Director of Graduate Recruitment

Elon University; Elon (NC); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Elon University is seeking a Director of Graduate Recruitment to lead a team coordinating recruitment, admissions review, and matriculation across Elon’s graduate programs (excluding Law). The director supervises Assistant Directors and drives strategies to enhance enrollment outcomes.

The role requires a Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years in graduate admissions, plus strong leadership, budget management, and familiarity with holistic review approaches.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in any field with 8+ years in higher education admissions.
• Experience with holistic admissions and rubric development.
• Strong leadership and budget management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead graduate admissions review and recruitment for Elon University's graduate programs.
• Develop and maintain admissions rubrics, training, and customer service standards.
• Collaborate with deans and program committees to align admissions criteria with mission.
• Leverage technology (including Slate) to innovate admissions processes and data workflows.

Skills

Team leadership

Admissions strategy

Holistic review

Budget management

Staff development

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

Slate

CRM systems

Job description

Director of Graduate Recruitment

Location: Queens Campus - Charlotte

Title: Director of Graduate Recruitment

Position Type: Staff Full-Time

Hours Per Week: 40

VP Area: Admissions and Financial Aid

Department: Graduate Admissions

Location: Queens Campus - Charlotte

Position Summary

This position is responsible for leading a team that works with the graduate admission/program staff in coordinating all aspects of the recruitment, admissions review, and matriculation checklists for Elon's graduate and professional programs, with the exception of the Law program. This position directly supervises the Assistant Directors of Graduate Admissions responsible for student-facing recruitment and admissions activities.

Benefits of Working at Elon

Community is foundational to Queens and a shared responsibility within our residential campus. All who work at Queens should demonstrate an understanding of and engagement with Queens' foundational commitment to relationships, mentoring and collaboration in a close-knit residential community. We embrace the shared responsibility to foster inclusive excellence within a strong residential community. Accordingly, employees are expected to join together and build connections in activities that foster an active and engaged campus environment and engage in professional development to support the shared responsibility of enriching diversity, equity, and inclusion through meaningful relationships and mentoring at Queens. Employees are encouraged to, for example, attend or participate in campus activities such as campus cultural events, athletic events, continuing education, professional development opportunities and trainings, employee resource groups and other university-sponsored activities to demonstrate an active commitment to the Queens community.

Minimum Required Education and Experience

Bachelor's degree in any relevant field of study with minimum 8 years of experience with the following relevant work experience: Progressively responsible experience in higher education admissions settings. Management of territory travel required, management of a budget required. Experience with admissions file review training, rubric development, and holistic admissions required. Experience with strategic leveraging, and managing/developing professional staff strongly preferred.

Preferred Education and Experience

Master's degree in business, management, leadership, sales, higher education, or related is strongly preferred, 10 years of experience preferred, experience with highly competitive graduate programs, health sciences preferred, experience with mission-driven, small cohort programs preferred. Experience with Slate preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Knowledge of industry-specific hiring trends and disparities required. Knowledge of industry-specific higher education landscape is required. Knowledge of holistic admissions best practices required. Professional admissions membership or affiliation preferred: NAGAP, AACRAO, NACAC, NACUBO, and any other relevant industry-specific admissions affiliations, such as GNAP, etc.

Job Duties

• Process and Team management:
  • Manage graduate admissions review process for graduate-level programming offered through central campus.
  • Marginal Coordinate the processing and equitable review of graduate applications.
  • Generate and maintain standards for graduate admissions file evaluation.
  • Serve on Admissions Committees to determine cohort. Collaborate with Dean and program admissions committees to review admissions rubrics and criteria and assess their ability to predict applicants' ability to be successful in our graduate programs, ensuring industry best practices and regulation requirements are incorporated into process.
  • Train admissions staff to support recruitment efforts and strategy, oversee program-specific or discipline-specific event execution, and develop team to provide excellent customer service. Fully explore and utilize technologies (new + emerging: AI, Slate, etc.) to further innovate + advance divisional mission.
  • Develop and maintain customer service and engagement standards by program. Coordinate review training for all elements of admissions review process for all involved parties.
  • Collaborate with admissions operations team to identify business processes required to accurately populate data in CRM & integrated systems.
  • Contribute to process solutions with a priority on maintaining an evergreen and nimble data structure. Provide direction and standards relating to follow-up and automated com flow strategy.
  • Manage Direct reports' workload, territory assignments, and professional development.
  • Generate training modules as needed, and cross-train team to support the greatest amount of engagement opportunities. Talent management and acquisition, as needed.
• Recruitment, Engagement and Communications:
  • Create editorial calendar of events to promote recruitment, engagement, and enrollment into graduate programs.
  • Identify staff resources to lead program-, discipline-, and institutional- events to support admissions initiatives Lead general awareness events for prospective students, community members, and advisor/influencer audiences to increase awareness of comprehensive graduate program offerings at Elon.
  • Identify recruitment priorities and distribute team resources in order to attend high-importance engagement opportunities Evaluate annual competitor analysis presentations to team and stakeholders. Provide direction and standards relating to follow-up and automated com flow strategy Generate standards for global admissions communications sequences. Contribute to validation process of information published in print and web for promotion; Fully explore and utilize technologies (new + emerging: AI, Slate, etc.)
• Thought Leadership Contribute to awareness through thought leadership engagements and speaking opportunities relating to admissions and higher education. Attend professional development conferences.
• Duties as assigned It is understood that a key responsibility (5%) of all positions is to assume additional duties as assigned at the discretion of the supervisor.
• Inclusive Community Building Community is foundational to Elon and a shared responsibility within our residential campus. All who work at Elon should demonstrate an understanding of and engagement with Elon's foundational commitment to relationships, mentoring and collaboration in a close-knit residential community. We embrace the shared responsibility to foster inclusive excellence within a strong residential community. Accordingly, employees are expected to join together and build connections in activities that foster an active and engaged campus environment and engage in professional development to support the shared responsibility of enriching diversity, equity, and inclusion through meaningful relationships and mentoring at Elon. Employees are encouraged to, for example, attend or participate in campus activities such as College Coffee, Numen Lumen, campus cultural events, athletic events, continuing education, professional development opportunities and trainings, employee resource groups and other university-sponsored activities to demonstrate an active commitment to the Elon community.