Is there any point in applying for a university admin post without having previously worked in Higher Education?

[Mybedroom222]

I've applied to about 10 or 12 recently - in different universities - all roles that fit in with my skills - however I am so far getting no interviews at all.

I am wondering how competitive the university admin sector is - and if I should focus my energies elsewhere.

I have about 7 years of education administration experience - first in primary and later on in secondary schools. My last two roles in particular have been very similar to the kinds of university admin roles that I've been applying for.

I thought I would ask as there may be people on here with insider knowledge of what the sector is like - I was also thinking that maybe a lot of the jobs go to internal staff?

Thanks a lot :)?

Random question mark at the end!

If you can afford the risk I’d go for temporary contracts - less competition.

What type of jobs are they and at what level?
If you don't mind me asking what area do you live in?
I work in research administration senior management and have workin in universities for years so happy to help

the university i previously worked in had a lot of temps, particularly during enrolment, so i'm guessing many of these temps would have applied for these types of roles and they would have the advantage of already knowing how the Uni works.

i'm saying that, my Uni was crying out for decent staff but struggled to recruit them.

have you considered Further Education? it's a horribly forgotten sector in between Schools and Uni and very often overlooked, so lots of opportunity.

I used to work in admin in HE. I have a fairly jaundiced view about it, to be honest. Not well run at all. This may just have been where I worked, to be fair.

Anyway, what I found over and over again was that someone would leave. It would take months and months for the replacement post to be advertised. In the mean time, someone would be covering the role on a temporary promotion. Surprise, surprise, in almost all cases that person got the job when it was finally advertised. In rare other cases where there wasn't anyone covering it would often go to someone known to the panel, even when they quite obviously had very little relevant experience. I gave up even trying to get a promotion in the end. It was soul-destroying.

I worked for 20 yrs in university admin, without having previously worked in higher education. I had private sector experience. That said, I know other departments in the university effectively vetoed applicants who didn't have higher education experience or who didn't have a university degree (which I don't have). Perhaps partly to just whittle down the number of applicants, but also it seemed from a very closed mindset: the notion that somehow the work was so special and important that it just couldn't be entrusted to "outsiders". Yep, you guessed it - I'm not sorry to no longer be working there.

Thanks both.

I take your point about applying for temporary jobs @Juicylychee - and was just looking at some now in response to your post, but one of my problems is that where I work currently my notice period is two months so I have a feeling this might not work? I would have to take even more risk and hand my notice in without any job to go to which would be quite scary.

@custardbear thanks for your message - the types of roles I have been applying for are a mixture of the following:
Reception and Department Administrator
Teaching and Learning Administrator
Information and Enquiries Officer
Student Academic and Pastoral Support Officer (I still have hopes for that one as the deadline was yesterday, but no doubt I will get another rejection email for that as well)
Faculty Admissions Officer
Academic Tutoring Officer
various Programmes Officer positions....

I can't remember the banding without looking on my laptop which is at home - the starting salaries ranged from 30 to 35K.

I'm in London and the universities I applied to were UCL, Imperial, King's and now Queen Mary....

Writing all of that I can see that there must be a lot of competition. It's come as a surprise as I think I would find it much easier to get another school admin position (and did easily get interviews last year when I applied to other schools - before deciding to stay in my current school).

Sorry @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , @purpledagger and @TreesAtSea I took so long writing my post that I missed your messages.

Very interesting perspectives thank you.

I hadn't thought about Further Education @purpledagger - I am definitely going to have a look.

One of my problems is that where I work I have a good pension (I won't have a good pension, but the pension itself is good), and I know that universities have similar defined benefit pensions. So I feel really inflexible on that - but that doesn't help the fact that I want to move on from what I am currently doing....

I had definitely heard that universities and university departments can be a mixed bag when it comes to what the work culture feels like...
My current job is a mixture of not having enough to do some parts of the year and being stressed out of my mind and very overworked at other times - I am dreading the next period of stress, and therefore trying to move...

I don't know about other areas of the uni, but on our programme/admin side the roles we've had recently that have gone to external candidates have been entry level administrators - all the higher grade admin roles have gone to internal people, mainly because they already have an understanding of Uni processes, procedures and have the existing working relationships with other departments in the Uni which are big selling points when you move into a role which can be very intense at a number of points throughout the year.

This is one perspective, which might have moved on a bit now as I am thinking of structures that were developing before the pandemic, but it applies to the London universities (several on your list). My impression was that they follow each other's general strategies fairly closely. This may be because the pressures on finance lead in the same kind of directions, or just because it is quite easy to find out what each other's management is doing.

What I was going to say was that there have been a few moves to combine administrators into more of a 'pool', where one or 2 may be expected to have a specialism as well as an admin role, most obviously finance or superuser technical skills. Previously you would be working, often fairly independently, on particular course areas or student/staff levels. In one of the places you listed, there has been a few years' work on standardising the salary band and spinal increments for the different roles known as 'administrator' (think the difference between HR, medical trial areas, and Postgraduate courses, say), and the expected eventual pay will come in lower for a starting salary than the range you gave, about £26-£28K.

Once you are up to speed, I think the skill set is worth a lot more than that, but a lot of people speak of 'doing a couple of years in admin and then...' so seeing it only as something to move on from.

