Assistant Director, Employer Relations and Development

Department

ESA Deputy Director - Direct Reports

About the Department

Career Advancement serves a student population of approximately 7,000 arts and sciences undergraduate students, in addition to alumni who have graduated within the last five years. Career Advancement plays a vital role in ensuring our students’ success after graduation. Career Advancement offers innovative and comprehensive career development services with a focus on pre-professional preparation, experiential education, and access to internship and full-time opportunities. Through career advising, programs, and comprehensive resources, Career Advancement supports undergraduate students and alumni as they develop the skills necessary to manage their career development, while working with alumni and employers to provide students with meaningful opportunities. For more information, please visit the Career Advancement website at careeradvancement.uchicago.edu.

Job Summary

UChicago Career Advancement builds on the world-class UChicago liberal arts foundation to give students a competitive edge in their professional development. The Employer Relations and Development (ERD) team establishes and enhances relationships across industries and in multiple geographic regions to connect UChicago undergraduates with leading organizations and support their career success.

The Assistant Director will respond to student demand for industry- and region-relevant internships and contribute to a collaborative, dynamic, and high-performing Employer Relations team. The Assistant Director will contribute to the growth of employer partnerships, fostering the UChicago brand with employers. This includes but is not limited to scaling up the number and diversity of internship opportunities in the APAC region, engaging with the UChicago parent and alumni community, facilitating on-campus and/or virtual career programs and employer engagements, and promoting new professional and experiential programs in target regions and industries.

The Assistant Director will enhance students’ understanding of working abroad and highlight the benefits of these experiences to student success. The position requires a passion for building relationships, serving as a strategic thought partner, and representing the University with a commitment to excellence, customer service, and creative, problem-solving mindset. The ideal candidate will be an energetic, adaptable, and talented individual contributor with a record of success in complex, fast-paced environments where collaboration is critical to success. The Assistant Director will be a critical contributor to the growth of the University’s premiere Jeff Metcalf Internship Program that places students into 4,500+ substantive, paid internships each year. This role will support the management of outcomes reporting, analyze data, and proactively identify and respond to trends. The Assistant Director will collaborate with student organizations as well as campus and external partners to fulfill University’s commitment to students’ success during and beyond College. The Assistant Director will support employer relationship building and management, creating incremental internship and full-time opportunities for students, and helping employers make early connections to talent.

Employer Relations staff provide superior customer service to all employer partners recruiting UChicago students, including managing robust on-campus recruiting, supporting employers with navigating the entirety of the recruiting process, and ensuring a positive campus experience. This staff member will also work collaboratively with the team to support the launch and execution of special projects and initiatives, experiential education programs, industry and flagship events.

The Assistant Director will also be responsible for the success of assigned student’s cohorts and their summer internship placement. This includes ensuring first-year career cohorts and Odyssey Scholars have access to substantive internship opportunities the summer after their first year. The Assistant Director will be instrumental in meeting this goal by developing new relationships with organizations, collaborating with student advisers in the creative promotion of opportunities to meet employer commitment and align with student interests, and support strategic career programming.

Responsibilities

• Leads identification of and conducts outreach to employers, both domestic and international, in both the public, private, and non-profit sectors for internships and full-time opportunities.
• Builds affinity with the University community domestically and abroad.
• Collaborates with Alumni Relations and Development (ARD) to cultivate new contacts and engage further with alumni, parents, donors, and friends of the University.
• Creates and im