Senior College Counseling Manager (Player-Coach)

Title:Counselor Manager

Supervisor: VP of Advisory Services

Work Location: remote, work from home primarily

Work Hours: This is a full-time, exempt position. While standard business hours are 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, this role requires flexibility to meet the needs of families, including some weekday evenings and weekend afternoons. You will be expected to manage your own schedule to balance management duties with student-facing commitments.

Overview

ESM Prep | College MatchPoint is a group of passionate educators dedicated to creating supportive and dynamic learning environments that foster growth and success for our students. As part of Guidewell Education, a mission-driven collective of premier education brands, we provide a wide range of holistic support including academic tutoring, college counseling, and executive function coaching.

We call our counselors "Coaches" because we believe in a positive growth model for student development. We are seeking a Counselor Manager to join our team in a hybrid leadership role that is equal parts subject matter expert and people leader.

In this role, you will lead a dedicated group of our coaching staff to achieve excellence in student outcomes while maintaining a personal roster of students. You will be responsible for upholding the highest standards of counseling across the organization—providing mentorship, maintaining critical operational systems like our sales/service matrix, and ensuring every family receives the expert guidance and empathetic support that defines the ESM Prep | College MatchPoint experience.

Our Culture & Values

As part of Guidewell Education’s family of Brands, we’re guided by values that shape how we support students and work together as colleagues — we are student-centered, empathetic, expert practitioners, and growth-oriented. These principles show up in every coaching relationship we build and every decision we make. You can read more about how our team lives these values atguidewelleducation.com/about.

Duties/Expectations

• Ensure Guidewell Education counselors are best-in-class and provide all students with the most up-to-date advice possible, reflecting all current trends in admissions and meeting all standards of quality for the student experience within Guidewell Education.
• Manage counselors to quarterly and annual performance outcomes, including counselor capacity thresholds, counseling sales targets, counseling milestone achievement, and all other counselor scorecard expectations as designed by counseling department leadership.
• Establish and maintain a cadence of regular one-on-one sessions with all counselors to discuss student progress, capacity, new student goals, and professional development.
• Review college lists, essays, summer plans, academic courses, extracurricular activities, and other important planning aspects of working with students with the counselors you oversee, ensuring quality control of all counseling student work.
• Conduct performance reviews, set team-wide and individual goals for counselors, and communicate counselor performance outcomes to counseling department and Guidewell Education leadership.
• Collaborate with other Counselor Managers on all aspects of counselor development and oversight, to ensure a consistent experience for all counselors.
• Act as a liaison to the client services and sales teams, ensuring that counselors communicate with others in the organization regarding needs and opportunities for their students, such as tutoring, test prep, essay coaching, and executive functioning.
• Lead and facilitate regular counseling team calls, prepare strategic agenda items, share best practices, and conduct Q&As to ensure that the team is up-to-date on counseling industry trends and developments.
• Join the recruiting and evaluation process for new college coaches, then onboard them to the team when they are hired; answer their questions during the onboarding process and welcome them to the team.
• Lead the training and shadowing process for all new counselors; integrate them into your weekly management schedule, guide them through team resources, and ensure they have ample shadowing opportunities with yourself and the rest of the team.
• Collaborate closely with the counseling sales team to communicate counselor availability and maintain a sales/service matrix that details counselor availability across graduation year and student type.
• Work with students directly as a Senior College Coach, guiding them through all aspects of the college search, planning, and application process to ensure that all counseling students submit strategic, thoughtful essays and applications.
• Review all college coaching resources, including the counseling handbook, college list templates, and essay guides, ensuring they are up to date and making changes where appropriate.
• Utilize your own knowledge as well as the time and experience of the full counseling team to develop new resources that push our work with students forward.
• Meet annual sales targets for your college coaching, as agreed upon each calendar year by you and company leadership.
• Stay up to date on the admissions world by reading articles and books, networking, attending presentations, and performing other tasks to ensure Guidewell Education stays on the cutting edge of industry trends.
• Share your knowledge with all coaches via regular emails, group chat updates, and other internal communication channels.
• Lead webinars and events alongside other counselors and Guidewell Education employees to build your presence as a leader in the college counseling industry and offer excellent advice and resources to clients.
• Perform other responsibilities as required by the counseling department and Guidewell Education leadership, as long as they fall within the reasonable scope of this job description.

About You

• You are humble and collegial, naturally balancing a sharp focus on 'what are we trying to get done today' with a deep enjoyment for team collaboration and fun.
• You are a leader who knows how to hold yourself and your team accountable, while also providing the right support, coaching, feedback, and resources to make goal attainment reasonable and repeatable.
• You are efficient and can juggle multiple demands, knowing how to prioritize and communicate effectively with stakeholders about what the priorities are.
• You are a proactive self-starter who takes initiative while communicating early and often with stakeholders.
• You are a fast learner, and you’re not afraid to ask questions. You always want to understand how the various parts of a complex decision impact other stakeholders or decisions, and think accordingly when you make decisions and implement them.
• You are a nimble, growth-oriented leader who can stay flexible as service lines evolve, bringing a business mindset to a mission-driven environment.
• You are a highly organized planner and experienced project manager who sets deadlines in advance, can see and delegate all the required tasks, and can lead across teams.
• You share the Guidewell Education values of being student-centered, empathetic, an expert practitioner, and growth-oriented.

Requirements

• Counseling Experience: 5+ years of experience in college counseling with a proven track record of student success and a deep understanding of current admissions trends.
• Leadership & Management: 3+ years of experience in a leadership or mentorship capacity, with a proven ability to manage team performance toward defined quarterly and annual goals. You are proficient in building team culture and fostering "psychological safety" in a distributed or hybrid work environment, ensuring remote coaches feel as connected and supported as those in a physical office.
• Operational Skills: Proficiency in managing employee capacity and sales/service matrices; comfortable with data-driven decision-making and performance reviews.
• Advanced Project Management Tools: Preferred experience beyond simple CRMs, such as using tools like Asana, AirTable, or Notion to track workflows.
• Communication: Exceptional presence for public-facing webinars and presentations, combined with the ability to provide high-level strategic feedback on student work.
• Resource Curation: The ability to turn knowledge or skills into templates, webinars, or guides that the entire team can use.
• Professional affiliations: Preference for active membership or prior experience in organizations such as NACAC, IECA, or HECA.
• Growth Mindset in M&A: Preference for prior professional experience in a high-growth organizational structure.

Compensation and Benefits

• Compensation: annual “on track” earnings of $110,000 - 120,000 through a combination of salary, personal commission for student work, and annual incentive opportunities.
• Benefits include:
  • Company-sponsored medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
  • Generous holidays and paid-time-off
  • 401-k with company match after one year with the company
  • Employee discount on services
  • Referral program

Diversity and Inclusion:

We believe that diversity and inclusion enrich education and drive success. We are committed to ensuring that all people who interact with Guidewell Education--parents, students, staff, contractors, partners, vendors--are respected and valued holistically. We are committed to attracting and retaining students and staff from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and experiences because we believe that diversity fuels innovation and education to new heights.

The Legal Stuff:

Applicants will be considered for the position on the basis of their qualifications and ability to perform the job for which they are applying. Guidewell Education does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, genetics, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, or status as a special disabled or other veteran covered by the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974, as amended.

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