Senior Director of Working Professional MBA Recruiting and Admissions

Rice University•Houston, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Rice Business is a globally recognized, top-ranked graduate business school distinguished by its rigorous academic standards and a full portfolio of MBA programs, including Full-Time, Professional (Weekend, Evening, and Hybrid), Executive, and online modalities. The Senior Director of Working Professional MBA Recruiting and Admissions serves as an elevated strategic partner for the school, tasked with recruiting, admitting, and yielding future global business leaders. The Senior Director of Working Professional MBA Recruiting & Admissions serves as a senior leader responsible for driving the strategy, recruitment, and enrollment management across the Working Professional MBA portfolio. Reporting directly to the Assistant Dean, the Senior Director translates graduate management education trends into aggressive recruiting and yield strategies. The Senior Director directs a team of enrollment professionals while maintaining active hands-on involvement in candidate cultivation and admissions decisions. As a core member of the Recruiting & Admissions Office (RAO) senior leadership team, the Senior Director aligns portfolio strategy with operational, CRM, and candidate experience leadership to deliver a seamless, high-touch enrollment pipeline. This position serves as a primary point of contact for Rice Business stakeholders to achieve strategic cohort growth and maintain competitive positioning in the working-professional graduate management education market.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree
No substitutions permitted
Four or more (4+) years of higher education and/or relationship management/recruiting professional experience
In lieu of the experience requirement, additional related education above and beyond what is required may be substituted on an equivalent year-for-year basis.
Familiarity with the multiple work areas of a modern admissions office, including CRM systems, reporting and analytics, recruitment, candidate evaluation and selection, marketing, on-campus programming, staff training, budget management, and staff development
Strong process and project management skills required. Proven ability to develop these skills in staff members so they can manage work areas independently with appropriate levels of management input
Experience developing and implementing innovative solutions and processes to respond to the ever-changing field of admission
Firm familiarity of graduate management education prospective student market
Demonstrated ability to use admission and enrollment data to make data-driven decisions, measure and assess progress toward strategic goals, present data, and revise practices as needed
Demonstrated ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams and the ability to develop partnerships with key internal and external constituents and stakeholders
Strong staff management skills
Possess the ability to exercise independent judgment
Excellent diplomacy and organizational skills
Excellent interpersonal skills e.g. professionalism, collaboration etc.
Expert ability to lead and facilitate presentations/information sessions with clarity and confidence
Excellent computer skills, specifically Microsoft Suite, e.g., Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Nice To Haves

Extensive professional experience in relationship management, either in enrollment management or sales
Experience working within the graduate business education landscape or in higher education
Experience supervising teams and professionally developing direct reports
Familiarity working with CRM systems or equivalent to support relationship management responsibilities.
Supervisory experience with concrete examples of holding teams accountable and leading with a coaching mindset.
Ability to work autonomously, be comfortable with managing up and providing action-oriented and well-thought-out solutions to the Assistant Dean.
Understands the Graduate Management Education market, welcomes feedback, embraces creativity, and is comfortable navigating the nuances between urgent and important.
Strategic, outcomes-oriented, data-informed, and AI-fluent.

Responsibilities

Design, execute, and continuously refine the holistic working professional MBA recruitment and evaluation strategy, establishing data-driven approaches for market expansion, travel plans, and targeted sourcing to achieve strategic enrollment targets.
Serve as a core member of the RAO Senior Leadership Team and a trusted senior advisor to the Assistant Dean, providing actionable intelligence, risk assessments, high-touch relationship management, and strategic recommendations to drive working professional MBA enrollment targets.
Exude high executive presence, authority, and confidence while representing Rice Business during high-stakes domestic travel, delivering high-impact recruitment presentations, and engaging elite candidate pools, corporate partners, and alumni networks
Serve as the chief strategist and executive steward of working professional MBA recruitment, owning the end-to-end candidate lifecycle, driving candidate sourcing, high-touch relationship management, and cohort yield strategy to meet target enrollment goals.
Lead the working professional Admissions Committee, serving as the primary final application reader and evaluator on cohort composition. Perform comprehensive and evidence-based evaluations of candidate application files by assessing qualitative factors to make formal recommendations for final admissions decisions.
Provide final data-driven recommendations related to potential scholarship awards to the Assistant Dean
Direct, mentor, and build a high-performing working professional recruitment and admissions team, managing workload allocation for travel and candidate engagement while setting elevated standards to drive high-touch candidate conversion, establish outreach standards, and optimize workload distribution across file reading and evaluation workflows.
Pioneer AI fluency and advance assessment technology to modernize candidate assessment practices, streamline applicant evaluation, and enhance data-driven selection frameworks across the recruitment lifecycle.
Drive rigorous quantitative decision-making, predictive yield modeling, and absolute data integrity within the CRM (Slate), translating complex pipeline metrics into strategic updates for executive leadership.
Own candidate conversion and melt-mitigation strategy, actively nurturing admitted students from decision release to matriculation through personalized, high-touch sales strategies.
Collaborate in the oversight of macro yield, melt-mitigation, and retention operations, orchestrating high-impact events and targeted touchpoints to convert admitted candidates into enrolled cohorts.
Manage unit resource allocation and budget spend across recruitment travel, external vendors, and candidate experience touchpoints to ensure maximum ROI on recruitment investments.
Implement creative and innovative engagement strategies to maintain a robust candidate pipeline by establishing and maintaining strong relationships with prospective students through consistent and personalized communication frameworks and events, from inquiry to matriculation.
Consistently collaborate with Rice Business stakeholders to ensure alignment exists between the product and brand and the recruiting and admissions strategy.
Embody the highest standards of professionalism and operational excellence.
Performs all other duties as assigned
Conduct evaluative interviews to curate a high-caliber, diverse MBA cohort that aligns with institutional standards and strategic enrollment goals as needed.
Commit to continuous learning related to graduate management education trends and competitive market landscapes to leverage this knowledge to ensure Rice Business’s firm position within recruitment innovation.
Represent Rice Business with key strategic partners, ensuring our efforts are aligned with the evolving needs of the global business workforce