Manager, Admissions Advising

INTRODUCTION:

University of the People (UoPeople) is the first non-profit, tuition-free, American, accredited, 100% online university. Today, UoPeople has over 270,000 students enrolled from more than 200 countries and territories, including 50,000 students who are refugees. UoPeople is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC).

We believe that higher education is a basic human right and that it can transform not only the lives of students, but also their families' lives, their communities, their nations, and, by extension, the world. See President Reshef’s TED talk when he announced the founding of the University. [ TED talk ]

UoPeople is an innovative university, and we welcome team members who bring creativity and innovation to their roles. We’re a fast-paced organization with remote teams all around the globe. If you’re a self-starter who wants to succeed alongside a passionate team, we’d love to hear from you!

UoPeople is supported by the generosity of individuals and foundations, including the Gates, Hewlett, Ford Foundations, Fondation Hoffmann, and others. The University has been covered by the New York Times, BBC, NPR, Times Higher Education, US News and World Report, and more. President Reshef’s TED Talk and Nas Daily interview about the University have 30 million views combined.

Role summary

The Manager, Admissions Advising leads the Team Leaders who run the advising pods and owns the team's results on application fee payments and self-funded enrollments, along with SLA, productivity and CSAT. The Manager turns targets into plans, builds strong leaders underneath, and makes sure the team scales as student numbers grow.

Key responsibilities

1. Own the numbers

• Own conversion for Admissions Advising, and the operational KPIs that drive them: SLA, productivity, CSAT, attendance and attrition.

• Set targets with Team Leaders, review them weekly, and act early when a pod is off track.

• Own the daily, weekly and end-of-term reporting. Present results and next steps to the Director and to Enrolments leadership.

2. Lead the Team Leaders

• Hold regular 1:1s with each Team Leader, Specialists and Advisors. Coach them on people management, pod ownership and decision making.

• Give each Team Leader clear ownership, and make sure Specialists and Senior Advisors have real scope, not extra tasks.

• Run performance management with HR, including MIP and PIP, from first conversation to outcome.

• Build the career path from Advisor to Team Leader, including certification criteria for moving between pods.

3. Run operations and quality

• Keep queues healthy across shifts, including the Night team and Saturday coverage.

• Own escalations. Handle high severity cases and fix the cause so they do not repeat.

• Work with the Quality and Knowledge Management lead to hold communication quality, CSAT and knowledge base accuracy to a clear standard.

4. Work across teams

• Be the main point of contact for Processing, Chat, Data, HR and Enrolments on advising matters.

• Agree handoffs and SLAs with these teams, and clear blockers quickly so Team Leaders do not wait on them.

5. Plan for scale

• Turn term forecasts into workforce plans: advisors, temporary staff, Team Leaders and span of control.

• Work with HR on hiring, and make sure each new batch has a structured onboarding and ramp-up plan.

• Support the annual budget with headcount and productivity assumptions, and track against them.

• Use productivity data and team feedback to keep daily targets realistic and fair.

6. Improve and automate

• Find repeat contact reasons and work with Data, Chat and Technology to reduce them through process fixes, self-service and automation.

• Lead the rollout of AI chatbot, CRM and tooling changes in advising, including training and adoption.

• Keep a short, current list of improvement projects with owners and dates.

Eligibility criteria

Required

• Bachelor's degree in any discipline.

• 6 or more years of total experience, with at least 3 years leading teams in admissions, inside sales, customer success or customer support. Email and chat operations in a high volume setting are essential.

• At least 3 years managing Team Leaders or other people managers, with a team of 40 or more.

• A record of delivering conversion or revenue linked targets together with service targets such as SLA and CSAT.

• Hands-on experience with performance management, including improvement plans and exits, working with HR.

• Strong working knowledge of a CRM (Dynamics 365 or similar), advanced Excel and reporting dashboards.

• Excellent written and spoken English, with the ability to present to senior leaders.

• Willing to work flexible hours, including Saturday coverage and overlap with US time zones when needed.

Preferred

• Master's degree such as an MBA or PGDM.

• Experience in higher education, ed-tech or international student admissions.

• Experience scaling a team through fast growth, including workforce planning and large hiring batches.

• Exposure to rolling out AI chatbots, automation or a new CRM.

• Experience leading teams across more than one shift or language.