight they are) OR you've managed/fed into a marketing/sales budget at a school service provider OR worked in their sales/marketing department

• You’ve designed, built and managed databases/directories with low/no-code tools like Airtable, Webflow, etc

• You have experience of integrating platforms and building automations with tools like Zapier, Airtable, Hubspot, Gmail etc

• You’ve designed, produced and promoted effective lead magnets and sign up mechanisms

• You've designed slick user experiences and information flows using forms, databases and email

• You’ve crowdsourced content from audiences to leverage their collective knowledge using things like Google docs

• You’ve used social media to research and.promote your work consistently and effectively

• You’ve written top of funnel content on Twitter / LinkedIn that gets a lots of likes, comments and shares

What are the benefits?

• Exposure to the most inspirational and impactful school leaders and education organisations in the country

• Opportunity to work within an early-stage, mission-driven organisation and shape its direction

• Flexible working culture/flexible working hours

• Pro rata £28,000-£33,000 dependent on experience

• Project-based and/or part-time contract based on performance milestones for the right candidate available

• Free membership to all of our premium spaces across the community worth up to £1,197+VAT

We are an equal opportunity employer and consider all qualified applicants equally without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status or disability status.

Location:

• We are a fully remote team.
• We checkin daily online.
• We meet monthly face to face in London. 

Role Scope and Time Commitment?

• This role is initially 1 day week role for 52 weeks a year.
• Early success could grow this to into 2-3 day a week role within 6 months.
• There is huge scope for it to grow into a full time Partnerships Manager, Head of Partnerships and eventually a Director of Operations role depending on success.

Timeline:

• Applications open: 28th August 2024

• Deadline for applications: midnight Sunday 15th September

• Invitations to complete assessment task: weeks beginning 9th September and 16th September

• First round interviews: weeks beginning 16th and 23rd September

• Second round interviews: weeks beginning 23rd and 30th September

• Notification of decision /appointment : week beginning 7th October.

• Start date: mid October

We expect this to be a popular role.

We will be inviting people to interview on a rolling basis.

We advise submitting an application early.

How do you apply?

   To apply for the role please

1. register your interest here no later than midday on Thursday 12th September AND/OR
2. complete the application form we'll send you by the deadline above

  For the application form you’ll need:

1. CV - max 2 sides

2. Covering letter - outlining

   1. why you want to apply

   2. how your values, knowledge, skills and experience make you the best person for the role.

   3. a PS section at the bottom with confirmation of where you saw the job role; confirmation of your current salary and notice period; whether you have the right to work in the UK and a valid criminal check with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS); any links to any portfolios/bodies of work you have completed in the past to demonstrate what you are capable of (this could be reports, writing, performance figures, social media campaigns, articles, videos); and indication of whether your availability will be limited during the recruitment period.

3. Contact details of references

For an informal and confidential discussion about the role prior to application, please contact the Founder  @niallalcock on X/Twitter or DM Niall Alcock on LinkedIn