Associate Director for Assessment & Outcomes

The University of Virginia Career Center engages and supports students in the discovery and pursuit of meaningful lives. We do this by encouraging exploration, offering customized coaching and advising, fostering tailored connections, creating innovative programming, curating relevant content and technologies, developing essential skills, and facilitating transformative experiences.

Reporting to the Associate Vice President for Career & Professional Development, the Associate Director of Assessment & Outcomes is the university's lead for measuring and communicating the career impact of a University of Virginia education. This role designs and governs the data strategy for first-destination outcomes, applied learning/experiential education, and Career Center effectiveness; ensures alignment with NACE standards; and turns evidence into actionable insights for students, schools/colleges, leadership, and external stakeholders.

The Associate Director manages outcomes platforms (e.g., 12

Twenty, Handshake data), builds dashboards (e.g., Tableau/Power BI), and partners across Grounds to drive a culture of continuous improvement and equity in access and outcomes. The Associate Director will serve as a thought leader and partner with colleagues in the career services profession and will supervise the Assistant Director of Data & Technology.

This position requires a highly motivated, independent researcher with experience managing projects from initial conception through publication of results. Responsibilities for the position include:

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Outcomes & Reporting (40%)

* Own the university's Beyond Grounds First-Destination Survey (FDS) lifecycle: methodology, instrument design, administration schedule, knowledge-rate strategy, data hygiene, analytics, and annual report aligned to NACE First-Destination Standards.

* Achieve and maintain a ≥75% knowledge rate by Class of 2031 with school-level accountability dashboards and outreach playbooks.

* Produce leadership dashboards for Student Affairs, Provost, Deans, Advancement, and external audiences (families, legislators, accreditors).

Assessment & Continuous Improvement (25%)

* Lead the Career Center's assessment plan: define KPIs for advising, appointments, events, employer engagement, and digital resources.

* Conduct equity audits of participation and outcomes (first-gen, Pell-eligible, international, transfer, grad students) and recommend interventions.

* Translate insights into decisions: staffing plans, program mix, communications strategy, and employer portfolio.

Experiential/Applied Learning Data (15%)

* Build a data model for internships, research, clinical placements, global learning, service, and micro-internships across decentralized units; integrate sources (e.g., experiential learning platform, SIS, student employment).

* Create a one-stop dashboard that shows student participation, funding, and links to outcomes; advise on definitions/standards and data governance.

Data Systems, Governance & Compliance (10%)

* Serve as product owner for outcomes/assessment platforms (e.g., 12

Twenty, Qualtrics, Handshake, uConnect analytics); oversee integrations with tech platforms and systems.

* Establish data stewardship and standard operating procedures; ensure compliance with FERPA, IRB determinations (as applicable), accessibility, and privacy/security standards.

Partnerships & Communication (10%)

* Partner with Institutional Research, schools/colleges, Advancement, Alumni, IRB, and IT to align definitions, share data, and co-publish insights.

* Present findings to diverse audiences; train staff and campus partners in basic data literacy and storytelling with data.

Supervision

* Supervise an Assistant Director of Data & Technology, and graduate/undergraduate student assistants; manage vendor relationships and budgets for data tools

Required Qualifications

* Bachelor's Degree required;
Master's degree in Higher Education, Social/Behavioral Science, Public Policy, Data/Information Science, Business Analytics, or related field is highly preferred.

* Four or more years in outcomes assessment, institutional research, program evaluation, or analytics, preferably in Career Services or Student Success.

* Demonstrated expertise with survey methodology, data cleaning, and statistical analysis; proficiency in Excel and at least one data visualization tool such as Tableau, Power BI, Looker, etc.

* Familiarity with NACE standards and first-destination reporting; experience with platforms such as12

Twenty, Handshake, Qualtrics.

* Strong data storytelling and stakeholder communication; ability to translate complex findings into decisions.

Preferred Qualifications

* Experience with SQL or scripting (R/Python) for data prep/automation.

* Background integrating decentralized datasets (SIS, HR student employment, experiential learning platforms).

* Demonstrated success improving knowledge rates and leading equity-focused analyses and interventions.

* People leadership experience (hiring, coaching,…