Unfortunately I think anything advertised on indeed (or similar) simply get so many applicants that it is a numbers Game, they cannot possibly read and sift every application.
I applied for one at a uni, in admin, similar experience to you, and I’m a qualified FE teacher as well with a PGCE. I didn’t get an interview, and in the feedback from indeed I was one of 577 applicants 😱

If it gives you some hope, I work at one of the universities you mention and we have had a load of new staff this year, all external, at the level you mention and above and below it. I am in central professional services though, not in an academic dept.

In addition I can tell you we had 4 people withdraw from one recruitment when we had offered them an interview, and one of the people we offered to also withdrew. Another post recently also withdrew and had to be readvertised. So from our point of view it feels like an employees' market, as it were.

On the other hand, I get to have intro meetings with all the new people, the junior people had felt it was v competitive so who knows what's going on.

More relevant, a number of the new staff have come from outside HE. One from cultural sector (and others we interviewed also were), one from a related education charity, lots of teachers shortlisted.

To add, in response to a PP, we do read and sift every application. It's done within an unavoidable computer programme, where we score everyone's application against the person spec. This is always easier when someone lays out their application form with reference to the person spec.

They don't sound like entry level jobs, it may be that you need to first get yourself in on a lower grade?

Be careful re. Pensions. Many unis now employ admin staff through a subco with inferior benefits and a Defined Contribution pension scheme only. Worth looking into properly.

You will probably have success at admin assistant level rather than officer.

Many of the internal assistants will apply for office posts as someone else said.

I worked in the University sector (admittedly a few years ago) and recruited to admin posts.

I would routinely receive over 100 applications for basic grade posts. We assessed all applications against all criteria using a civil-service type scoring system with marks ranging from 0 (criterion not mentioned or evidenced) to 4 (criterion mentioned and fully evidenced).

The top 5 -6 scorers were invited for interview

This sounds daunting but actually most applications were easily rejected because of basic errors (irrelevant content, poor spelling and grammar, no demonstration essential criteria met).

Successful applicants presented a concise application focussed on the criteria, demonstrated good enough practical skills in the test and answered interview questions clearly with relevant examples. No one I recruited externally had any prior HE work experience.

My advice OP is to keep applying but make sure your application mentions every criterion in the person spec, with a list of examples.
Eg for ‘Experienced in using Microsoft products’ you need to say what products you use, how frequently and what for..
So …. ‘Use Microsoft products daily including:
Word to produce reports, minutes, tables;
Excel for spreadsheets, pivot tables;
Outlook to manage own and Manager’s diary; and,
Powerpoint to compose and deliver presentations to management team’.

Then double check for typos.

Good luck!

I work in a middle management role at one of the universities mentioned upthread; the role I’m currently recruiting to had over 160 applicants! It’s a very competitive market at the moment and I’ve got to try to shortlist down to (realistically) about six candidates to interview.

Honestly I’d prefer applicants who’ve worked in HE before, but if you make the effort to link your experience to the job description, it makes a big difference. Lots of applicants really don’t bother and send very generic applications, so the more you can do to demonstrate why this job interests you and how your skills relate, it really does help.

I got a University admin role after 7 years of being a SAHM and I had NO experience of working at universities. I had plenty of admin experience in the public sector but had never worked in a uni. Is there some other reason you can think of that explains why you're not getting interviews?

I have 20 years of academic administration experience, and haven't been shortlisted for anything I have applied for in recent years (similar roles, a step up). Conditions are generally quite good here so there is little turnover. I would recommend a specialist temp agency, such as prospect-us. That's how a lot of us got into the sector.

Admissions and pastoral are quite specialised so someone on a grade 6 or equivalent would be expected to have experience. If any are mainly wfh that unfortunately means the market is much wider. Pre pandemic unis in the arse end of nowhere often had difficulty recruiting (compared to central London (eg Goldsmiths, UEL) because they're only appealing to locals. Probably different now though.

General dept admin at a grade lower, or on a temp contract (part time maternity covers are a bugger to fill for example) might be a way in.

Thanks for all your messages which I really appreciate. I am going to reply properly later.

Trying FE is good advice, we have so many business support vacancies some open for a year! FE doesn't pay as well though!

I work at one of the universities you mention. Unfortunately they changed they way that they advertise new PS roles. Previously all roles were advertised for 2 weeks internally and then if no suitable internal applications were received, roles were advertised externally. Now all roles are advertised externally from the outset, which means that external applicants are directly competing with internal applicants. Having said that, we have just appointed an external applicant (at the same level you were applying at), but they did have previous HE experience at another HEI.

It may be worth thinking about applying for the grade below (grade 3 in my institution) which I think is easier to access with no HEI experience. Then once you have a year or so experience you'd be in a prime position to apply for grade 4 jobs. But that's if you can afford it of course!

Just to note that the pension scheme, although absolutely much better than anything in the private sector, is not what it one was. (Although there are two schemes depending upon your grade - in my institution it's SAUL for g3 and below and USS for g4 and above. I am referring to USS in my comments). It's now a hybrid scheme and nowhere near as generous as it once was once you hit £40k salary. It doesn't compare favourably with LGPS or TPS any more (not sure what your current pension scheme is). Just something to be aware of.