Pre Sales Consultant

Overview

Would you like to help enrich the lives of learners around the world?

At RM, we’ve been pioneers of education technology since 1973. We provide technology and resources to the education sector, supporting over 20 million students and improving educational outcomes worldwide.

What we do helps learners at all stages of their lives, from preschool to higher education and professional qualification; we partner with schools, examination boards, governments, and professional organisations globally to make learning more accessible, more engaging, and more impactful.

RM operates through three divisions: Assessment (digital assessment and marking solutions), Technology (managed services, hardware, and software for schools), and TTS (educational resources).

Within the assessment market we are experts in providing solutions for online exam testing and marking and the management and analysis of educational data. We work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies for high stakes assessment such as GCSEs, A Levels, and professional qualifications. Each year, our software is used globally to conduct hundreds of thousands of on-screen tests and to mark millions of paper-based scripts. For over a decade we have been partnering with the world’s leading awarding bodies to deliver intuitive, secure, and reliable e-marking solutions. 

Visit our website to find out more: www.rm.com/assessment

Pre sales solution consultant is a key member of RM Assessments Pre Sales team. The role supports the development and winning of new business opportunities across our global assessment markets.

At the heart of this role is a strong understanding of assessment and the candidate experience. You'll understand how assessment organisations operate, the challenges they face and how decisions across the assessment lifestyle affect the people taking those assessments.

You will use your assessment knowledge to engage prospective clients in meaningful discovery, understand what they're trying to achieve and challenge and shape requirements where appropriate. The role is about getting underneath the initial request to understand the real assessment problem, desired outcome and candidate needs before determining how technology can best support them. This reflects the consultative approach defined within our pre-sales capability.

You will combine assessment expertise with commercial awareness and a strong or developing understanding of assessment technology. Working with business development, product, operations and other specialists you'll bring together solutions using RM's product service partners and wider capability.

The role supports opportunities across awarding organisations, professional bodies ministries of education and other organisations delivering high-stakes assessments internationally.

 

We encourage early applications as the vacancy may close once the position has been filled or final interviews have been arranged.

Responsibilities

Assessment-focused discovery

• lead clients conversations and workshops to understand their assessment model, candidate journey, current processes, challenges, drivers and desired outcomes. Explore the areas and to be rather than simply responding to the initial requirement.

Challenge and shape opportunities

• use assessment and market knowledge to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions constructively and help clients define what they actually need. Identify gaps, contradictions, risks and opportunities within requirements.

Candidate centre thinking

• consider the candidates throughout solution development, recognising that assessment is ultimately about enabling people to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and ability. Balance candidate experience, accessibility unfairness with assessment integrity, security and the operational needs of the client

Solution design

• translate clients’ needs into credible end-to-end assessment solutions. Bring together RM products, services, integrations, partners and operational capability whilst balancing client outcomes, feasibility, differentiation and commercial viability.

Bring solutions to life

• Lead client workshops, presentations and demonstrations, that show how the proposed solution would work within client assessment context rather than simply demonstrating product features.

Tender and proposal development

• Interpret complex tenders and RFPs and contribute clear, accurate and compelling responses. Ensure we answer the requirements while explaining why our approach is right for the clients and where RM provides value and differentiation.

Opportunities and commercial awareness

• understanding the client, competition, procurement environments, decision drivers, wind themes and commercial considerations. Contribute to qualifications and solution decisions to help RM focus on win the right opportunities.

Solution validation

• work collaboratively with product, development, operations and other subject matter experts to ensure proposed solutions are feasible, supportable and appropriately costed. Know when deeper technical or specialist expertise needs to be brought into an opportunity.

Market insight

• maintain knowledge of developments across assessment, digital assessment, client needs and the competitive landscape. Use this insight to bring credibility to client conversations and help inform rm's propositions and future direction.

Transition to delivery

• clearly capture and communicate what has been understood, designed and committed during the sales process. This includes requirements, assumptions, dependencies, risks key decisions and areas requiring further discovery. This supports A joined-up transition into solution ownership ensuring client success.

