Coaching, Support, Communication & PR Position

POSITION FILLED

There are just a few things in life that are essential for reaching your full potential. Reading fluently is one of them, but an amazing one in seven children leaves school unable to read here in the UK. It is a disaster for each of them because they go through years of frustration with it. You will see from our site that we have developed a new way for children to overcome their difficulties and learn to read well.

You will be intimately involved in the journey the learners take, from struggling with reading to being able to read fluently, through your coaching and support for the parents and teachers directly helping them.  So you will never have to wonder what the point of it all is! Your working day will be one filled with purpose, meaning and satisfaction.

You will also be building a communication strategy on social media and elsewhere, to raise our profile as a company. This is an equally essential task since we need to reach people in order to help them.

Coaching and Support

As each learner joins the system, the parent is prompted to start sending us information. We then do a Phase 1 Interview at the end of the 10-day free trial. You will be reviewing the information sent and the data feeds on the system, to check the profile of the learner and advise the parent on our prognosis for their progress towards fluent reading. Then on the phone you will review in more detail how the lessons have been going and check that the parent is clear on how the lessons should be supported by them.

This interactive process then continues over the next 3-12 months, with the rate of interaction becoming steadily less frequent. Unless, of course, there are frustrations for the learner. In that situation we do more and more intensive support, including lessons over Skype using screen share, until they are back on track.

Our goal is to get every learner to a successful outcome, without exceptions. We take the view that 99% success is not good enough for the 1%. We want to win every time and will do whatever we need to, in order to achieve that.

Communication & PR

Days vary, of course, but you will usually be spending 50-70% of your time working in this support role, either on the phone or on our messaging system. So there is time for other activities. There are several other parts of our operations that you can get involved in, but this position will be particularly focused on our outreach communication. We want to keep building a network of influencers who are mentioning what we do.

You will have the opportunity to get stuck into almost any aspect of the organisation and you will be encouraged to follow your interests, whether they are leaning towards business admin, marketing, business development, data analysis, communication, copy writing, design or anything else.

Requirements

You will need a good grounding in English spelling and grammar, because we get judged on that.

There is no requirement to have a background in education or literacy instruction. We can give you the training you need for that. The key to good recruitment and good job hunting, for me at least, is finding the slot that fits the person.  We can all grow and develop into a position, when it is the right one.

This role involves a lot of support and guidance for the parents and teachers using the system. You need to be very comfortable chatting on the phone, happy to guide people with your greater knowledge of our specialist domain and efficient about achieving that, both on the phone and on our messaging system.

There is a clear emotional support element to the role, as well as the technical one of guiding the users down the right path. So a degree of empathy for the worries, fears and sensitivities of our customers will be helpful.

As in any customer-facing role, we find around 1-2% of the population can be a little tricky to handle. We take a fairly firm hand to that from the outset and usually that resets the relationship on a more positive tone. However, you will need to be able to handle people who are occasionally in a rather emotional state. As a result, they are not always behaving in a completely rational way and we need to guide them through that.

In addition, you need to be experienced with modern communication channels and ways to create buzz and have a track record of achieving results in that area.

It is a small office environment, so you need to be happy with that. That also means that you need to be healthy and consistent in your work, because we don’t have a lot of slack in the system to cover people being away regularly. We run a support call diary on the system, with scheduled appointments, and so good timekeeping is also essential.

You will need to be a fast and efficient worker to feel comfortable here. That means being able to type reasonably fast and accurately and you need to be confident working on a computer, but also taking satisfaction from getting stuff done.

There is the potential for some flexibility in the working hours and several people in the company work a 4-day week. But it is basically a 9-5 routine, unless we are out of the office for an event.

Salary Etc…

The starting salary is £18-30K depending on experience. You can expect that to rise towards £36K+, depending on the level of proficiency achieved and responsibility within the job. Part-time work will be paid pro-rata.

We take 5 weeks of holiday per annum, which includes a few days between Christmas and New Year, when we virtually shut down.

The office is at 29 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2NP, although it is potentially possible to work from elsewhere at times.

The position is based on UK statutory employment law. There will be a six-week initial trial, which can be extended by either party, if there are any doubts about the suitability of the candidate or the job.

Application Process

This really is a dream job for the right person, for these reasons:

• You will be having a huge impact on the lives of people in a very difficult situation. So you will never need to question the meaning of your work.
• You will become a world-leading expert on reading, writing and dyslexia.
• It is an easy-going, small office environment.
• There is the potential to expand into leadership within domains beyond your primary role.
• You will be based within yards of the centre of one of the world’s great provincial cities.

So, first of all, if you are not feeling that it is potentially a dream job for you, please don’t apply! It would be a total waste for you to take the job.

If you do like the sound of the job, then you need to send in an application with the following three elements:

• Please include a basic CV with your employment history and education
• Please draft a letter/email to an imaginary friend with a bright 7 year-old daughter who is struggling to read, on the reasons why you think it might be worth them giving DM Easyread a go.
• Please also include a letter to me describing why you think you would be good at the two main aspects to this position.

Please send your application to support@dm-ed.com with the subject heading Support & Communication Position Application.

We are aiming to fill this position sometime in July or August, but finding the right person is more important than the timing.

Please send any questions you have to the email address above.

Thanks!

David Morgan