Early Childhood Career Advisor

MISSION

Children need to spend their most critical years with dedicated, educated, trained, and well-compensated individuals in order to thrive. The New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute leads the work to establish and implement an early childhood workforce system to ensure funding, standards and competencies, career development resources, qualifications and credentials, professional development (training and strengths-based coaching), and program quality assurance and improvement for individuals who work with young children throughout New York. Housed at the City University of New York, the Institute is a fast-paced, dynamic public/private partnership that is committed to the early childhood workforce across New York State.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The Career Advisor is a member of the Institute’s Career Development Services team. The Career Advisor is responsible for supporting individuals at various stages of their career in Early Childhood Education. The Career Advisor will also assist students with general academic guidance and career supports, including job search skills. The Career Advisor will report to the Director of Career Development and should be available to work evenings and weekends to support early childhood educators.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Collaborate in the implementation, coordination and delivery of career development services; including career exploration, teacher certification, test preparation, academic advising and job searching.
• Meet individually and in small groups with current and aspiring early childhood professionals in support of developing and meeting their career goals
• Track and maintain data on interactions and outcomes for contributions to program reports
• Make presentations to small groups about early childhood career development periodically
• Provide dynamic and collaborative direction to the development and piloting of new initiatives as they become appropriate for inclusion in the project’s work.

 Other Duties

• Attend staff meetings and trainings as required.
• Perform special projects and other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's degree in Early Childhood Education or a relevant field of study
• 3+ years of experience helping professionals build teaching careers through mentoring, training, staff development, coaching, career counseling, etc.
• Strong familiarity with the structure and dynamics of Higher Education and the NYS teacher certification process
• Exceptional interpersonal skills
• Ability to multi-task
• Demonstrated ability to work with underserved populations and people of all ages
• Ability to develop and sustain successful collaborative partnerships
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Availability during evening and weekend hours

Preferred Qualifications

• Bi-lingual Spanish speaker

Physical Requirements 

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this position currently is a remote (work-from-home) position. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as personal computers, laptops, tablets, smart phone, photocopiers, filing cabinets and other presentation materials. Reasonable accommodations will be made for employees with disabilities or other needs per RFCUNY policies.
• While performing these duties, the employee is required to occasionally perform physical activities such as, but not limited to, lifting items (up to 30 pounds), bending, reaching, sitting for prolonged periods of time.

As of May 27, 2022, all candidates will be required to provide proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 upon commencing employment. Exemption (medical or religious) requests to this requirement will be considered in accordance with applicable law and criteria. Being fully vaccinated is defined for this purpose as two weeks after a final dose in primary series of an authorized COVID-19 vaccine (example: two weeks after the second dose of a two-dose vaccine such as Moderna or Pfizer, or two weeks after a single dose vaccine such as Johnson and Johnson). Final candidates must be fully vaccinated as of their first day of employment. Newly hired employees will be sent an email with instructions on how to upload their vaccine information on the Research Foundation portal.