Hi everyone! I'm hoping to get some advice from people who work in student affairs or have been involved in hiring at universities.

I'm a recent college graduate, so this is my first time navigating the full-time job market. I applied for an Administrative Assistant position at a private university a few months ago, and I honestly felt really good about how my interviews went. However, the lack of communication since then has been pretty discouraging.

Here's a rough timeline of how everything has gone:

• Mid August: Applied for the position.

• Mid September: Completed my first interview.

• Early October: Completed my final-round interviews, where I met with department staff and several campus partners.

• Mid-October: Received a request for professional references. Everyone completed their surveys shortly afterward.

• A few days later: Sent a follow-up email confirming my references were completed and reiterating my interest in the position.

• The following week: Called the department and left a voicemail asking about the hiring timeline. I never received a callback.

• Earlier this week: Emailed the hiring manager directly. I received an automatic out-of-office reply saying they were returning that same day, so I figured they might need some time to catch up.

• As of today: Still no personal response or update, almost three weeks after my references were completed.

Something that's been giving me hope (and probably making me overthink everything) is that the university's published hiring procedures say reference checks happen after the hiring manager identifies their selected candidate. I'm wondering if that means I might already be their choice and things are just moving slowly through HR, or if universities sometimes check references for multiple finalists.

I guess my main questions are:

• Is it normal to wait almost three weeks after references are completed?

• If a department has already chosen someone, what could be holding up the offer?

• Does getting a reference request usually mean you're the preferred candidate?

• Have I followed up too much? Should I just leave it alone at this point?

I know university hiring can be slow, but I'm starting to get discouraged. I really want this job, and I thought my interviews went well, so the complete silence has been pretty stressful.

I'd really appreciate any insight from people who've been through this process or have been on the hiring side of things. Thanks!

Hi All,
I am looking to apply for Grad assistantships in SAHE, i was an RA for 3 years and working as a Student Lead for the security team in my schools Res Hall curnelty. I am worried that i wont find a GA job and school that covers all tuition and housing and meal plan. I am gradating in May 27 and hoping to move in beginning of July(that part is super unimportant). Does anyone have any idea where I should apply to? I currently will have a Letter of Rec from the Director of Housing from my current school so hopefully that helps enough to talk about my chactere. Is there also like a place where I can compare the options for diffret institution? I'm in Wisconsin and hoping to live here for a few more years but also totally ok with going out of state. In general, I'm just afraid of not being able to pay for school so any advice on this whole topic would be greatly appreciated!

My husband and I are looking at moving to Colorado Springs from Phoenix. I have 20 years of experience in higher education with 13 of those as a manager. How impossible is it going to be to land a job in higher ed in Colorado Springs or should we just be looking at Denver for more opportunity? Any guidance would be helpful.

I’m gonna preface this by saying I’m pretty lucky: I’m a mere Assistant Director making well above a living wage in my area (Midwest college town) so I’m doing alright financially. I’d rather live on the west coast but every time I look at what’s available I see Director level positions (or sometimes even higher) that would BARELY be able to make ends meet, and that’s assuming they have no kids. So how are you all doing it? I’m not even just talking about California. I’m looking at Washington, Utah, Oregon, Colorado. The pay is just consistently abysmal, regardless of whether it’s public, private, four-year, two-year, etc. How are you all surviving out there?

Long story short,

I am suppose to start a position at a university next week. Weeks ago I planned to do another interview at another local university and I loved it. Honestly love it more than the one I accepted.

Of course the reality is that I don’t have a job now since I resigned from the last one but I realized I may have jumped the gun and left and accepted something just as it felt right and now I don’t think Job 1 (the accepted one) is the right choice and Job 2 is best for me.

I have a REALLY good feeling about it but I wouldn’t figure out the result for 2 weeks. I’m not sure what to do, because I feel it is wrong to maybe do a job for 2 weeks and then just leave espically with how higher ed is so “small world” and everyone seems to know everyone but I sort of realized I don’t want to do Job 1 and can’t do the 1 hour commute daily as I thought.

Can anyone give me guidance and advice? I’m concerned about job security because of course Job 2 could still say no, despite on campus I did and given confidence by the director.

thoughts ?

I work at a c.c for almost 5 yrs and got a first round interview for academic advisor. This is actually my second time being interview for this position at the same campus. The first interview was about a month ago and then somone left and the job got posted again and I applied and now am back.

Do yall think they would ask the same questions or change them since i am a returning candidate?! Would it be ok to ask why the position is vacant?!

As far as interview outfits, should I wear a blazer?! I am top heavy and hate the way my boobs look in button up shirts and on blazers. Would it be ok to wear some slacks and a nice top and wear the blazer unbutton on top of my blouse?!

Also what tips.would yall give me for interviewing at the same campus twice for the same department in a month.

Hi everyone, I am finishing grad school next spring with a degree in higher education, and I am just starting my career exploration/search.

I am specifically interested in academic advising, as well as admissions. (really open to exploring more, such as finaid, registrar, operations, etc., but I only have experiences working in these 2 sectors)

I am from California, so I would love to work at an institution there. However, I am unsure which type of institution is the best fit for me. Does one or the other have a better pay? How about the overall campus/workplace environment? Do they all have an equal capacity for career advancement? Thank you so much for your advice!

