Lead, Fellowship Selection Operations

About the Organization:

The organization is on a journey to reach an India free of poverty and filled with love by ending educational inequity in our country. Fourteen years into our journey we are a movement of 4600+ Alumni working at all levels of the education system, who are reaching 1 in 10 children across the country. These Alumni have graduated from our two-year Fellowship Program where they taught in under-resourced classrooms to put ~38,000 low-income children on a different life path. Today, we have ~940 Fellows and are the largest pipeline of driven, skilled talent into the educational ecosystem in India.

In 2022, we embarked on Phase 4, our fourth strategic phase. We have a bold and ambitious ten-year journey ahead of us that aims to grow 50,000 leaders, who will work collectively, and with love, to transform the lives of 1 in 10 low-income children in our regions, through an education that unleashes the potential of self, others and India. In this decade, five key priorities will lead us to this vision.

Our work will only be completed when we have built a movement of leaders that is large enough to ensure that every child in India attains an excellent education.

We pride ourselves as being a passionate, idealistic, mission-driven team of individuals. Were committed to learning and excellence in our roles, and to being deeply rooted in our core values.

Position Summary

Reporting to: Director, Fellowship Selection

Directly Managing:

• Manager, Operations (+2 Associates)
• Manager, Training (+1 Associate)
• Manager, M&E
• Manager, Research and Ops

To keep up with the constantly evolving needs and wants of subsequent generations, this role is charged with the responsibility of designing and implementing systems and processes to operationalise a highly dynamic selection model. You are right for this role if you:

• Want to understand what makes the current talent pool tick and create cutting-edge experiences to do just that
• You are obsessed with getting things right and have strong attention to detail
• Your strive to balance design thinking and patience with urgency and rigorous execution
• You have a deep belief that you can grow people professionally to do all of this!

Team Overview

What skills and mindsets drive excellent teachers and how are these similar to or different from those that drive our greatest leaders? These are the questions that guide the work of the Fellowship Selection Team.

The Fellowship Selection Team is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the best possible makeup of our cohort. We conduct research and analysis to design a selection model, which will lead us to efficiently identify those likely to be excellent teachers and impactful leaders. We design and run systems and processes that ensure efficient and accurate execution of this model across 8 cities in India. All this, by training and supporting over 200 Staff, Fellows, and Alumni to execute their roles as interviewers and reviewers. Outcomes are monitored and evaluated at each stage of our process to ensure all decisions are accurate and that every applicant has an experience, that is fair, consistent and leaves them as advocates of our movement. In short, we put teachers in classrooms who will transform the lives of every child they teach and who will, as Alumni work towards eliminating the wicked educational crisis in India. Our team is entering an exciting phase where we strive to maintain the stability of our operations while focusing on innovation and automation of our processes to prepare for scale and strong analysis to measure the impact of our model better.

Responsibilities

As Lead, Fellowship Selection Operations, you will be responsible for:

Setting strategy for implementation of the selection model:

• Thought partners with Selection Director and Model development lead towards the broader vision for the selection team.
• Designs an annual strategy for implementation of the selection model.
• Brings in key innovation and state-of-the-art systems in implementation of the selection model and processes.

Execution of the selection model: Manages the execution of the entire Fellowship selection process with the model implementation team towards:

• Providing applicants with a state-of-the-art experience.
• Training, coaching and developing 200+ Reviewers and Selectors.
• Creating and executing engagement strategies for Reviewers and Selectors.
• Setting up operations and systems for scale - such as Reviewer/Selector operating systems, model implementation pilots (e.g. providing feedback to applicants, conditional offers, waitlists and deferrals, etc).
• Executing pilots towards scaling such as the Evaluator program, automating systems, leveraging existing platforms for data and knowledge management, learning management systems and streamlining processes.
• Set systems to enable on-going model development pilots without impact on the day-to-day operations and applicant decisions.
• Monitoring and evaluating the entire selection process to ensure fair, consistent and accurate decisions for all applicants.
• Reviewing applications, conducting phone interviews and selecting at Assessment Centres.
• Working closely with a group of reviewers, selectors and evaluators as a point of contact to manage accountability, train and motivate them towards the implementation of the selection model.
• Problem solving through big strategic changes as well as day to day challenges that arise during the implementation of the selection process with strategic and sustainable solutions.

Collaborating internally and externally towards achieving selection teams goals:

• With the model development and applicant experience managers towards integrating the vision for each of the implementation of the model.
• With the Program Leads (PLs)/ Vertical Heads (VHs), Alumni Team and City HRs to build relationships and a stronger Reviewer/Selector pipeline and program.
• Deep collaboration with the Recruitment team and Comms teams to co-develop and implement one vision for all applicant experience.

Creating and sustaining a high performing team:

• Support and manage the development of 3-4 managers and their teams towards ambitious goals and outcomes.
• Thought partner and collaborate with model development.
• Set and maintain a high performance and caring culture.
• Build a robust pipeline of talent.

Minimum Qualifications, Experiences and Expectations

• Graduate (any field) with 5+ years of experience, of which at least 1 year has been in a direct management position.
• End-to-end project management experience.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and stakeholders effectively and efficiently, work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Excellent communication skills - written and verbal.
• Strong learning orientation.
• Strong interpersonal and listening skills.
• Strong critical thinking and problem solving ability.