Senior Director of Working Professional MBA Recruiting and Admissions

Position Summary:

Rice Business is a globally recognized, top-ranked graduate business school distinguished by its rigorous academic standards and a full portfolio of MBA programs, including Full-Time, Professional (Weekend, Evening, and Hybrid), Executive, and online modalities. The Senior Director of Working Professional MBA Recruiting and Admissions serves as an elevated strategic partner for the school, tasked with recruiting, admitting, and yielding future global business leaders.

The Senior Director of Working Professional MBA Recruiting & Admissions serves as a senior leader responsible for driving the strategy, recruitment, and enrollment management across the Working Professional MBA portfolio. Reporting directly to the Assistant Dean, the Senior Director translates graduate management education trends into aggressive recruiting and yield strategies. The Senior Director directs a team of enrollment professionals while maintaining active hands-on involvement in candidate cultivation and admissions decisions.

As a core member of the Recruiting & Admissions Office (RAO) senior leadership team, the Senior Director aligns portfolio strategy with operational, CRM, and candidate experience leadership to deliver a seamless, high-touch enrollment pipeline. This position serves as a primary point of contact for Rice Business stakeholders to achieve strategic cohort growth and maintain competitive positioning in the working-professional graduate management education market.

Special Instructions to Applicants: 

All interested applicants should attach a resume and cover letter in the Supporting Documents of the application, preferably in PDF format, to avoid formatting issues. Applications submitted without these documents will not be considered. 

Ideal Candidate Statement: 

The ideal candidate for this position is an enrollment management expert with experience leading teams. This person is an excellent communicator who thrives in a fast–paced professional landscape and takes a proactive approach to meeting goals. This is a senior-level position that operates with a solutions-oriented mindset. This person is focused, positive, and results-driven. The Senior Director must cultivate strong relationships and collaborate effectively with fellow RAO leaders, Rice Business stakeholders, and industry colleagues. The ideal candidate for this position would have supervisory experience with concrete examples of holding teams accountable and leading with a coaching mindset. This person will need to be able to work autonomously, be comfortable with managing up and providing action-oriented and well-thought-out solutions to the Assistant Dean. This person understands the Graduate Management Education market, welcomes feedback, embraces creativity, and is comfortable navigating the nuances between urgent and important. This person should be strategic, outcomes-oriented, data-informed, and AI-fluent to meet the needs/demands of the industry and the Rice Business enrollment goals. 

Workplace Requirements:

Rice Business primarily delivers residential classes and activities taking place almost daily between 7 am and 10 pm. We value a highly collaborative and community-based culture, with expectations to provide in-person support and services to all members of our community. Remote work options are limited. Most employment activities are required to be performed in-person and on-campus. This in-person approach is central to the successful achievement of our research and academic missions.  

This position is exclusively on-site, necessitating all duties to be performed in-person at McNair Hall on a 5-day in-office schedule with an 8:30am – 5:00 pm workday. Remote work opportunities will be assessed and approved on an as-needed basis following the successful conclusion of the probationary period

This position does include a high volume of professional events occurring both nights and weekends, along with extensive travel both domestically and internationally. 

Business professional attire is often required, with the flexibility to shift to business casual on non-event, external-facing interactions. 

Per Rice policy 440, work arrangements may be subject to change.

Hiring Range:  Commensurate with experience. 

*Exempt (salaried) positions under FLSA are not eligible for overtime. 

Minimum Requirements: 

• Bachelor’s Degree 
  • No substitutions permitted 
• Four or more (4+) years of higher education and/or relationship management/recruiting professional experience 
  • In lieu of the experience requirement, additional related education above and beyond what is required may be substituted on an equivalent year-for-year basis.  
• Skills:
  • Familiarity with the multiple work areas of a modern admissions office, including CRM systems, reporting and analytics, recruitment, candidate evaluation and selection, marketing, on-campus programming, staff training, budget management, and staff development 
  • Strong process and project management skills required. Proven ability to develop these skills in staff members so they can manage work areas independently with appropriate levels of management input 
  • Experience developing and implementing innovative solutions and processes to respond to the ever-changing field of admission 
  • Firm familiarity of graduate management education prospective student market
  • Demonstrated ability to use admission and enrollment data to make data-driven decisions, measure and assess progress toward strategic goals, present data, and revise practices as needed
  • Demonstrated ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams and the ability to develop partnerships with key internal and external constituents and stakeholders
  • Strong staff management skills
  • Possess the ability to exercise independent judgment
  • Excellent diplomacy and organizational skills 
  • Excellent interpersonal skills e.g. professionalism, collaboration etc. 
  • Expert ability to lead and facilitate presentations/information sessions with clarity and confidence
  • Excellent computer skills, specifically Microsoft Suite, e.g., Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Preferences:

• Extensive professional experience in relationship management, either in enrollment management or sales
• Experience working within the graduate business education landscape or in higher education
• Experience supervising teams and professionally developing direct reports
• Familiarity working with CRM systems or equivalent to support relationship management responsibilities. 

Essential Functions:

• Design, execute, and continuously refine the holistic working professional MBA recruitment and evaluation strategy, establishing data -driven approaches for market expansion, travel plans, and targeted sourcing to achieve strategic enrollment targets. 
• Serve as a core member of the RAO Senior Leadership Team and a trusted senior advisor to the Assistant Dean, providing actionable intelligence, risk assessments, high-touch relationship management, and strategic recommendations to drive working professional MBA enrollment targets.
• Exude high executive presence, authority, and confidence while representing Rice Business during high-stakes domestic travel, delivering high-impact recruitment presentations, and engaging elite candidate pools, corporate partners, and alumni networks
• Serve as the chief strategist and executive steward of working professional MBA recruitment, owning the end-to-end candidate lifecycle, driving candidate sourcing, high-touch relationship management, and cohort yield strategy to meet target enrollment goals.
• Lead the working professional  Admissions Committee, serving as the primary final application reader and evaluator on cohort composition. Perform comprehensive and evidence-based evaluations of candidate application files by assessing qualitative factors to make formal recommendations for final admissions decisions. 
• Provide final data-driven recommendations related to potential scholarship awards to the Assistant Dean
• Direct, mentor, and build a high-performing working professional recruitment and admissions team, managing workload allocation for travel and candidate engagement while setting elevated standards to drive high-touch candidate conversion, establish outreach standards, and optimize workload distribution across file reading and evaluation workflows.
• Pioneer AI fluency and advance assessment technology to modernize candidate assessment practices, streamline applicant evaluation, and enhance data-driven selection frameworks across the recruitment lifecycle.
• Drive rigorous quantitative decision-making, predictive yield modeling, and absolute data integrity within the CRM (Slate), translating complex pipeline metrics into strategic updates for executive leadership.
• Own candidate conversion and melt-mitigation strategy, actively nurturing admitted students from decision release to matriculation through personalized, high-touch sales strategies.
• Collaborate in the oversight of macro yield, melt-mitigation, and retention operations, orchestrating high-impact events and targeted touchpoints to convert admitted candidates into enrolled cohorts.
• Manage unit resource allocation and budget spend across recruitment travel, external vendors, and candidate experience touchpoints to ensure maximum ROI on recruitment investments.
• Implement creative and innovative engagement strategies to maintain a robust candidate pipeline by establishing and maintaining strong relationships with prospective students through consistent and personalized communication frameworks and events, from inquiry to matriculation. 
• Consistently collaborate with Rice Business stakeholders to ensure alignment exists between the product and brand and the recruiting and admissions strategy. 
• Embody the highest standards of professionalism and operational excellence. 
• Performs all other duties as assigned 

Additional Functions:

• Conduct evaluative interviews to curate a high-caliber, diverse MBA cohort that aligns with institutional standards and strategic enrollment goals as needed. 
• Commit to continuous learning related to graduate management education trends and competitive market landscapes to leverage this knowledge to ensure Rice Business’s firm position within recruitment innovation. 
• Represent Rice Business with key strategic partners, ensuring our efforts are aligned with the evolving needs of the global business workforce 

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Rice University is committed to ensuring Equal Employment Opportunity and welcoming the fullness of diversity into our candidate pools. Rice considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, genetic information, disability, or protected veteran status. Rice also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified persons with disabilities. If an applicant requires a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process, please get in touch with Rice University’s Human Resources Office via email at [email protected] for support.

If you have any additional questions, please email us at [email protected] . Thank you for your interest in employment with Rice University.