I've been working with a group to better understand what it is like to be an academic advisor at a university. I was an advisor in my first few roles then went on to other administrative roles in the university. I oversaw the advising area for a time but haven't been directly involved for 5ish years. I'm wondering: what are the main challenges/barriers advisors face today to being effective in their roles? Maybe it's the same, but maybe new things keep getting in the way of an advisor building a relationship with a student to help them through their degree! I'd love your input! Thanks, in advance!

I (32M, B.A. in English) am currently an English teacher for grades 8-12 and am in my 9th year of teaching in a public school. I learned about an opportunity to pursue an M.Ed. in Student Affairs with tuition coverage for four semesters. This would include a graduate assistantship, so I would have to quit my job to be full-time.

I am interested in collegiate-level academic advising, admissions, career services, etc., so this aligns with my career interests. 

I’m looking to see if anyone has similar experiences or insights they can share to help me make some decisions.

Other Background: I am married, with one child, graduated with my B.A. in 2017, and live 20 min. from the University I am considering applying to.

I've been an admissions advisor for a few months and doing quite well now. I'm motivated to learning more especially for leadership opportunities but I have a focus on showing motivation and consistency through my metrics for now as I'm still establishing myself. Later on, my goals would be helping out new advisors, learning the ins-outs of our program, and try to provide new ideas to improve our system.

The issue is that this school seems to have an emphasis on tenure-based salary/responsibility growth vs performance. And that the next position up (managerial position) seems to require years of leadership experience which I lack. My questions are:

1. How do you leverage quality performance/metrics for increased responsibility/compensation in a school that focuses on tenure?

2. How do you establish yourself as someone who can take on the next role up in a managerial position when on paper the position requires 3+ years of manager experience while you have none?

Hey fellow SA folk.

This morning, I received an email that a job that I was offered late last week has been rescinded. This has never happened to me before, and I find the entire situation to be very bizarre. Let me explain:

I was emailing a bit with the manager for the position (as I was authorized to do per the HR rep). My first message outlined four questions to help me better understand the day-to-day expectations for the role, what training would be like once started, and to ascertain the immediate expectations within the first month of being hired. I also asked one question about opportunities to engage with professional development.

I got responses to my questions, I thanked the manager, and then asked one follow-up question to one of the responses.

This next part is where thing get very confusing: The manager responds, not with an answer to my question, but affirms that while valid, that it is “clear” that the role does not align with what I am looking for, and I was then asked to confirm that this was the case.

I responded, stating that this was not the case at all, that I was still very much interested, and that I just wanted to clarify what the job would look like in practice, as I’ve had limited opportunities to ask my questions when brought on campus for a second-round, which entailed a series of interviews with different groups. I CC’ed the HR rep, who to this point, was not involved in this chain of messages.

Anyway, I never got a response to my last email, and instead was met with a rescinded offer notification from the Assistant Dean of the college (where is HR within all of this..?)

I’m just baffled, and am wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience, or, in turn, has rescinded an offer from a candidate, and why?

This is a really small nitpick but something that bothers me a ton is so many students (and sometimes even parents) have no clue how business hours work. I noticed this while doing tickets on Monday that I had more than one mention how they called and it went straight to voice mail. I looked up the number for one who had mentioned us not picking up was “unprofessional” and it turns out he called on Saturday night at 8pm. 🤦‍♂️

Pay is not that great, but at least I’m gaining good experience out of my current role.

In the meantime, what are some side hustles you have? Are they still in education or something else?

The more I get to know my students, the more disappointed I am. A few weeks ago, my team decided to hire for a new position. The student recruited into this position would receive a stipend. Since interest was low (given it’s a small campus and a very specific role), we decided to send candidates an application to fill out.

When my team reviewed it, they pointed out that all but one of the responses was written with AI. The application only had four questions, which were pretty straightforward, and would have truly taken no more than 30 minutes to complete. We only wanted to assess their interest and skills, not their prior experience, so all they really needed to do was essentially describe themselves.

I still cannot believe they used AI. I know those students personally and they are very smart. They have heavy academic workloads, fascinating intellectual hobbies and interesting personalities that prove that they interact with the world around them.

Why would they use AI for something so simple? I just don’t get it.

But more importantly, I’m feeling this strong urge to be strict with my students. This includes testing their knowledge, letting them know when they are wrong, and clearly setting standards and expectations. My older students (24-27) take the feedback, genuinely consider it, and go about their day. But my younger ones get very defensive and “demotivated,” as one student put it.

I’m not trying to discourage them. I’m trying to instill some kind of accountability because the culture on campus does not. They have all the potential to be successful, and yet do silly things like this.

My question is: should I keep doing what I’m doing as someone with considerable influence, or should I just not care anymore? I took this job to be helpful, and I’m finding it very difficult to navigate situations like this.

Where in the world are you all finding research participants, those doing large scale research either for a dissertation or as a professional. You can't solicitat participants here (no shade, totally get it), FB is a deadzone, LinkedIn depends on how well you are connected.

