The topic of the relationship between recruitment and admissions teams is one that has followed me throughout my career in higher education.
I have previously spoken at the UCAS Conference where my session was titled 'One Goal, Competing Priorities: Alignment for a Harmonious International Office', exploring a question that many institutions continue to struggle with. How do recruitment and admissions work together effectively when their priorities can sometimes appear very different?
Recruitment teams are focused on creating opportunities, building relationships and supporting growth. Admissions teams are responsible for ensuring applicants meet requirements, managing risk and maintaining compliance. It's easy to see how those priorities can occasionally come into tension, particularly in an increasingly complex international environment.
Over the years, I've worked in institutions with very different cultures, structures and levels of risk appetite. What I've learned is that while processes, policies and reporting lines all play an important role, successful collaboration rarely comes down to process alone.
More often than not, it comes down to relationships.
One of the recurring themes is the perception of admissions as a gatekeeper. I understand where that perception comes from. Recruitment colleagues can spend months building relationships with prospective students and agents, only to find an application doesn't progress as expected. Equally, admissions teams are often making decisions based on factors that aren't always visible to colleagues elsewhere in the institution.
The challenge is that when teams don't understand each other's pressures, it's easy to make assumptions. Recruitment can feel admissions is being overly cautious. Admissions can feel recruitment is prioritising numbers over quality. Neither perspective is usually fair, but both can develop when communication is limited.
In my experience, the strongest partnerships emerge when recruitment and admissions move beyond transactional interactions and invest time in understanding one another's worlds. That might be through regular conversations, collaborative problem-solving or simply creating opportunities to discuss challenges before they become issues.
When those relationships exist, conversations change. People are more willing to ask questions, challenge constructively and work through difficult decisions together. Trust develops, and with trust comes better decision-making.
This feels particularly important given the increasing focus on compliance across the sector. With Basic Compliance Assessment metrics and greater regulatory scrutiny, compliance can no longer be viewed as the sole responsibility of admissions teams. The quality of applications entering the recruitment pipeline affects everyone, which means responsibility for outcomes must be shared.
What I've seen work best is not a culture where recruitment and admissions agree on everything, but one where both teams understand the rationale behind each other's decisions. Recruitment benefits from understanding the compliance and risk considerations that shape admissions decisions, while admissions benefit from understanding the realities of international markets and the pressures recruiters face.
The reality is that healthy disagreement will always exist. In fact, some of the most productive conversations I've been part of have involved robust debate. The goal isn't to eliminate tension altogether; it's to ensure those discussions happen within a framework of mutual respect and shared objectives.
Ultimately, the most effective international offices aren't necessarily those with the most sophisticated processes. They're the ones where people trust each other, communicate openly and recognise that despite their different perspectives, they're working towards the same outcome.
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