We’re looking for an exceptional Product Owner who is inspired by intuitive user interfaces and is motivated by facilitating and simplifying complex application processes. You’ll be as comfortable developing solutions for external customers as for internal colleagues. You’ll thrive amid managing ‘business as usual’ requests, whilst playing a pivotal role in the development of transformative application capabilities.
Who we are
Kaplan International Pathways is a leading provider of global education centred around our students. Whoever they are, and wherever they are in the world, our goal is to help them achieve their goals.
We offer a range of study and accommodation options to our students – ranging from degree preparation and direct admission to helping students to receive a life-changing education. Our partnerships with over 40 universities worldwide create wonderful opportunities for students, education agents, sponsors and more. Kaplan International Pathways guides more than 20,000 students to university each year. Our strong partnerships with universities in the UK, USA and Australia have opened up amazing educational opportunities to students from across the globe.
Technology sits at the heart of what we do, and our Digital Product Team is directly focused on creating strong experiences for our students and their supporters throughout their education journey.
The location
Businesses within Kaplan International focus on delivering brilliant, immersive, in-person learning experiences to our students. We believe that creating those great experiences starts with us – and we achieve our greatest results when we work closely together.
Technology has created so many different opportunities for collaboration but spending time in person to build relationships, share ideas and co-create is more important than ever. As such, we’ll be asking you to join us in our Global Headquarters in London Bridge, a couple of days per week as a minimum.
The Role
We’re looking for an exceptional Product Owner who is inspired by intuitive user interfaces and is motivated by facilitating and simplifying complex application processes. You’ll be as comfortable developing solutions for external customers as for internal colleagues. You’ll thrive amid managing ‘business as usual’ requests, whilst playing a pivotal role in the development of transformative application capabilities.
This is an evolving role which will see an ambitious Product Owner positioned at the heart of a large programme of work to rethink our tooling that supports lead creation, application assessment as well as the nurturing and converting of those applications, into sales.
We are renowned for our high levels of customer service and for having a flexible, personalised applications process which is something we’re passionate about retaining and expanding as we transform the applications experience we offer to both prospective students as well as our internal stakeholders.
You’ll bring strong negotiation skills, excellent communication approaches as well as diplomacy to help create solutions that drive success for your customers and that set Pathways apart from our competitors.
To succeed in this role:
You’ll be a self-starter, highly organised and focused on unlocking early value and evolving an approach according to the needs of your customers and the teams around you.
You will lead through collaboration, communication, influence, and empathy. Most of all you’ll be a team player who brings others on the journey.
We’ll be asking you to:
Ensure your stakeholders have a clear understanding of the Now, Next and Future.-
Act as the flagbearer for your product - the voice of the customer, whilst also balancing this with business needs
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Facilitate workshops with our business and technology teams to explore the problems, capture and understand requirements and get to the heart of our customer needs
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Take full ownership for generating value - ensuring that stories are well written, prioritised and that the team is empowered to deliver them
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Work closely with the Product Manager to develop a cohesive, collaborative roadmap which is tightly connected to other value streams and platform interdependencies across the organisation
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Define success criteria for major feature sets. Measure and present results
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Provide an active role in mitigating impediments impacting successful team completion of releases/sprint goals.
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Perform demos/sprint reviews with your stakeholders
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Work with stakeholders to help drive better adoption of technologies
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Assist with planning product release schedules and setting expectations for delivery of functionality
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Be an outstanding communicator who pays attention to detail and can articulate challenging concepts in an accessible manner across varying levels of the organisation – be these technical or business process related
You’ll have:
Experience delivering customer facing and staff facing user interfaces-
Worked in developing complex application forms, process-driven platforms or enterprise CRM systems such as Salesforce.
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A strong understanding of Product Ownership frameworks, tools and techniques
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A clear ability to operate thoughtfully and analytically and not afraid of making decisions based on this, in the interest of your product’s vision
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Experience recognizing when there is a need for pragmatism or compromise
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Demonstrable examples of unlocking value early and continuous delivery
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Worked directly with stakeholders up to Director level
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Awareness (preferably experience) of modern service design tools, methods and techniques
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Developed products and services working in both Agile and non-Agile environments – with demonstrable experience of applying the right techniques to the right problems
Benefits
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28 days annual leave*
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Big discounts on Kaplan courses for you and your family
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24/7 confidential helpline providing counselling and other support services
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Company pension contributions
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Maternity, Adoption, Shared Parental and Paternity/Partner pay which is well above statutory levels
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Medicash Health Cash Plan
Please note that the annual leave entitlement will be calculated on a pro rata basis if the role is part time.
Please apply with a CV and covering letter. Closing date: 2nd May 2023.
At Kaplan International, we are committed to working in a diverse organisation and strive to provide equality of opportunity for all. We encourage and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or identity, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnership. If as a disabled applicant (as defined under the Equality Act 2010) you would like to request that your application is considered our Guaranteed Interview Scheme (GIS) please let us know using this form
As part of our commitment to safeguarding, successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check.
Applicants must be able to provide proof of eligibility to work in the UK.
For international students who have the rights to stay in the UK following graduation, we welcome application under the Graduate Route visa.
About Kaplan International Pathways
Kaplan International Pathways, a division of Kaplan Inc., offers international students a wide range of flexible study options - from University preparation programmes in the UK, Australia, USA and Japan through to full degree programmes in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. Through our academic partnerships with leading universities, our expertise in student recruitment, our exceptional teaching and a real focus on customer service and pastoral care, each year we are proud to welcome thousands of students from more than 100 countries through the doors of our colleges.
In the UK, we operate 9 campus-based colleges in partnership with Bournemouth University, University of Glasgow, University of Liverpool, Nottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham, University of Brighton, University of Essex, University of York and University of West of England, Bristol and an off-campus college in London offering pathways to 7 leading well-ranked UK universities.