Our Irvine, CA office is hiring 2-3 assistant college counselors to help us 1) take great care of the families who’ve hired us, and 2) keep our office running smoothly during our busy season.
Who is Collegewise?
We’re a college counseling company who helps high school students find, apply to attend the right colleges for each student. You’d be helping our college counselors as they prepare “A” students, “C” students and everyone in between with good advice, organization and a little cheerleading to make sure everything happens smoothly and thoughtfully.
What would you say ya’ do here?
This job is part office managing, part tutoring, and part customer service. Here are some examples of things you might do in a given day working with us.
- Make (and feel free to drink) coffee in the morning. Must…have…coffee.
- Work with a student and answer her questions while she completes the first draft of a college application (that’s the “patient” part of the job).
- Call students to remind them of their appointments with counselors.
- Check our office supply stock and reorder any if necessary.
- Print and copy materials for a seminar in the afternoon.
- Work on a research project to find updated audition requirements for performing arts schools.
- Answer phones. Make a good first impression. Don’t use phrases like “A counselor will hit you back later.”
- Meet with one of our counselors to review students’ progress. Then call any kids who have assignments due.
- Send out an email reminder to families registered for an upcoming seminar. No spelling or grammatical errors, please.
- Work at the front desk and enthusiastically greet families as they arrive for appointments (that’s the “life of the party” part of the job). Introduce yourself. Make them feel at home. Offer them a freshly baked cookie. Speaking of which…
- Bake a batch of cookies to hand out to students and parents who arrive for appointments.
- Take and print new students’ photos to add to our bulletin boards.
Who are we looking for?
We’d love to find people who are interested or already have experience working in education and helping students. Undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to apply. But fit is more important than experience for this position. We enjoy working hard and doing a great job. We’d rather be forced to drink lizard spit than be that worker who shows up late, does sloppy work, or otherwise phones it in. And we love working with a crew who feels the same way. We also like to have fun here (there’s a gong in our office—more on that later). If that resonates with you, you might really enjoy working with us.
What else should you know?
- Starting pay is $15 per hour.
- We’re looking for people to work 15-25 hours per week, Mondays-Fridays (depending on your availability) from June-November.
- We’ll provide all the necessary training about college admissions and the Collegewise way of doing things.
What’s the next step?
If your interest is piqued, we invite you get to know us a little better by looking around our website. Find out more about what we do, who you’d be working with and what we believe. If you like what you read and think you could find a professional home here, please send a resume and cover letter to Allison Cummings, Director, at ocjobs@collegewise.com. Like a great college essay, we think a great cover letter should help us get to know who you really are. Don’t be afraid to be yourself—smart, thoughtful, maybe even funny. Just don’t be generic. And here are a few totally unsolicited tips for job seekers.
We hope to hear from you. But if we don’t, we hope you find the gig you’re looking for someplace else.