[civsa] Admissions Student Worker Structure

[Scott Kirkessner]

Hello Kristen and CIVSALand

Just to preface my response, YMMV (those of who you attended my presentation in SD will know what that means :) )

I just completed a complete tear down of this structure, so I am planted in the con side of this model...

When I first arrived here, our University Ambassadors were under this particular model, and it was immediately apparent that the level of knowledge among the Ambassadors was lacking in both areas.  Their encompassing job duties involved campus tours, staffing the front desk, and answering phones and emails.  What I saw was that the Ambassadors were generalists in these areas, but not experts.  They had just enough knowledge to provide an adequate and fully scripted campus tour, and to answer basic admissions-related questions, but often had to request help from other admissions staff to answer more in-depth questions.  In many cases, admissions staff were frustrated with our Ambassadors because many of the questions were repetitive.

Beyond that, I found that some of the current Ambassadors were better office assistants than tour guides, and vice versa.  And furthermore, those who were great tour guides felt that they were mis-led in the application process, expecting an outreach/high-touch type of position, yet spending the majority of their 20 hours weekly on the phones doing office work.

My opinion was that we are giving them too many facts and too many tasks that resulted in generalists, not experts.  I wanted tour guides who knew this campus very well, who did not need a script, and also wanted to encourage a tour that skewed more toward storytelling than facts.  I wanted students on the phones who know our admissions process inside and out and rarely needed to ask for help from our staff.

The best possible way for me to accomplish this was to split the Ambassador team and spin off an entirely new team.  This was accomplished by creating a new team called the Admissions Assistants, and retaining the University Ambassadors.  However, the Admissions Assistants would be solely responsible for all the office work (incoming calls, incoming emails, letters, special requests, etc), and would get the lion's share of the hours (20 hours a week if desired).  Admissions Assistants don't really need to know how many seats the stadium holds or how many volumes of books are in the library, or why a certain building is named or shaped the way it is.  University Ambassadors would then be solely responsible for outreach; they would do campus tours, staff our recruitment programs, etc.  University Ambassadors don't really need to know the intricate details about the admissions process in relation to missing transcripts, deadlines for five different types of applicants, etc.

This restructuring allowed for more enhanced training, instead of splitting their knowledge base between two different functions, it allowed for more training relevant to their positions.

Of course the challenge was now what to do about the cutback in hours?  We offered some options: those who absolutely needed 20 hours a week were offered a chance to fully transfer to Admissions Assistants, to be a hybrid between the two positions if they chose (instead of it being mandatory for all), or to be a part of our front desk team and give tours.

The large majority of Ambassadors were perfectly fine with the cutback in hours.  Three of them decided to move fully to the Admissions Assistants, and five of them joined our front desk team.  None chose to be a hybrid.  We then pushed forward hard with this format and adjusted our hiring process - which now involved two wholly separate student positions.  If someone desired to be both an Ambassador and Admissions Assistant, they would be required to go through two different application processes.

The training process changed - Ambassadors had more freedom to learn more about campus, and most importantly, learn how to become more experiential storytellers.  Admissions Assistants had more ability to learn about the intricate processes of admissions, both domestic and international, as well as more details regarding gaining residency.  Under this new model, we have received a lot of compliments from admissions staff regarding the level of knowledge our Admissions Assistants have.  I have felt the experiences our Ambassadors provide are more memorable, informative, and less facts with more stories.

Please realize that this switchover sounds easier than it really was, but we have just finished our first year under this new model and things seem to be going incredibly well.  In fact, we are gearing up to deploy a new student position - the Telecounselors.  This will also be a separate position, with a separate application and training process.

It is wholly possible for one student to be a University Ambassador, Admissions Assistant, and Telecounselor if they successfully pass all three application processes - however the onus is on them to manage all of the facts and knowledge thru each position, as well as their schedules to make sure their work schedules do not overlap or interfere, nor do they exceed 20 hours a week.

As of this writing, there are no crossovers between the two positions, but we do expect there to be keen interest in Telecounseling from our University Ambassadors.

Let me know if you have any questions :)

Scott








From: listserv [mailto:listserv-bounces at civsa.org] On Behalf Of Nielsen_Kristen
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2016 1:43 PM
To: 'listserv at civsa.org' <listserv at civsa.org>
Subject: [civsa] Admissions Student Worker Structure

Hello,
Right now we have our students workers in the office in three separate silos (tour guides, callers, front office data entry/phones/mailing). We are considering combining forces and cross training so all student workers can do all tasks. Hs anyone done this successfully? Pros and cons?

Blessings,

Kristen Nielsen
Assistant Director of Admissions
585.594.6481 | nielsen_kristen at roberts.edu<mailto:nielsen_kristen at roberts.edu>
[cid:image009.jpg at 01D14955.4C5EE3F0]<https://www.roberts.edu/>

[roberts_virtual_tour-80]<https://www.youvisit.com/tour/robertswesleyan/104351>


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