Position Title: Director of Technical Assistance
Position Overview
The Senior Advisor leads major organization-wide, highly visible initiatives that support, promote and increase equitable access to and success in high-quality Career Technical Education (CTE), with a particular focus on providing direct technical assistance. The ideal candidate will have deep experience in national or state CTE leadership, policy, and implementation; have extensive experience designing and providing technical assistance to state or local education leaders; be an effective facilitator; leverage a strategic lens that elevates existing projects and identifies new solutions; be a skilled relationship builder and collaborator; and be a team player committed to getting results in a dynamic and fast-paced environment.
Primary Responsibilities
- Support organization-wide technical assistance to enhance Advance CTE’s member engagement and support activities:
- Increase Advance CTE’s capacity for delivering technical assistance by supporting the design of technical assistance across the organization’s projects and initiatives and delivering technical assistance directly.
- Develop, collect, and maintain relevant tools and resources to support the delivery of technical assistance by Advance CTE staff.
- Lead and support the identification of state member technical assistance needs in collaboration with state policy and membership staff.
- Design and conduct workshops, trainings, and other capacity-building activities to support effective CTE policy design and implementation.
- Serve as potential coach or project lead for current and future Advance CTE initiatives.
- Support Advance CTE’s convenings, including annual fall and spring meetings.
- Lead and coordinate technical assistance provided through a fee-for-service model
- Manage and support the fee-for-service work flow, which includes, but is not limited to:
- The promotion and marketing of technical assistance resources
- The cultivation of relationships and lead generation
- Managing intake processes and working with states and partners to identify their needs
- The recruitment and management of contractors
- Developing and monitoring scopes of work and budgets
- Map out a future strategy for taking on more fee-for-service work, balancing state needs with Advance CTE’s existing and potential capacity.
- Other duties:
- Maintain an ongoing understanding of CTE and the role of Advance CTE in serving the CTE community.
- Serve as an organizational spokesperson and content expert, with members, the media, partners and other key stakeholders.
- Contribute to Advance CTE’s fundraising and development strategy including scoping new opportunities and assisting with grant proposals.
- Regularly travel, staying within established spending guidelines, and have a willingness to work flexible hours in response to media, member and legislative requests and actions or as the position responsibilities necessitate.
Required Qualifications & Skills
- Advance CTE values both education and work experiences that demonstrate the ability to perform the essential duties and responsibilities of this position and estimates that a minimum of 10-15 years of related experience is necessary to carry out the duties of this position.
- Tenured expertise around state CTE policy design and implementation to include data strategy for program improvement.
- Competency in equity, and racial equity in particular, with a commitment to continually increasing content knowledge and skills in this area to support the organization’s ongoing work in this space.
- Prior experience leading and delivering technical assistance to states or members on education and training topics such as career readiness, career pathways, CTE, workforce development, systems alignment, etc.
- Exceptional written and verbal communications skills, including skilled written report preparation for research, policy and lay audiences, and public speaking with a style appropriate to the audience
- Advanced facilitation skills, including the ability to facilitate small and large-group discussions with various stakeholder groups, work to build consensus, create brave spaces and navigate potentially sensitive conversations.
- Prior experience serving in an organizational leadership role, as well as supervisory experience.
- Ability to develop and maintain positive and trusted relationships and collaborate with a wide variety of people, including but not limited to staff, state and local leaders, Board members, funders, and key partner organizations.
- Ability to think critically, use good problem-solving judgment, and take complex ideas and present them in a style for a layperson’s understanding.
- Ability to work independently, accurately and meet deadlines and simultaneously manage multiple projects/tasks.
- Comfortability working cross-organizationally and cross-functionally.
- Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion.
- Knowledgeable of standard office equipment, as well as proficient with computer software programs, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Google suite products.
Supervisory Responsibilities: The Senior Advisor will manage a Senior Policy Associate.
Supervision Received: The Senior Advisor will work under the direction of the Senior Director of Policy.
Compensation: Salary range for this position is $105,000-130,000; exact salary depends on experience and new staff rarely start at the top of the range. Benefits include but are not limited to: a casual work environment and no-cost health care for the employee; phased in benefits include a $155 per month transportation subsidy for DC-based staff, 9% contribution to 401(k) plan (no match required), paid parental and family leave; and the week off between Christmas and New Year.
Location: Location: Advance CTE’s office is located in the Washington, D.C. metro area (Silver Spring, MD). This position can be either an in-office position or a fully remote position filled by an employee located outside of the Washington, D.C. area. Advance CTE does not have a legal or organizational presence in the following states/territories: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, any of the U.S. territories and therefore is not open to accepting applications from individuals who reside in any of these locations and are not willing to relocate. If willing to relocate, please indicate in your cover letter.
Travel Required: Up to 20% of the employee’s time may be spent on non-local travel to carry out the duties of the position.
Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to sit, stand, walk, sit, crouch, kneel, use hands to finger, handle or feel objects, tools or controls, and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift, carry, push, pull and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.
Commitment to Equitable Hiring: We are an equal-opportunity employer and are committed to building and growing a diverse team.