Job location: Remote - District of Columbia

*** This position is located in-person in Rosslyn, VA ***

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business, one of the world's leading business schools, seeks a Career Center Managing Director, Professional Degree Programs to join its Career Development Center team, leading best in class career support for students in Darden’s degree programs for working professionals. With strong momentum in the residential MBA and professional MBA formats and recent innovations and industry-leading results, the Managing Director joins Darden at an exciting time. Darden is ranked the #1 MBA education experience in the United States for nine years in a row by the Economist magazine.

Reporting to the Career Center Assistant Dean, this Managing Director plays a critical role in Darden's success as we continue to build our Career Center presence for our working professional degree programs, including Executive MBA, Part-Time MBA, and MS in Business Analytics. This role is based at Darden’s Sands Family Grounds in Rosslyn, VA, our state-of-the-art facility with expansive views of the capital region and contemporary classrooms, offices, and event space.

Each year hundreds of global organizations, large and small, engage Darden. Last year, Darden partnered with over 150 companies across all major industries, functions, and geographies – top sectors include consulting, financial services, government, and technology, and top geographies include northern Virginia, the Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic. The center’s employer engagement team supports employers with recruiting activities in our Charlottesville and Washington DC/Rosslyn, VA facilities. Darden’s employer engagement model offers businesses the opportunities to hire our purpose-driven students, support our world-renowned faculty, and interact with our innovative programs through partnerships designed to advance their missions and goals.

The Managing Director has the unique opportunity to build a comprehensive approach to career development programming and resources and deep and meaningful connections with our Professional Degree students in three distinct programs. These programs feature a convenient hybrid structure of in-person and online coursework that allows students to earn the Darden MBA or a UVA Master of Science degree while advancing their careers.

• The EMBA program is 21 months in length, offers classes on weekends and weeknights, and is designed for professionals with 5 to 25 plus years of work experience. The cohort size for EMBA is approximately 140 students per class year (280 students at any one time).

• The Part-Time MBA offers flexibility in program length, ranging from 28 to 48 months, operates classes on weeknights, and is designed for professionals with 2 to 15 years of work experience. The Part-time MBA cohort size is expected to be 70 students per class year when launched in the Fall of 2022, scaling to 200+ students at any time based on expected program growth.

• In partnership with UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce, the Master of Science in Business Analytics program is a 12-month program focused on essential and emerging data analysis techniques within a business context. The program’s current enrollment is just over 50 students.

All Professional Degree students maintain employment during their program. Many seek to leverage the experience to make changes to their career trajectory. Examples include:

• Students seeking to move within their current company to a more senior position or a role that would offer greater challenge or fulfillment.

• Students seeking to pivot from their current job and organization to a new role or function in a different company and perhaps in a different industry.

• Students who own or share ownership of a business and are looking to grow or sell it or who are working toward the launch of a new business (or have launched within the recent past and operating as an early-stage company)

The Managing Director works across Career Center functions to achieve results, including with career coaches in Charlottesville/remote, employer relations, and career education/innovation. The role also collaborates with Senior Directors who have coaching expertise in the following sectors to provide coaching and engagement for professional degree students: consulting, general management / operations, marketing, investment banking, financial services, technology, and specialized careers.

While the ideal candidate may have experience in career coaching, an equally important focus of this role is on managing the total career experience. A primary responsibility of this role is to build and lead an experience by successfully managing and making available resources and opportunities. This position manages the Darden career journey in every step of the way, charting the next chapter (and beyond) of students’ professional lives. Career services is available after admission and throughout the duration of their degree program.

Managing career for the Professional Degree students requires close collaboration and partnership with other leadership for the Professional Degrees Program. This includes Faculty leadership and the program committee, Admissions, Academic/Program Operations, and Student Affairs and Engagement. By interfacing with leaders and these teams, the Managing Director ensures and advocates for integration of career services activities and information within the admissions process, programming, student calendar, student club activities, and other co-curricular/extra-curricular opportunities.

In addition to the Professional Degrees team, the position works closely with other Darden departments, the team supporting Washington DC Initiatives, Alumni/Engagement, the Batten Institute, Mayo Center for Asset Management, Center for Global Initiatives, and the Institute for Business in Society, among others, to cultivate and develop relationships in support of student engagement and success.

A successful Managing Director invests time understanding the needs of the students and strategically connecting and supporting them. Support includes Darden’s career education programs, one-on-one career advising with Senior Directors, and alumni interaction. This role has in-depth understanding of job leads, postings, applications, interviews, and offers. This position also develops opportunities on processes, connections, and outcomes related to executive networking or professional advancement.

