Assistant Director, Robert Day Scholars Coaching and External Affairs

Claremont McKenna College • Claremont, CA

10d

About The Position

The Assistant Director, Robert Day Scholars Coaching and External Affairs leads student career development and external relationships for CMC’s marquee scholars program, the Robert Day Scholars Program (RDS). Within CMC’s reputation as a top-10 nationally-ranked college, the Robert Day Scholars (RDS) Program selects and prepares highly motivated students for future leadership roles in a variety of industries, including financial services, consulting, corporations, and not-for-profit organizations. Students apply and are selected into this prestigious scholar program; the process mirrors and runs separately from the overall college admission program. By completing rigorous additional coursework and supplemental co-curricular programming, workshops, and events, RDS students excel with the fundamental skills necessary to navigate complex markets. Robert Day Scholars graduate with BA or MA degrees and leadership-, hard-, soft-, and critical thinking skills to get placed and excel at the start of their careers. Over the years, the RDS program has held successes with consistent job placement between 98-100%. The Assistant Director will assist in evaluating external market trends and evolving faculty and student needs to inform and drive RDS strategies across co-curricular programming, student coaching, events, and community/stakeholder development. This role is a “player coach” requiring strategic thinking and planning combined with hands-on tactical execution and analysis. This role is neither purely strategic nor limited to student coaching. The Assistant Director will support the Director of the Robert Day Scholars Program on overall broader strategies and planning by providing new ideas and driving hands-on changes both internally and externally. This position supports broader department outcomes of student-scholar satisfaction and internships and full-time jobs placement rates.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or any combination of education and experience that provides the required knowledge, skills and abilities is required.
• A minimum of three years of experience in student coaching/development, career services, recruiting, or related field is required.
• Experience with external industry and recruiters is required.
• Track record of working with and coaching/counseling/developing college students for both career pathing/job search and hard/soft skills; adept at modern coaching techniques for current generation of students.
• Industry/recruiting knowledge for ‘high finance’ industry recruiting (investment banking, asset management, VC/PE, wealth management) and consulting industries.
• High customer service orientation for this student-centric role.
• Positive attitude, attentiveness, responsiveness, and strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated expertise in building and maintaining professional external networks.
• High organizational skills.
• Ability to manage hands-on tactical execution of programs.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills across departments and stakeholders, both internal and external.
• Demonstrate sound judgement and decision-making.
• Proficiency in independently working, planning, issue-resolution, and decision-making.
• Ability to thrive and problem-solve in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, independently managing multiple simultaneous projects/tasks.
• Proactively anticipate and reactively resolve issues.
• Adept at continuous improvement.
• Provide basic reports utilizing data, metrics, and external research.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Proficiency with Excel, Powerpoint, CRM/ATS platforms, shared/cloud-based platforms (e.g. Outlook, Box, Sharepoint).
• Domestic travel is required, up to 10% of the time.

Nice To Haves

• Graduate degree in business, counseling, or other related field is highly preferred.
• Existing recruiter relationships in such sectors is highly desired.

Responsibilities

• Student Career Development (40%) Stay abreast of changing external market needs and dynamics to proactively drive or influence program changes/improvements to support student outcomes (professional development, personal development, internship, and post-grad job placement).
• Provide high-engagement, high-responsiveness one-on-one career, recruiting, interviewing, and skills coaching to RDS students (in concert with the Director).
• Guide, track, and report on RDS students’ career pathing, internships, and post-grad job placements, as well as longer-term progression into leadership roles.
• In concert with Faculty Advisors and Dean of Students staff, assist, guide, and support students working with the team in the event of student Low Grade Notices or other challenges.
• Work closely to plan and coordinate with other career coaches for a more integrated approach across the CMC Soll Center for Student Opportunity.
• Establish and improve more effective ways to communicate and coordinate with students across cohorts as well as RDS alumni.
• On-board and nurture each newly inducted RDS class cohort; build RDS community across cohorts and alumni.
• Lead review and coordination of RDS student experiential funding requests/process.
• External Relations (30%) Assist in developing marketing, communications, and content (external and internal) that articulates the differentiation, skills, and value proposition of the Robert Day Scholars against a competitive peer group; continuously strengthen RDS Program market positioning; work closely with Admission and CMC Strategic Communications and Marketing teams.
• Proactively cultivate external companies/firms, recruiters, alumni, non-alumni, and other stakeholder relationships to assist RDS in internships/jobs pathways and placements, including proactively forging new recruiting pathways.
• Manage or partner with other peer coaches in the organization for executing student networking trips including organizing company visits, alumni receptions, and individual recruiting activities for Scholars (e.g. finance in NYC, consulting/tech in San Francisco).
• Rigorously monitor and track RDS student recruiting strategies, journeys, and placements, including improving processes and tools.
• Provide support to the CMC on-campus recruiting program teams.
• Partner with the Office of Advancement and other stakeholder departments on various RDS-related initiatives.
• With the Director, steward the RDS Board of Associates planning and execution. Responsibilities include managing meeting planning, materials, Board member nominations process, documents (in concert with Office of Advancement); attend bi-annual Board meetings and manage the meeting minutes in the role of Secretary.
• Programming & Project Management (30%) Proactively and continuously evaluate and improve a wide range of programs, processes, tools, and communications.
• Serve as lead project manager for key initiatives throughout the year (e.g. new cohort selection process, recognition/celebration events).
• Build and analyze basic reports to support the programs.
• Collaborate and functionally oversee select programs and events, and tasks assigned to the Administrative Assistant and Student Intern(s), as needed.

Benefits

• Claremont McKenna College offers employee benefits that include health, dental, and vision plans; flexible spending accounts; health savings accounts; paid vacation, sick, and holiday time; retirement benefits; basic and voluntary life insurance; dependent tuition remission; ride-share incentives; and more.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director