Winner of Best Employability/Recruitment Initiative for the Unemployed at Recruiter’s 2016 Investing in Talent Awards, Aspire began working with the university in 2008. In partnership together, Aspire developed The Works, a one-stop shop that helps local people in some of Manchester’s most deprived areas find jobs and access training courses and services. These roles range from entry-level full-time, part-time and term-time posts across admin, secretarial, retail, catering, cleaning, construction and IT.

An emphasis on developing candidate employability combined with the agency’s operating model has been key to the agency standing out in the recruitment marketplace, Julie McMenamin, Aspire’s recruitment service manager told Recruiter. 

“Because of the way we operate, our candidates often say that the staff at Aspire really take the time to get to know them, and match their aspirations with suitable vacancies, rather than being made to feel like they are just part of an impersonal process, as they have felt with other agencies. 

“The work that we do on pre-recruitment initiatives also marks us out as different from other agencies,” she added.

With many candidates lacking experience and qualifications, Aspire supports them through providing pre-employment training through developing transferable employability skills such as teamwork, resilience, communication and problem solving with the help of The Skills Company, also part of its parent company Manchester Growth Company.

Candidates also benefit from impartial careers advice from the National Careers Service, a publicly funded careers service for adults and young people aged 13 or over in England.

To date, Aspire has filled 2,787 temporary vacancies for the University of Manchester, with 98% of the candidates being unemployed previously and 88% of candidates coming from priority wards local to the University of Manchester.

This success has meant Aspire is committed to expanding the initiative, McMenamin says.

“Looking forward, we would like to replicate the kind of high volume recruitment model that we operate with the University of Manchester with other socially responsible organisations in the public and private sectors.” 

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