QS Quacquarelli Symonds was founded in 1990 and has established itself as the leading global provider of specialist higher education analytics and solutions. At QS we want to ensure candidates have access to our independent insight-led services, so they can make the right choices for them, and for their future.
Our activities span 50 countries, working with over many of the world's leading higher education institutions and employers. We are famous for the QS World University Rankings, the world's most popular source of comparative insight into university performance. It's from our detailed research, and this depth of understanding of all things on education, that we seek to show leadership and be a lifelong decision partner for students and institutions alike.
We are on an exciting transformative path, with significant growth potential and a true sense of purpose. At QS, we are working to make a difference to a billion future learners and to unleash their collective potential on the world. Our success is down to our people, and we are looking for more talented individuals to join us on that transformation.
The Role
QS is seeking an enthusiastic, imaginative, and effective seasoned principal consultant with an expertise in student recruitment and enrolment to join its established and fast-growing higher education performance consulting practice. The practice comprises a vibrant, diverse, and skilled team of experienced and passionate higher education experts delivering high quality strategic insight and advice to education institutions and policy makers worldwide.
The position will be focused on: taking a leading role to scale up the practice's capacity and capability on student recruitment and enrolment and drive its global engagement in terms of development and delivery in this area; engaging in the identification of market needs and matching it with a new service offering spanning capabilities from different parts of the business; and taking a very active part in terms of executive representation -thought-leadership/ professional commentary- to help universities and their stakeholders best maximise their positive impact.
The successful candidate will have extensive experience of working in leadership positions within the Higher Edu-cation sector with or within a consulting organisation whereby a strong transferable skills-set will be a mandatory requirement.
Responsibilities include:
• Consulting Engagement - leading on and taking ownership of international consulting projects: planning, managing, and delivering; ensuring high expectations for quality in all assigned projects and deliverables
• Business development - determining the pre-sales experience for prospective clients, actively networking to attract engagement interest, supporting proactively the commercial teams in detecting and taking advantage of business opportunities.
• Thought leadership - harnessing and developing QS insights assets to raise the external profile of the practice and the business as experts in institutional performance and student engagement and higher education trends
• Customer experience - enhancing the customer experience to convert one-time satisfied customers to long-term partners and champions
• Ambassadorship - be a credible and inspiring face of the practice, contribute to identify key platforms to profile QS insights and the capabilities of the team through high-impact content delivery
• Product development - channel insights surfaced through close working with HE leaders and influencers into evidence-based feature recommendations for products and services across the QS portfolio
• Sector expertise - Demonstrate a strong working knowledge of international higher education, especially around student recruitment and enrolment in key international destinations.
We'd love to hear from you if you have most or all of the following
• Deep experience in higher education strategy, particularly around student recruitment and enrolment areas, in leadership role and/or consulting practice executive experience
• Expertise and established connection in key international Higher Education destinations particularly Australia/New Zealand, Northern America, and the United Kingdom.
• Excellent team-work ethic - able to lead on complex assignments and ready to support the wider team - autonomy and collaboration
• Strategic experience and a commercial and creative mindset oriented towards problem-solving and strategic development
• Strong commitment to maintaining and surpassing standards
• Proven record of excellent communications and presentation skills
• Robust standards of concise, professional and insightful report writing
• Experience harnessing and deploying data and insights to inform strategy (advanced data processing and visualisation skills is a plus)
• Ability to gain trust, influence and steer a wide range of stakeholders enabling you to evangelise the power of insight in all that we do
Life at QS
Our mission is to enable motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential, and we believe that begins with our own remarkable and diverse team.
A few things that make QS a great place to work include:
• Competitive package
• Flexible working
• Vibrant social environment and multicultural, multinational culture, strong team spirit
• Focus on welfare - ride to work scheme, yoga classes, global wellness team, EAP and health plan, mental health first aiders, diversity, and inclusion initiatives
• Strong recognition and reward programmes - peer recognition platform, quarterly and annual awards, annual bonus scheme
• Support for volunteering and study leave