Given the academic and co-curricular schedules of professional degree students, periodic weeknight and weekend hours are necessary. The Managing Director is responsible for scheduling and deploying other Career Center staff and resources to deliver consistent engagement to students. Occasional travel to Charlottesville is required.

The Career Center Managing Director for Professional Degree Programs supervises a team of career coaches and a set of external, contract coaches.

Familiarity with one or more of the following professional organizations – MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), MBA Career Services for Working Professional (CSWP) and Executive MBA Council (EMBAC) – is helpful.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develops and executes a comprehensive strategy for the Career Center in support of the Professional Degree Programs. This includes partnership with the program leadership, understanding and managing resources available to students and closely collaborating with the Senior Directors, career education/innovation, and employer engagement.

• Collaborates with faculty on professional development needs of professional degree students as part of the total Darden educational experience, including on experiential learning within the Executive and Part-time MBA curriculum, specifically the Professional Advancement Course.

• Partners with a McIntire School of Commerce colleague in career advising and programming for professional degree students in M.S. in Business Analytics program.

• Engages stakeholders to source opportunities and support professional degree students.

• Develops and facilitates programs, presentations, and events. Advises student organizations regarding career activities. Innovates on new ways to support professional degree students.

• Creates and promotes resources that educate, prepare, and motivate professional degree job seekers.

• Builds and maintains a network with alumni and corporate hiring executives and recruiters. Identifies firms that are seeking MBA talent. Develops expertise on employers or industries that appeal to professional degree job seekers and collaborates with Career Center team and leverages technology and data (Slack/LinkedIn/Indeed, for example) to pursue job postings and business development opportunities.

• Manages and records career coaching and outcome data in career management systems and produces related reports, analytics, insights, and recommendations.

• Improves quality of career outcomes for professional degree job seekers as measured by timely employment and compensation realized by candidates. Makes the Darden Career Center best in class among the top business schools for professional degree students.

• Collaborates, partners, and builds productive relationships with Career Center and other student services team members and individuals across the Darden Enterprise.

• Models and nurtures extraordinary service levels with an emphasis on responsiveness to and support of professional degree students.

• Other responsibilities as assigned; a portion of this role may own a focus sector or industry desired by all Darden degree students (for example, healthcare, real estate, or non-profit).

Education and Professional Experience

• Master’s degree required. Master of Business Administration (MBA) from a leading business school or terminal degree strongly preferred.

• At least ten years of experience is required; experience with MBA hiring processes and with coaching individuals is preferred.

• Proven ability to lead and motivate a team of professionals in a matrix leadership environment.

• Ability to collaborate across teams, analyze resources, and make data driven decisions.

• Impact and results orientation; gets things done both individually and through others. Attention to detail, ability to follow through on commitments.

• Proven ability to develop productive long-term relationships with faculty, staff, professional degree students, and outside stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in their work and successfully partner with, engage and support professionals from diverse backgrounds.

• High level of emotional intelligence, empathy, integrity, responsiveness, and collaborative ability.

• Strong communicator, both written and verbal.

• Career coaching credential or certification (complete or in progress) preferred.

• Willing to work flexibly according to professional degree student & employer schedules.

• A seasoned business professional who is familiar with global business trends and issues.

• Proficiency with LinkedIn preferred.

• Analytical and technical skills, with experience in a CRM-based function. Experience with career management systems (GradLeaders, 12Twenty or VMock) preferred; if not, apparent analytical ability to learn it.

• Belief in the mission of the Darden School and passion for the University of Virginia.

To Apply:

Please apply through Workday, and search for R0030679. Internal applicants must apply through their UVA Workday profile by searching 'Find Jobs'. Complete an application online with the following documents:

• CV

• Cover letter

Upload all materials into the resume submission field, multiple documents can be submitted into this one field. Alternatively, merge all documents into one PDF for submission. Applications that do not contain all required documents will not receive full consideration.

For questions about the application process, please contact Ashley Cochran, Senior Recruiter at alc6dk@virginia.edu.

For more information about UVA and the Charlottesville community please see http://www.virginia.edu/life/charlottesville and https://embarkcva.com/.

For more information on the benefits at UVA, visit hr.virginia.edu/benefits.

The selected applicant will be required to complete a background check per University policy.

COVID Vaccination Requirement and Guidelines

Please visit the UVA COVID-19 Job Requirements and Guidelines webpage prior to applying for current information regarding vaccination requirements and guidelines for employment at UVA.

The University of Virginia, including the UVA Health System which represents the UVA Medical Center, Schools of Medicine and Nursing, UVA Physician’s Group and the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, are fundamentally committed to the diversity of our faculty and staff. We believe diversity is excellence expressing itself through every person's perspectives and lived experiences. We are equal opportunity and affirmative action employers. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, disability, gender identity or expression, marital status, national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, veteran status, and family medical or genetic information.