Our Mission

Fueled by the belief that talent is ubiquitous, the Academy Group unlocks opportunity for young people from the most resilient communities to realize their full potential.

Program Model

The Academy Group (AG) is a unique social enterprise that leverages earned revenue from financial investments to create world-class opportunities for young people from the nation’s most resilient communities. The Academy Group demonstrates the promise of a new model for identifying, developing, and sustaining a diverse national pipeline of future leaders, employers, and change agents. We were founded based on a unique model. One that creates pathways for black and brown students, if they demonstrate relentless pertinacity, to build wealth and become socially just change agents, ideally through careers and leadership positions in our portfolio companies.

The Career Specialist Summary:

The career specialist is an instrumental member of the Academy team. The career specialist provides expert career guidance and support to Academy members. In addition, the career specialist helps Academy college cohort members develop career plans, guides them in building a social network, supports them with career placement, and informs them about the labor market and related trends. The Career specialist also researches and identifies companies that match the skills and interests of the Academy college cohort members.

The career specialist’s approach to work should reflect the core values and habits of the Academy staff: tireless focus on excellence, determination despite obstacles, impeccable integrity, willingness to work hard, ability to learn from multiple sources, relentless focus on results, constant reflection and self-awareness, zest, social intelligence, and pertinacity.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Ensure each facet of this role exhibits an inclusive career services model that will build an empowered career readiness culture in each college member and recent graduate.

• Build strong relational trust with the assigned cohort of college members and recent graduates.

• Engage in dynamic experiential learning opportunities that allow direct interactions with leadership and extensive career exploration. Various industries and roles must be represented in experiential learning and exploration activities.

• Effectively prepare members for their job search. This timeline should reflect the development of career preparedness benchmarks, including company exploration, collaboration with career center, resume building, best practices for a job interview, salary negotiation process, and networking.

• Develop a sophisticated system to connect students with potential employers. Establish a process for tracking these connections through our Salesforce database and determine a baseline goal for the number of connections per student each year.

• Examine and document college cohort members’ career-related aspirations and uncertainties using our Salesforce database throughout the consultation process.

• Inform college cohort members about areas of strength and potential gaps in their skill sets and devise a plan to prepare them for future career roles.

• Establish the expectation, framework, and exemplar of AG Resumes and support staff members as they engage their respective student cohorts in the resume development process.

• Establish and maintain successful relationships with colleagues to lead people toward a common vision of supporting student career readiness.

• Develop an annual calendar of workshops and presentations on relevant career topics in alignment with the Academy Group's career program goals. Collaborate with relevant team members and external partners to facilitate and measure the effectiveness of these activities.

• Additional shared accountabilities/duties.

• Collaborate with team members to solidify potential full-time opportunities.

• Organize job shadowing opportunities with Academy Group Portfolio Companies, strategic partner companies, and in the top 5 “industries of choice” of Academy Group students.

• Coordinate with staff to help college cohort members make career choices based on their passions and proficiencies and in alignment with their sense of purpose.

• Collaborate with career centers at the respective colleges and universities, if applicable.

• Up to 15% travel over each fiscal year.

Education and experience requirements of the ideal candidate:

• A bachelor’s degree in a related field is preferred.

• Minimum of 3 years of career counseling or coaching experience.

• Successful experience serving African American and Latino students.

Additionally, the Career Specialist will have a proven track record demonstrating the following capabilities:

• Understanding of current trends and best practices in career advising and development.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; a persuasive and passionate communicator with excellent interpersonal and multidisciplinary project skills.

• Ability to work effectively in collaboration with diverse groups of people.

• Passion, idealism, integrity, positive attitude, mission-focus, and autonomous nature.

• Knowledge of current community challenges and opportunities relating to the organization's mission.

• Ability to work under dynamic, evolving conditions.

Location

This position will be based in Chicago.

Compensation

The Academy Group offers a competitive salary of $80,000 and a comprehensive medical, vision, dental, and 401 (k) package with employer match. In addition, our team is awarded 80 hours of Wellness Days and can accrue up to 120 hours of vacation per year. We encourage all employees to use Paid Time Off to promote work-life balance and support their mental and social well-being.

To Apply

Please send your resume to careers@theacademy.group.