Admissions Advisor

About the Role: 

At Merit America, the Admissions Team is responsible for helping to identify and prepare applicants for life-changing careers. We are seeking an Admissions Advisor who will be integral to our ability to serve twice as many learners in 2025. The primary mission of the Admissions Advisor is to support an exceptional learner experience from initial application through program acceptance, driving operational excellence through the effective use and creation of tools and processes. This role is indispensable in selecting thousands of learners from across the country to participate in our rigorous training program, which offers life-changing career opportunities.

The Advisor role has three main functional areas: Applicant Communication, Applicant Operations, and Event Execution. These functional areas directly contribute to the applicant conversion rate and ensure a phenomenal applicant experience. 

The Admissions Advisor will play a key role in supporting Merit America's scale, directly ensuring the organization’s ability to serve 10,000 learners annually. This is an ideal role for those seeking to make a meaningful direct impact on the lives of individuals facing systemic barriers and to help build a fast-growing nonprofit startup. 

The Admissions Advisor is non-exempt and will report directly to the Lead Admissions Advisor and works primarily with the program team across Merit America.

What You’ll be Doing: 

The functional areas and responsibilities of the Admissions Advisor will include, but are not limited to, the following:

Applicant Communication 40%: Our Admissions Advisors are the first point of contact for prospective learners, setting the tone for their entire journey with Merit America. Through prompt and accurate responses to inquiries about eligibility, program details, assessment processes, and more, advisors ensure that applicants have all the information they need to make informed decisions. By maintaining timely, clear, and actionable communication via email and phone, they help build trust and confidence in our program. Effective applicant communication directly impacts our conversion rates, and informed and engaged applicants are more likely to complete the application process and join our programs.

Responsibilities -  

• Responding to Inquiries:
• Answer all inquiries regarding eligibility, general program questions, application status, and Device Grants. This involves providing applicants with timely, thorough, and actionable communications, ensuring they have all the information needed to proceed through the admissions process.
• Email and Call Management:
• Serve as the primary point of contact for applicant inquiries via inbound and outbound calls through Talkdesk, as well as email communication via Intercom. This includes owning responses, maintaining applicant inquiries, looping in other relevant parties as needed, and ensuring that all communications are handled efficiently and professionally.
• Overall Communication Quality:
• Ensure that Merit America applicants experience top-notch communication and service as they enter our admission funnel. This involves providing applicants with consistent, high-quality interactions at every touchpoint.

Applicant Operations 40%: Admissions Advisors also play a crucial role in the operational aspects of the admissions process. This includes facilitating track switch requests, reactivating applications, and maintaining accurate data in Salesforce. By managing these tasks efficiently, advisors ensure that the admissions process runs smoothly and that all applicants receive the support they need to progress through each stage. Their attention to detail and commitment to maintaining up-to-date records are vital in keeping our operations streamlined and effective. This operational excellence is essential for internal efficiency and providing a seamless experience for applicants, further enhancing our conversion rates.

Responsibilities -

• Application Management:
• Facilitate application reactivations, ensuring applicants can re-engage with their application process smoothly and effectively.
• Handle track switch requests both pre-acceptance and post-acceptance, ensuring applicants are placed in the tracks that best suit their needs and qualifications.
• Data Management:
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date data in Salesforce, including the admissions status for all learners in the funnel. This involves tracking applicants' progress from the initial application through all phases of the admissions process until they are enrolled in the program.
• Comprehensive Support:
• Manage the transition of applicants through the entire admissions process, ensuring they receive the support and information needed to move from application to enrollment.

Event execution 20%: Hosting and facilitating events such as weekly open house webinars and monthly program prep events are integral to our engagement strategy. These events provide prospective and admitted learners with valuable insights into our programs and allow them to interact directly with our team. Admissions Advisors are responsible for successfully executing these events, ensuring they run smoothly and effectively address attendees' questions and concerns. By delivering high-quality events, advisors help increase applicant interest and commitment, thereby boosting our conversion rates and enhancing the overall applicant experience.

Responsibilities - 

• Webinars and Events:
• Host weekly open house webinars to provide prospective applicants with detailed information about the program. This includes preparing materials, presenting information, and addressing any questions from attendees.
• Host monthly Program Prep Events to help new enrollees prepare for the program. This involves organizing the event, presenting key information, and answering any final questions before the program begins.

What Makes a Successful Candidate: 

We recognize that individuals from marginalized backgrounds, including women, people of color, and those with disabilities, are often less likely to apply when they don’t meet 100% of the job qualifications. Don’t let that be the reason you miss out on this opportunity! We want to emphasize that your unique skills, experiences, and perspectives are valuable, and we encourage you to apply if you can demonstrate many of the skills and competencies. Below are the skills that are relevant for thriving in this role:

Must Haves: 

• Operational Excellence: Ability to manage your own schedule and balance multiple demands, with demonstrated success working in fast-paced environments, solving problems creatively, and delivering measurable results 
• Conduct & Communication: Exceptional interpersonal skills and a collaborative approach; ability to communicate effectively and confidently, both verbally and in writing, are essential.
• Entrepreneurial Drive: Resourcefulness, agility, and comfort working in ambiguous, quickly changing environments, including eagerness to wear multiple hats as needed and to help shape our start-up’s future
• Relationship-Building: Strong interpersonal and communication skills and ability to form trust-based relationships with applicants and other stakeholders
• Lifelong learning: Commitment to lifelong learning and ongoing personal and professional development; openness to feedback and relentless pursuit of improvement
• Social-Impact Mindset: Desire to work directly with underserved populations and meaningfully improve their lives, and experience driving a “double bottom line” in terms of producing business and mission impact
• Committed to Merit America’s mission to pave pathways to family-sustaining careers, break the poverty cycle, and create upward mobility for low-wage workers
• Demonstrated history of embodying our values, which inform our work and drive our organization's culture
• Shared sense of responsibility and ownership for our collective work in making a positive impact on the community we support, true to our value of Win & Lose Together
• Committed to continuous learning and growth in understanding and addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Passionate about fostering a workplace culture that embraces and values individual differences, aligned with our core value of inclusivity
• Experience with Salesforce or other CRM platforms
• Proficient with Google workspace (Google sheets, docs, etc)
• Experience leading/presenting to large groups of people in a virtual setting
• Commitment to lifelong learning and ongoing personal and professional development
• Prior experience in workforce development, edTech, or equivalent training programs

Other Logistics 

• This position is full-time: 4-day work week (Fridays are an operating day if there is a holiday closure during the week)
• Location:  Remote
• Salary:  $63,809

Our goal is to have competitive and equitable compensation.  We have a market-based compensation approach, which means we benchmark each role from reputable data sources. We compare our benchmarks against similarly sized non-profit organizations with comparable annual budgets and geographical areas. We pay the same rate for the same roles and adjust to comply with statutory mandates.