Director, Pre-Professional Programs

Department

ESA Careers in Healthcare

About the Department

Career Advancement serves a student population of approximately 6,000 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 focusing 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

The Director, Pre-Professional Programs will utilize industry knowledge and program management skills to scale up programming and resources designed to prepare students for successful acceptances to law school, medical school, and help students secure careers in related fields. The Director will utilize managerial skills to oversee a team of full-time staff members who directly oversee career programs in the legal and healthcare sectors. This team member will organize and execute events, develop impactful pre-professional workshops and experiential programs, provide one-on-one advising for students, support the management of outcomes reporting, and collaborate with campus partners as needed.

This position requires a passion for impacting students through career services and advising and the ability to think strategically about managing people and programs. The ideal candidate will be an energetic and talented leader with a record of success in complex, fast-paced environments where collaboration is critical to success.

Responsibilities

• Provides strategic oversight for a team of full-time staff members who manage a variety of legal and healthcare focused career programs.
• Oversees Careers in Law budget including planning, forecasting, and tracking
• Provides high-quality career advising to undergraduate students and alumni through one-on-one career advising sessions
• Develops and maintains relationships with campus partners and faculty.
• Maintains efficient methods to track student data and report on outcomes as needed.
• Analyzes placement and survey data to develop data-driven strategic initiatives to support Career advancement and CIL and CIH team priorities.
• Manages employees by establishing annual performance goals, allocating resources, assessing annual performance, and determining individual merit, incentive and/or promotional increases.
• Develops new and current programs, such as on-campus recruiting events and career management programs, to support students and alumni in post-graduate planning and career pursuits.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

Education:

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

Work Experience:

Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Education:

• Master’s degree or higher.

Experience:

• Prior experience working in higher education.
• Comfortable managing others.
• Background working with college-aged students, recent college graduates, and or early career professionals.

Technical Skills or Knowledge:

• Proficient in Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Proficiency with tools commonly used in innovation, such as data analysis tools and other industry-relevant technical skills.

Preferred Competencies

• A demonstrated passion for supporting the success of students in their career development.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills.
• Demonstrated success in maintaining collaborative relationships with diverse constituencies.
• Strong interpersonal skills, demonstrated initiative, and work both independently and collaboratively, with flexibility and adaptability.
• Deep commitment to customer service, prioritize and balance different work streams, meet deadlines, and work successfully in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong coaching or counseling skills.
• Communicate to large groups as well as one-on-one with students, senior management, faculty, donors, and alumni.