Director, National Recruitment - Digital Strategy and Applicant Experience

Position Title: Director, National Recruitment (Digital Strategy and Applicant Experience) 

Reports To: VP, National Recruitment, Applicant Process and Tech Integration

Location: National / Remote

Role Summary

Per Scholas is seeking a Director to lead our Digital Strategy and Applicant Experience team and serve as a key architect of our national recruitment and admissions model. Reporting to the VP, National Recruitment, Applicant Process and Tech Integration, the Director will help translate enrollment goals and organizational priorities into a digital strategy, operating model, and execution roadmap. You will lead, coach, and grow a dedicated team across content, web, and applicant support, and manage the learner’s digital journey, from first ad impression through enrollment - centralizing work to streamline processes while simultaneously increasing conversion. This role is a force multiplier; you will support moving the recruitment and applicant process to a more scalable, tech-enabled model. You will drive the strategy for paid media, web presence, content governance, and digital support operations, ensuring our ecosystem is high-performing, consistent, and efficient. The Director will partner closely with MarComms on brand, enterprise messaging, and creative standards; with IT on technical architecture, integrations, security, and deployment; with campus leaders on local implementation and adoption; and with external agencies to execute priorities. Within approved priorities and budgets, the Director will independently establish strategy, make operating decisions, and remain accountable for performance, consistency, and continuous improvement across the recruitment and admissions funnel.

Key Responsibilities

Paid Media & Campaign Strategy

• Strategic Direction: Own end-to-end campaign planning and creative direction, ensuring digital media spend is optimized toward high-converting initiatives.

• Efficiency & Performance: Monitor performance targets, and reallocate investment and recommend corrective action based on performance.

• Agency and Campaign Leadership: Direct internal contributors and external agencies responsible for campaign execution, media buying, and creative production. Own briefs, review cycles, quality standards, and performance management.

• Capacity Building: Build repeatable campaign processes that support changing course offerings, enrollment priorities, and an expanding market footprint without sacrificing speed, quality, or measurement.

Learner-Facing Website & Conversion

• Conversion & UX Ownership: Direct strategy for conversion optimization and user experience (UX) to ensure our digital front door drives enrollment.

• Experimentation: Lead testing of landing pages, copy, forms, and other key conversion points, documenting results and incorporating successful practices into national standards.

• Course Launch Governance: Establish clear responsibilities, service levels, and review cycles for course launches and updates across National Recruitment and Admissions, in partnership with campuses, product, MarComms, IT, and external partners.

Digital Learner Journey & Process Design

• End-to-End Journey: Oversee the national applicant experience across paid media, the website, application, email, SMS, and applicant support channels, including forms, automation logic, segmentation, lead routing, timing, and escalation paths.

• Content Production: Lead the creation, deployment, and ongoing optimization of recruitment-specific email and SMS copy, templates, landing pages, forms, FAQs, scripts, and automated sequences. Ensure work aligns with MarComms brand and messaging standards. 

• Quality Assurance: Establish testing, approval, monitoring, and quality-assurance practices that ensure communications are accurate, coordinated, accessible, and delivered as intended.

• Funnel Improvement: Identify friction, abandonment, and communication gaps across the recruitment and admissions funnel and lead cross-functional improvements that increase conversion and strengthen the applicant experience.

• Innovation: Evaluate and implement appropriate technology and automation that make the recruitment and admissions experience more scalable, responsive, and effective.

Content Governance & Lifecycle Management

• Standardization: Own the standards, review cycles, and approval workflows for all digital applicant-facing content.

• Accessibility & Quality: Ensure recruitment content meets accessibility, brand, legal, and compliance requirements, as well as defined performance benchmarks.

• Digital Inventory: Maintain a centralized inventory of recruitment and admissions digital assets, including owners, approval status, performance, and scheduled review dates

Team Leadership & Resource Management

• Team Leadership: Lead, coach, and develop Digital Strategy & Applicant Experience team, with clear responsibilities, performance expectations, and development plans.

• Manage agencies and vendors: Manage relationship, deliverables, performance and coordination with internal teams for external digital marketing and applicant journey vendors. 

• Cross Functional Partnership: Work collaboratively with stakeholders across multiple functions and levels within the organization. 

 Applicant Support Operations 

• Service Standards: Oversee national support channels and build a unified operation with clear service standards, replacing fragmented inbox-based work.

• AI Integration: Deploy AI-driven solutions, including website chatbots, to resolve routine inquiries and free staff for high-touch applicant work.

• Escalation Management: Own resolution paths for complex applicant and technical issues so they don't route back to campuses or leadership

What You’ll Bring

• Leadership & Coaching: Proven experience leading and mentoring a team, providing direct coaching, and managing service standards across distributed or national operations.

• Strategic Operations: Proven track record of auditing and designing workflows that remove administrative burden and create operational efficiencies.

• Technical Proficiency: Deep understanding of digital systems, including web CMS, automation platforms (email/SMS/Hubspot), and CRM systems (Salesforce preferred).

• Analytical Mindset: Proficiency in using performance data (conversion metrics, campaign ROI, funnel analytics) to inform strategy and make real-time, high-stakes decisions.

• Paid Media and Growth Marketing: Demonstrated experience leading paid-media strategy, budget allocation, channel and campaign analysis, structured experimentation, conversion optimization, and ROI-based decision-making.

• Content and Journey Operations: Experience leading the creation and governance of multichannel content and automated customer or applicant journeys, including email, SMS, web, and forms.

Compensation

For this role specifically, we are targeting a salary range of $70,000–$75,000, where the difference in salary is typically determined by several factors, including geography in which the selected candidate resides and alignment with qualifications and experience.