Experience

• We're particularly interested in candidates who bring strong assessment domain experience and can combine this with, or develop, the consultative, commercial and technological skills required to design effective digital assessment solutions.
• You will ideally have practical experience gained with an awarding organisation, examination, professional body assessment technology provider or closely related environment. You should understand the assessment lifecycle and be able to discuss assessment processes, challenges, and candidates’ needs credibly with clients and assessment specialists.
• Experience in areas such as assessment design, examination delivery, digital assessment, marking and moderation, quality assurance, accessibility, results or assessment transformation would be particularly valuable.
• You will naturally be curious and comfortable asking questions, listening and constructively challenge rather than immediately proposing a solution. You will be able to translate complex assessment needs into clear requirements and explain solutions in way that is relevant to different audiences.
• You do not need to be a technical architect. You will, however, need the ability and willingness to develop a strong understanding of RM assessment technology. You should be able to discuss products and solutions confidently and develop sufficient technical understanding to engage credibly around area such as integration, architecture, security and data while recognising when specialist expertise is required.
• You will be a confident in written and verbal communication, comfortable contributing to tenders, proposals. You will be confident in leading discovery sessions, workshops, presentations and demonstrations with stakeholders ranging from assessment practitioners through to senior executive.
• Previous pre sales or solution consulting experience would be beneficial, but strong assessment expertise, curiosity and the ability to develop into a consultative solution role are equally important.

Technical Capabilities

• Cloud/SaaS Understanding – a practical understanding of cloud hosting software and SaaS solution, including environments, availability, scalability, resilience and service models.
• Integration and APIs – able to understand how platforms exchange information, with working knowledge of REST APIs/web services, data flows and common integration approaches.
• Identity and access management – awareness of SOO, authentication, role-based access and user provisioning.
• Data Understanding - able to discuss data flows, formats, storage, retention, migration . Recognising where data protection/residency requirements may affect solution.
• Security and compliance awareness – sufficient understanding of security principles to have credible every client conversation around access, audits, privacy, business continuity ad assessment security.
• Solution Architecture literacy – able to develop high level solutions diagrams showing platforms, integration, client services, third party services and key data flows.
• Non-Functional requirements – able to identify and explore requirements, such as performance, concurrency, availability, accessibility and support .
• Technical requirements interpretation – comfortable reading technical requirements, identifying gaps or risks. Translating these into questions for product, architecture, operations and security.
• Technical demonstration capability – confident using assessment platforms and demonstrating end to end clients scenario. Explaining how technology supports the assessment process rather than simply demonstrating features.
• Technical risk and feasibility – able to recognise when a requirement could introduce complexity, dependency, product development or delivery risk and know when specialist validation is needed.

Technical summary

You do not need to be a technical architect but will need to be comfortable working with technology and develop a strong understanding of cloud-based assessment solutions. You should be able to engage credibly in client conversations around cloud services, integrations/APIs, data flows, identity/access, security and nonfunctional requirements such as resilience and performance.

You will be able to interpret technical requirements, lead solution design and identify potential dependencies and risks. You will recognise when a deeper technical expertise is required and work effectively with Product, Architecture, Security and Operational specialists to validate the solution or have the aptitude and willingness to develop this knowledge.

Our approach

Our Pre sales team exist to bring assessment, market, solution and commercial expertise into the sales process. We want to understand and challenge the problem before designing the solution, helping clients achieve better assessment outcomes. Giving RM the strongest opportunity to win and successfully deliver the right business.

What’s in it for you?

At RM we have My Work Blend @RM which provides office-based colleagues with multi location and hybrid working options. As well as your office base, you can spend a proportion of your time working at other locations that suit your role and your life, including home, other offices, customer sites, distribution centres or on the move. We encourage you to discuss arrangements for this role with your potential line manager during the recruitment process.

As well as a competitive salary and our core benefits package which includes private medical healthcare, life assurance and a Group Personal Pension Plan with higher contribution levels available, some roles are also eligible for a performance-related bonus. There are lots of voluntary benefits too. You could buy additional annual leave, join our dental plan, sign up for a health assessment, or take part in our cycle to work scheme. You could even earn yourself an extra bonus for successfully recommending a friend or family member for a position within RM.

To better reflect the society that we serve, we’re committed to building a diverse workforce and creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all. To achieve this, we create teams of talented people from different backgrounds and experiences and strive to be a business where our people can bring their whole selves to work, we also want to make the recruitment process as inclusive as possible for everyone. Should you require additional support with your application or through the interview process, please contact us at recruitment@rm.com.

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.