Recruiting & People Coordinator

• Do you believe that thoughtful hiring is the foundation of an organization that makes a real difference?
• Do you love creating experiences—whether that's a seamless first day for a new hire or a holiday party people actually want to attend?
• Are you looking for a role where you can learn, grow, and help build something special—one great hire at a time?

Collegewise is looking for a Recruiting & People Coordinator to join our People team. This is a remote position and open to applicants based in the United States.

Who We Are

Collegewise is a college counseling company that helps high school students confidently navigate their journey to college. We believe the college admissions process has spun out of control, with too much confusion, too much anxiety, and too many students losing agency for what should be their path to higher education. We're out to change all that.

Since 1999, we've helped more than 30,000 "A" students, "C" students, and everyone in between apply and get accepted to schools—sometimes famous, often not—that they're excited to attend. We do it all with just the right mix of advice, encouragement, and occasional cheerleading to ensure that each student's college admissions process goes smoothly and thoughtfully. We also speak in public, write, and constantly look for ways to spread relevant college planning information to anyone who needs it, whether or not they join our program.

To learn more about our work, check out this short video.

What Makes This Role Special

As our Recruiting & People Coordinator, you'll be the first impression for talented professionals considering Collegewise and the bridge connecting future Wisers with meaningful work. You'll grow alongside a mission-driven organization, learning from a small but mighty People team while taking ownership of recruiting processes that directly impact our ability to serve students and families. You'll report to our Chief People Officer and have the chance to shape how we attract and onboard talent as we continue to grow.

What's the Job?

Your work breaks into a few areas: recruiting and sourcing, candidate experience and interview coordination, people operations and onboarding support, and culture ambassador work.

• Recruiting & Sourcing: Find the people who will make Collegewise even better. You'll source and screen for roles across the organization, from counseling and tutoring to sales and marketing. Your outreach messages won't sound like recruiting bots—they'll sound human and articulate what makes working here special and why someone might want to join our mission. You'll partner with hiring managers throughout the process, refine interview questions to get at what really matters, and build smart automations that help candidates feel informed and engaged every step of the way. You'll also maintain active talent pipelines for key roles so we're never starting from scratch when a position opens.
• Candidate Experience & Interview Coordination: Be the friendly, organized face of Collegewise throughout the hiring process. You'll coordinate interviews across time zones and teams, conduct screening conversations, and make sure every candidate—whether we hire them or not—has a positive experience with Collegewise. You'll collect and synthesize interview feedback to support hiring decisions.
• People Operations & Onboarding Support: Help new Wisers feel at home from day one. You'll facilitate onboarding and support the behind-the-scenes logistics: background checks, reference calls, and keeping our systems organized. You'll maintain accurate data in our HR and recruiting systems (we're implementing Rippling, so bonus points if you have experience with it!).
• Culture Ambassador & Employer Branding: Be someone who can authentically answer the question "What's it really like to work at Collegewise?" Whether you're talking to a potential counselor or a marketer, you'll understand what makes each role special and why the right person would thrive here. Your genuine enthusiasm for Collegewise will come through in every conversation because you're not just talking about our culture—you're actively helping build it.
• Culture & Event Coordination: You'll also help create the experiences that make our culture real by planning holiday parties, organizing summer get-togethers, and serving on the retreat planning team.

Doing the Right Thing, Making a Difference, Treating People Right

You wouldn't be crossing over to the for-profit "dark side" of counseling here. We've earned an excellent reputation with both high school counselors and admissions officers. We present at NACAC, local ACACs, and at high schools and community events.  We partner with nonprofits and foundations to serve students from under-resourced schools and communities. We share our free resources liberally, including Runway, our course we built for students applying to college. We're biased, but really, this is a pretty great place to work.

Who We're Looking For (You)

• You're passionate about connecting great people with meaningful work and believe that thoughtful hiring is the foundation of organizational success.
• You have 1-3 years of recruiting, HR, or people operations experience, with room to learn and grow into more complex searches and strategic people initiatives.
• You're naturally curious about people—what motivates them, what they're looking for in their next role, and how to match their goals with organizational needs.
• You communicate clearly and authentically, and win people over easily. People enjoy and benefit from their interactions with you.
• You're organized and detail-oriented, able to manage multiple recruiting processes simultaneously while maintaining high-quality candidate experience during peak hiring seasons.
• You're comfortable with ambiguity and wearing multiple hats in a growing organization, supporting both recruiting and broader people operations as needed.
• You're excited to experiment with new sourcing strategies and tools (we'll provide access to LinkedIn Recruiter, job boards, and other recruiting platforms).
• Bonus points: Experience in education or college counseling. Familiarity with educational hiring cycles and candidate motivations. Experience with Rippling or similar platforms.

Compensation and Benefits

• Salary: $65,000 - $72,000 annually (paid as an hourly rate $31-35/hour), based on your experience and what you bring to the role. This is a full-time, non-exempt position. 
• Benefits: We offer a full suite of medical, dental, and vision benefits in addition to paid parental leave, 401(k) retirement plans, and generous paid time off policies.
• Start Date: We'd like our new Recruiting & People Coordinator to start by November 1st, but we can adjust the start date to accommodate the right person.
• Location: Remote (with occasional travel for conferences or team events).

We Want to Hear from You

If you're excited about this opportunity but unsure if you're the right fit, we hope you'll take a shot. There is no such thing as a perfect applicant (or a perfect job, for that matter). And we promise to give a fair and thorough read to every applicant who takes the time to submit a thoughtful application to us.

We also understand that the more we embrace diversity of age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, and perspective, the stronger the company we'll be able to build together. Creating an environment where everyone, from any background, can do their best work is the right thing to do. And we hope you're excited to embrace and contribute to our efforts.

How to Apply

Instead of a traditional cover letter, please choose 3 of the following questions to answer (150-250 words is a helpful guideline, but use as much or as little space as you need). We're most interested in learning how you think about people, relationships, and what makes a great hire.

Application Questions (choose 3):

1. Describe a time you had to connect with someone who was initially hesitant or uninterested. How did you approach opening a thoughtful conversation with them?
    
2. You just had a great conversation with a candidate who says "I'm really happy where I am, but I've always admired Collegewise. Maybe in a year or two?" What are 2-3 specific ways you'd keep this relationship warm?
    
3. What makes onboarding great? Drawing from your own experiences or things you've heard from others, what would you build into the onboarding experience for new Collegewise hires?
    
4. Tell us about a time you improved a repetitive task or process—either by automating it, streamlining it, or finding a better approach. What was the impact?
    
5. What draws you to recruiting and people work, and why Collegewise?

Then submit your resume and responses through our Careers page. Every single applicant will receive a response from us, and we do our very best to reply within 10 days.

Questions?

Feel free to email us at [email protected] (please no phone calls) if you have additional questions. We promise to respond to you quickly.

Thanks for reading our post. We'd love to hear from you, but if we don't, we hope you find the perfect professional fit someplace else.