Senior People Experience & Recruitment Manager (3 days a week Maternity Cover 11/12 Months)
This is a part time maternity cover role, 3 days a week.
As Senior People Experience and Recruitment Manager, you’ll be both a planner and a hands-on operator. With the help of a longstanding People Experience Advisor, you’ll oversee the full people lifecycle, from attracting and hiring great talent to ensuring our existing team is engaged, supported, and growing personally and professionally.
You’ll take ownership of the bigger, more complex challenges: developing managers, refining processes, keeping us compliant across geographies, and ensuring our culture scales in a way that feels true to Unibuddy.
This is a role for someone who thrives in a start-up environment: resourceful, pragmatic, creative, and able to make a big impact creatively and in a commercially savvy way.
What you’ll be doing
Evolve and implement an appropriate People plan that is fully aligned to business priorities and is scalable / changeable according to changing and evolving business priorities (at least quarterly);
Lead recruitment end-to-end: partnering with hiring managers, designing fair and effective hiring processes, and keeping candidate experience at the centre;
Provide expert support on complex employee relations matters, policies, compliance, and global employment law (UK/Europe, US, and India);
Coach and develop managers to be confident people leaders, ensuring they can handle performance, recognition, and development conversations compassionately and professionally;
Drive and stakeholder-manage through cyclical people processes: performance management, salary reviews, engagement surveys, organisation/talent reviews on an as-needed, non-distracting basis;
Keep people data front-and-centre: analyse and share insights to inform decision-making and highlight opportunities for improvement;
Act as cultural facilitator and ambassador, making sure our values and culture are alive daily.
This might be for you if…
You’ve operated confidently and self-sufficiently as a Senior People Partner / HRBP or equivalent in a similar context, role and environment - this won’t be your first rodeo.
You have end-to-end recruitment experience and can balance speed with quality and fairness.
You’re comfortable handling complex employee relations while keeping people experience at the forefront.
You’ve got broad HR generalist experience, from performance management to L&D to compliance.
You’ve been in a standalone or small-team set up.
You can navigate policies and employment law across multiple countries.
You’re scrappy, resourceful, and can achieve results without spending.
You’re passionate about inclusion and know how to embed it meaningfully.
It’d be a bonus if…
You have a CIPD qualification (level 5+) or are working towards one.
You have a coaching accreditation and/or qualification (EMCC, ICF, etc.)
You’ve previously led small People teams and enjoy balancing leadership with rolling up your sleeves.
Why join us?
You’ll be stepping into a role with the freedom to continue facilitating our culture globally, without the bureaucracy of big corporates. With most foundations already in place, your impact will come from embedding, evolving, and levelling up. You’ll get to do strategic work and hands-on delivery in equal measure.
What we can offer
Competitive salary
Highly flexible work culture
Private healthcare
Life insurance coverage
Pension matched up to 6%
Generous time off: 25 days of annual leave, plus an additional special day for a personal occasion (like your birthday, engagement, or wedding), extra days based on tenure, and 4 additional days at the end of the year for a company-wide shutdown
Equipment: A MacBook and all the tools you need to do your best work
Inclusive and supportive culture: We pride ourselves on our diverse team, with 55 employees across the UK, Europe, US, India, and Canada.
- Locations
- London Campus
- Remote status
- Hybrid
About Unibuddy
Unibuddy is reimagining how higher ed does recruitment.
We help higher education institutions position themselves as an attractive choice, authentically engaging students and simplifying their recruitment process. All in one platform. Over 1 million students have used our tools to make the right choice about their higher education journey.
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