Executive Assistant (PA to Head of School) in Cardiff inCardiff PUBLISHED WED 16 APR 2025 Jump to job information section

19878BR

School of Psychology

Administrative Support

Advert

Executive Assistant (Head of School Office)

School of Psychology

The School of Psychology welcomes applications for an Executive Assistant to join our team.

The successful role-holder will provide specialist, confidential and time-critical support to all activities undertaken by the Head of School Office to include CUBRIC (Cardiff University Brain Imaging Centre).

The post holder will provide detailed advice and guidance to customers covering a wide range of activity (staff, students or members of the public), using judgement and creativity to suggest the most appropriate course of action, and contributing to the solving of more complex issues. The postholder will also instruct and guide colleagues with the academic promotions process, managing the annual process and supporting the School Promotion Panel in drafting reports and liaising with external assessors as required. The post holder will act as line manager to a proportion of staff within the Receptionist Team that cover buildings across the School estate.

If you would like to know more about this vacancy or working in the School of Psychology, please contact Elaine Rees )

This position is full time (35 hours per week), open-ended and available immediately.

Due to the nature of this role, it is office based.

Salary: £27,644 - £30,805 per annum (Grade 4)

Please see below for the full job description and person specification.

Date advert posted: Tuesday, 8 April 2025

Closing Date: Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds. We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age. In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Applications may be submitted in Welsh, and an application submitted in Welsh will not be treated less favourably than an application submitted in English.

Job Description

To provide specialist, confidential and time-critical support to all activities undertaken by the Head of School Office

Providing comprehensive and professional support to the Head of School Office, School of Psychology, providing confidential support to Head of School, Director of CUBRIC and School Manager in prioritising, managing and dealing with a high volume and range of daily incoming requests and queries.

Key Duties

• Work with others to make recommendations to improve our ways of working.
• Establish productive relationships with key individuals (University colleagues and external contacts) to help improve the level of service the team provides to its customers.
• Perform a variety of administrative duties to support the team and department achieve its objectives many of which are time-critical, require diary scheduling and prioritisation skills and may require senior management approval.
• Act as line manager to our Reception team.
• Gather and analyse data so that informed decisions can be made, establishing basic trends and patterns in the data and providing reports and recommendations for management.
• Instruct and guide colleagues across the University within the academic promotions process, managing the annual process and supporting the School Promotion Panel in drafting reports and liaising with external assessors as required.
• Plan and organise School celebration events, monitoring expenditure against an agreed budget.
• Help solve pragmatic problems for the Head of School, School Manager, such as liaising with IT staff to solve IT problems or liaising with estates to solve buildings-related matters.
• Working with the School Manager, support the School’s internal communications activities, including ensuring that general School webpages and contact lists are maintained.
• Distribute communications and e-mails effectively and in a timely manner, ensuring that appropriate shared School e-mail distribution lists are established and maintained to reflect staff changes and that School staff are aware how to access/use them.
  
  

General Duties

• Abide by all University policies and undergo appropriate personal and professional development.
• Perform other duties which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.
• Uphold the Professional Services Values & Behaviours or local equivalent.
  
  

Person Specification

We want to employ people with a wide variety of experiences. We welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age. We are particularly seeking applications from candidates who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented at the University, including people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.

We are looking for a team player who will work with colleagues to provide a great service to staff and students. You don’t need to have worked for a University before; this is an opportunity to show your potential and start or continue your career at Cardiff University.

This role may be an opportunity for you to build on your experience from working in a previous administrative role or environment with particular interest in the management function within the School and working at all levels within the University in providing efficient, confidential support to senior academic colleagues, showing your transferable skills and aptitude to be successful in the role. You should be enthusiastic about developing your knowledge and skills to become a valued member of the team.

Your application will be assessed against the following essential and desirable criteria for the role. Please copy and paste this section into a new document and give clear examples of how you ca