POSITION: Senior Manager of Student Recruitment
LOCATION: DSST: Home Office
SALARY: $80,000 - $97,500
STATUS: Full time, benefits eligible, exempt, in-person position (Denver, CO)
START: Immediate
The Senior Manager of Student Recruitment, Lead Generation, and Onboarding is responsible for executing DSST's network-wide recruitment and onboarding strategy, driving student enrollment growth and persistence through the first day of school. This role develops and manages the systems, processes, tools, and supports that enable schools to recruit, engage, enroll, and onboard families effectively. Working closely with school-based and Home Office partners, the Senior Manager ensures recruitment and onboarding efforts are coordinated, data-driven, family-centered, and consistently implemented across the network.
Student Recruitment Strategy & Execution- Lead the implementation of DSST's network-wide student recruitment strategy, including external student recruitment and the transition of current DSST 8th graders into high school, ensuring alignment with annual goals and priorities established by the Director of Student Recruitment.
- Develop and execute recruitment plans, campaigns, events, outreach efforts, and school-facing supports that drive lead generation, application conversion, enrollment yield, and first-day persistence.
- Partner closely with school leaders, CERMs, front office teams, and Home Office stakeholders to ensure recruitment initiatives are implemented consistently, efficiently, and with a strong family-centered experience.
- Monitor progress toward recruitment goals, identify risks or implementation gaps, and provide coaching, problem-solving support, and targeted interventions to improve results.
Data, Pipeline Management & Continuous Improvement - Analyze enrollment, pipeline, campaign, market, and onboarding data to evaluate recruitment effectiveness, identify trends, and inform strategic and tactical decision-making.
- Maintain recruitment tracking systems, reporting routines, and performance dashboards that provide clear visibility into progress toward network, regional, and school-level goals.
- Drive continuous improvement by identifying barriers and best practices, refining tools and processes, and implementing data-informed adjustments to strengthen recruitment and onboarding outcomes.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Operational Alignment - Partner with Marketing & Communications, Enrollment, Operations, Data, Family Engagement, Student Affairs, and school-based teams to ensure recruitment, enrollment, onboarding, and family engagement efforts are aligned across the family lifecycle.
- Coordinate family-facing communications, recruitment campaigns, onboarding systems, and transition processes to provide families with a seamless, accurate, and welcoming experience from initial interest through the first day of school.
- Represent recruitment priorities in cross-functional planning efforts and manage relationships with vendors and external partners to ensure effective execution of recruitment initiatives.
Training, Coaching & School Support - Design and deliver training, tools, playbooks, and support structures that build schools' capacity to execute recruitment, pipeline management, family outreach, event planning, and onboarding practices effectively.
- Coach CERMs and school-based teams on recruitment strategy execution, family engagement, data utilization, and progress monitoring to drive consistent implementation across the network.
- Support school and regional teams in diagnosing challenges, implementing targeted action plans, and elevating system-level barriers and opportunities to inform network-wide improvements.
New Family Onboarding - Lead the implementation and continuous improvement of network-wide onboarding systems, communications, and milestone tracking processes that support admitted families from acceptance through the first day of school.
- Monitor onboarding progress, coordinate interventions for families requiring additional support, and leverage data and family feedback to improve onboarding systems, communication strategies, and overall family experience.
Job Requirements - Bachelor's degree required.
- 5+ years of professional experience, including experience leading complex projects, initiatives, or workstreams with measurable outcomes.
- 3+ Experience managing people, teams, or cross-functional stakeholders and driving alignment across multiple groups.
- Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into actionable plans, systems, processes, and tools that support consistent execution.
- Strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, timelines, and stakeholders simultaneously.
- Experience using data to monitor performance, identify trends, solve problems, and drive continuous improvement.
- Proven ability to build strong relationships and influence outcomes across school teams, central office partners, external partners, and vendors.
- Experience coaching, training, or supporting others to effectively implement systems, practices, or initiatives.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to tailor messaging for diverse audiences.
- Proficiency with data systems, spreadsheets, CRM platforms, and other tools used to support recruitment, enrollment, outreach, and performance tracking.
- Commitment to DSST's mission and to building equitable, community-centered experiences for students and families.
Preferred Experience - Experience in education, charter schools, nonprofits, community-based organizations, or other mission-driven environments.
- Experience supporting student recruitment, enrollment, admissions, onboarding, family engagement, outreach, campaigns, or event-based programming.
- Experience working with CRM, enrollment, communications, or data management systems.
- Bilingual or multilingual skills, particularly Spanish language proficiency.
Physical DemandsThe physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk and hear. This position is active and may require standing, walking, bending, kneeling, stooping, and crouching throughout the day. The employee must lift and/or move items up to 30 pounds. The employee must have sufficient hand, arm, and finger dexterity to operate a computer keyboard and other office equipment. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.