Career Services Manager

Status: Full time Location: St. Paul, MN, Hybrid Mission and Vision: The mission of Wallin Education Partners is to enable college and career success for high-potential Minnesota students with financial need through scholarships, comprehensive advising support. Our vision is to create a diverse, ever-expanding community of scholars and educated citizens with the skills, leadership, and dedication needed to build a stronger tomorrow. Organization: Wallin Education Partners is a proven college completion program that includes financial aid and comprehensive support for students from low-income backgrounds. With a 91% six-year graduation rate compared to 64% nationally, Wallin Education Partners is one of the most effective college completion programs in the country. Wallin’s model of financial aid and comprehensive individual advising accelerates economic mobility and fundamentally increases the odds of graduation and employment for underrepresented students. Since 1992, Wallin Education Partners has helped increase access to college and degree completion for lower income students by partnering with high schools, donors, community organizations, and civic leaders to support more than 5,000 students on their college journeys. Primary Responsibilities: The Career Services Manager provides strategic and operational leadership for Wallin’s career programming. The Manager oversees the delivery of equitable career development experiences that help scholars and alumni explore careers, build core skills, secure and thrive in internships, apprenticeships, projects, and full-time employment, and develop professional networks. The role manages employer and community partnerships, supports the growth of Wallin Career Services and UpTurnships programming, coordinates closely with Scholar Programs, Advancement, Enrollment and Analytics, Marketing, and alumni partners, and maintains the systems, data, and communications needed to deliver high-quality experiences for scholars and employers. Program Management and Supervision Manage Wallin’s full suite of career development programming, including early career discernment and exploration, core skill development, hands-on experiences, and direct talent pipelines. Provide direction and budgetary oversight for annual events like the Career Fair and Kick Start Your Career, for programs like UpTurnships and Career Accelerator, and traditional programming including site visits, panels, and workshops. Supervise Program Coordinator(s) and Partnership Coordinator(s), including setting priorities and expectations, providing coaching and support, and managing performance and professional development. Monitor program performance and use scholar, employer, and labor-market feedback to improve services and outcomes while maintaining accurate data in our CRM system. Set the approach and quality standards for scholar career support, ensuring services align with program strategy and participant needs. Manage all volunteers supporting career services including onboarding, ongoing training, and communication. Provide coaching or intervention for complex participant situations, priority partnerships, and escalated barriers to employment. Work closely with the scholar programs team to continually assess scholar needs in career services to adjust, grow, and add programming as needed. Partnership Management Manage high-level employer and workforce-development relationships. The Manager works collaboratively with stakeholders to establish partnership strategy and remains accountable for relationship health and results while supervising the coordinator’s management of routine opportunity implementation and communication. Lead the development and expansion of project and internship opportunities for UpTurnships, as well as internships/apprenticeships and full-time employment partnerships for all scholars. Manage new partnership terms, resource commitments, exceptions, and responses to significant partner concerns before the coordinator implements them. Identify and initiate strategic relationships and platforms that increase career access for Wallin scholars. Develop talent-pipeline services that help key employer partners engage Wallin scholars and alumni for open internship and full-time roles. Track and analyze program participation, hiring status, employer engagement, and key outcome measures; prepare reports for internal planning, grants, partners, and other external stakeholders. Establish standards for career-services operations, data quality, communications, and reporting, and use information from these systems to guide decisions and improvements. Scholar and Program Support Provide career support to scholars through one-on-one meetings, interview resume coaching, and resume reviews. Participate and engage with scholars at site visits, panels and workshops. Stay informed about organizational strategy, workforce trends, and effective early career launch practices. Attend cross-functional meetings as needed and complete additional projects and responsibilities. assigned by management. Support special projects and complete various tasks to meet program needs. Engage in professional growth through learning opportunities that enhance skills & knowledge relevant to the role. Minimum Qualifications and Experience: Five or more years’ experience working in career services, partnership management, program development, corporate relations and/or talent acquisition Two or more years working with diverse student populations Two or more years of supervisory experience Experience in planning and executing large-scale professional events Expertise in utilizing technology to track activities and outcomes to be used for both internal and external reporting as well as programmatic decision making Demonstrated communication skills both orally and in writing to all levels of people inside and outside the organization, including possessing good grammar, voice and diction Excellent interpersonal, collaboration, and relationship-building skills to effectively work with a diverse group/variety of people and personalities, including developing relationships with external partners, staff and scholars Preferred Qualifications and Experience: Demonstrated negotiation and persuasion skills to achieve results and expedite projects Experience using a CRM such as Slate, Salesforce, Raiser’s Edge, etc. to drive processes of growing and deepening partnerships Familiarity with the landscape of higher education in Minnesota Possesses a thorough, organized and detail-oriented approach to work; able to establish and maintain priorities Compensation: $75,000-$82,000 Wallin Education Partners offersemployees a generousbenefit package including group health insurance, dental insurance, long- and short-term disability insurance, and a 401K plan. Additional Info: For further information on Wallin, please visit www.wallinpartners.org . How to Apply: If interested, please email a cover letter , and resume to Caitlin Cardinal at hr@wallinpartners.org , and include “Career Services Manager” in the subject line; or mail to: Wallin Education Partners, 451 Lexington Parkway North, Suite 100, Saint Paul, MN 55104 Wallin Education Partners is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to providing a work environment that is free from harassment and discrimination. Wallin Education Partners provides equal opportunity to all applicants for employment in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws and will not refuse to hire any qualified individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual by reason of an individual’s race (including hair texture and hairstyles), color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, (or related medical conditions, including, but not limited to lactation), physical disability, mental and/or intellectual disability, age, military status or status as a Vietnam-era or special disabled