Job No. 26 - Employer Engagement Co-ordinator

Well, with the euphoria of yesterday's landmark twenty-fifth post fading (and all the coffee cake gone) I spent this morning wading through the (literally) dozens of job suggestions that people have sent me...

There were some really good ones (that I may come back to another day) but the one that caught my eye was a position fairly close to home - Employer Engagement Co-ordinator at the University of Teesside.

My understanding is that the job involves you having to co-ordinate all the employers to ensure that they get engaged - possibly within the framework of some time limit (it is mentioned that the role is fixed term until March 2009, so I assume all the employers need to be engaged by this point) - so you'd function almost as a pre-wedding planner. The exact methods of co-ordination are not revealed in the job description, but the wording does seem to suggest you will need to be intimately involved:

This is an interdependent and mutually supporting roles, requiring close working relationships

My current thinking is that I'll begin by putting all of the employers names in a hat and then doing the selection of couples on a random basis to ensure there are no complaints (and so the less attractive employers don't end up left on their own in a corner). Once that's been sorted out, I'd then take out two employers at time to somewhere romantic and be on hand to help to break the ice a bit...maybe get the first lot of drinks in and get them talking before retiring to the background, ready to help out whenever the conversation starts to falter by leaping out and telling an amusing anecdote, or doing the old 'jeans pockets out, fly undone - look it's an elephant!' gag.

Obviously there will be lows as well as highs; employers with different ambitions - he wants to write IT software, she wants to weld industrial piping - but I can help smooth things over and get them on the right path...and before you know it, we'd be down H. Samuel, choosing a suitably tacky ring and thinking of possible children's names. Hopefully the enthusiasm in my application statement (below) will win out over (my lack of) experience:

I believe that, despite a background in videogame development, I would be extremely well suited to this position given the opportunity. I am used to dealing with employers and am highly experienced in managing relationships. I feel that I could bring employers together and build long-lasting relationships, thus ensuring a high ratio of selected employers being engaged.

It could be fun - I'd get to see young love on a daily basis and then, beyond that, I'd be out of the frame...I wouldn't need to help them set a date for the wedding, I wouldn't have to help them decide whether to have an intimate reception or a banquet, there'd be no need to settle arguments about whether or not to invite Uncle Alfred (who's a stingy old bugger who'll only bring a set of dishtowels as a present) or even get involved in suggesting locations for their honeymoon. Nope - none of that's anything to do with me - I just get them engaged, pat them on the back and then send them on their merry way...