Junior Product Manager

Full-Time London, Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle Salary: £27,000 - £34,000 per annum if located in Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham or Newcastle. £29,500 - £37,000 if based in London. Staff in all locations receive a £312 yearly tax-free WFH allowance. Closes: 2022-07-22

upReach is an award-winning social mobility charity supporting less-advantaged students to secure graduate jobs in sectors including Consulting, Government & Public Sector, Law and Technology. We deliver a comprehensive programme of professional development to 3000 students, working in close partnership with leading employers such as Civil Service, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, PwC and Slaughter and May.

In October 2019, upReach won the Charity of the Year Award (income < £1m) in the prestigious Charity Times Awards, and the charity also won the “Embracing Digital” award in the 2020 Charity Governance Award. In 2021 upReach’s work on the Social Mobility Network was a finalist in the Third Sector Awards ‘Breakthrough of the Year’. The charity was also a finalist in three categories at the Charity Times 2021 Awards including ‘Best use of Technology’ and the ISE Awards 2021 for our partnership with the University of Exeter. One of only nine winners in the “Promoting Opportunities” category, upReach received a 2022 Queen’s Award for Enterprise – one of the UK’s most prestigious business accolades. This year, we are also finalists in the ‘Best Supplier’ category at the Women in Tech Employer Awards.

upReach is seeking to hire a Junior Product Manager. This is an exciting opportunity to support the management and growth of our contextual recruitment platform, REALrating. This role would suit individuals with previous experience in project/product management or relevant experience working within a product team (as a developer, product designer or other tech roles), and experience operating in a fast paced environment.

About the Role

Junior Product Manager: This individual will have oversight of upReach’s contextual recruitment platform, REALrating, which helps hiring managers at leading student employers understand the true potential of their applicants by assessing the context in which they studied. In addition you will manage the supplier relationship with our web development partner and their team of developers.

Core responsibilities of the role will include:

  • Product Development
    Support with the product development process (from ideation to deployment), including the incident management process, of REALrating.
  • Collaborate with a variety of stakeholders in the charity to identify technology solutions to operational challenges and consider the ‘user view’ when designing new platform enhancements.
  • Produce briefs to provide direction and context to our developers who are creating changes and patches for our platforms.
  • Design mockups for User Interfaces for visual changes to the REALrating form (both integrated and non-integrated solutions).
  • Manage the brief-to-deployment process of a number of product releases, providing clear instruction and timely support to our Developers with questions and queries relating to their sprint task.
  • Conduct User Acceptance Testing to ensure a high level of quality for all changes that we produce.
  • Work with Applicant Tracking Systems to manage the integration of REALrating in to more platforms

Product Strategy

  • Support on establishing product strategy and operating plan, working closely with the Senior Technology and Data Manager and Leadership Team to establish KPIs, vision and product roadmap, identifying interdependencies and risks.
  • Supporting the Director of Development, Senior Technology and Data Manager and Head of Strategy to develop the commercial strategy for REALrating in order to best achieve our ‘double benefit’ approach.
  • Establish KPI reporting processes to report on progress to the leadership team, including risks, actions, issues and dependencies.
  • Conducting competitor analysis and keeping abreast of trends in the tech and social mobility fields to adapt REALrating’s product strategy and roadmap accordingly.

Product Growth

  • Support the Employer Partnerships team to build a partnerships pipeline for REALrating
  • Work closely with Business Development Manager to pitch to new prospective partners, becoming the subject matter expert for REALrating and contextual recruitment internally
  • Provide ongoing tech support to REALrating partners, ensuring smooth onboarding and timely delivery of tech solutions to address user queries.

Person Specification

This position would be suited to individuals who are committed to upReach’s mission and have an understanding of, and empathy with, the challenges facing those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

To be successful, it is anticipated that you would have some experience within product management. The ideal candidate will be proactive, resilient and used to managing competing priorities within a varied workload. They should have an eye for detail and be a keen problem solver with a willingness to perform varying duties depending on the shifting needs of the charity.

Essential Skills/Experience:

  1. Experience working in a fast-paced environment and working independently to find solutions to problems
  2. An interest in a career in product or project management
  3. Experience working with developers and product designers
  4. Experience of drafting user stories and development briefs
  5. Experience with client-facing activity (e.g. pitching and reporting)
  6. Experience in managing competing priorities whilst maintaining an exceptional eye for detail, including ability to identify tech bugs and anticipate future issues
  7. Strong project management and problem solving skills, in addition to superb organisational skills to manage a varied workload
  8. University degree (2:1 or higher)* in any discipline, or equivalent experience

* The nature of the role requires a high standard of Maths and English, and the ability to quickly review a large amount of information and identify and communicate key themes clearly. Applicants may demonstrate this through the academic qualifications shown above and/or other relevant experience. As our beneficiaries are all undergraduates, a good understanding of the university experience is essential, although it is not necessary that this was acquired through personally gaining a degree.

Desirable Skills/Experience:

  1. Knowledge of AGILE, Kanban, Scrum or other product management frameworks
  2. Knowledge of UX/UI design principles
  3. Knowledge of GDPR legislation and regulations
  4. Familiarity with Trello, G Suite and Zoom video conferencing software
  5. Experience in managing supplier relationships

Values & Competencies

upReach upholds the following values:

  • Perseverance
  • Integrity
  • Advocacy
  • Aspiration
  • Proactivity

We are looking for candidates to display the following competencies during the application stages:

  • Problem solving and decision making
  • Planning and organising
  • Collaboration
  • Passion and motivation
  • Communication skills
  • Leadership