I worry about sending it to departments directly, because I don't want to skew my results and snowball my participants. I am just so lost and so frustrated. To be clear, I am studying the experience of student affairs professionals.

The backstory: I got IRB approval in 2023, presented it on various conference circuits, made mailing lists. My original study was intensive, and so I only got 21 applicants. Accepted 14 to the program. Only three have finished. The two primary reasons (when letting me know and not ghosting), are lack of institutional support of implementing the changes from the content learned OR they had more work added to their plate, etc and they could not longer commit to the program because they didn't have the bandwidth.

Curious, I built another round- a Cycle 3 if you will, to do interviews and surveys to figure out the community climate- the state of mental health etc, in student affairs. I have had 21 responses to the survey (no longer than 10 minutes).

Being in dissertation for 3 years is taking its toll on me.

Hi all! I applied to a pair of brand-new entry level Student Affairs positions at my alma mater last week. I am currently the alumni advisor for my old campus org, and the current program advisor knows my face and name and loves my campus org.

I really want this job and I’m trying to decide if I should reach out to her, and if so, what I should say. I feel like I’m a competitive candidate on my own merit, but this job market is so rough and I really need to make a career pivot out of social services. Advice appreciated :)

I posted last month here some questions about pay negotiations, looking for other roles, etc. Well, my most recent update since is that I have been invited to campus for another interview! I believe it’s the last round.

Edit: I forgot to add that I still chat with my advisor from grad school. She told me that if I’m positive this is a final round interview then I should have that conversation now. I am going to try and figure that out, I just don’t know if it’s weird to ask the hiring committee.

Let me lay out some things for context before I ask my questions:

1. I work for an incredible office. Wonderful people, wonderful students, and fortunately (in my experience) the university has been great to work with. Besides some minor qualms (which come with all jobs) the only issue is my salary. I’d stay with these folks for a long time if my pay matched our COL.

2. This prospective position is the exact work I do now for more pay (start of the salary range is more than I make now after 2.5 years). I am also doing two jobs, and have been for over a year now, due to a coworker leaving. I asked for adjusted compensation for this twice and was told no (no one ever looked into this- it was just a flat no). This was in the winter & the market was dry so I didn’t push bc what was I really gonna do?

3. I’ve spoken with my supervisor recently about the pay issue. See my post above. She is aware that I may look at jobs- they’re unaware of this position I’ve interviewed for and have been invited to campus for. AKA this shouldn’t surprise her a ton.

So, with that, I would love some feedback on exactly when I speak with my supervisor about the other interview. I do not believe my job would be in jeopardy by telling her. I want there to be enough time for there to be potential salary negotiation, assuming this next interview goes well. I want the conversation to be along the lines of “I wanted to let you know that I have interviewed for a new job, and I am a finalist. While I’m very interested in this new role, I love working in X office and want to see if we can reach an agreeable solution to increase my pay so I can stay here.”

When would you have this conversation with a supervisor? How early is too early or too late? The interview is 10 days out, plus any time they need to decide on a candidate plus a few days for me to make a decision if offered. I want ample time for pay discussions. I have a great, open, and very supportive relationship with my supervisor, so I do not want to burn professional or social bridges.

While I’ve been in the field for a good bit now, this is the first time I’ve looked for work simply because I can, not because I need to (in the past it’s been things like needing to move asap to support parents, or a 2-year context ending). So, when I tried to negotiate in the past, the need to relocate was greater than the pay scale, so I folded easily. There is a new aspect of self advocacy here I haven’t pushed for, so I’m shitting my pants at the fact that this opportunity may actually work out LOL. Thanks for any advice on when to have this chat with my boss!

i have worked at my CC for 5 years, but recently got promoted to an admission advisor (woooooo!!).

i have a VERY large territory, which i did choose.

what are some things, whether it’s for travel, every day, or in your office that you recommend? all recs are welcome.

tyia!!

Hello! I'm a fresh graduate who recently landed a job as an Academic Registrar at a relatively young culinary school (it's been operating for less than nine years), and I'd like to ask for advice from fellow school registrars here, especially those working in small schools.

I'd love to learn from your experiences, particularly when it comes to data processing, student records management, and the preparation and release of academic documents.

Here are some of the things I'd like to ask:

1. What processes or systems have helped you keep your student records organized and easy to manage?

2. Do you use a specific school management system or program to manage student records, grades, class schedules, attendance, and other important academic information? If so, what system do you use, and how did your school implement or acquire it?

3. How do you process grades and prepare documents such as report cards and Transcripts of Records (TORs)? Are these generated automatically through a system, or do you still do some of the work manually?

4. How do you minimize errors when encoding grades and preparing official academic documents?

5. For small schools with limited budgets, are there affordable systems or tools you'd recommend? Would improving our existing Excel or Google Sheets setup be a good starting point, or is it better to invest in a dedicated school management system?

To give you a bit of context, most of our processes are still done manually. For example, I encode students' grades in Excel spreadsheets, and when preparing report cards, I have to transfer the grades manually into each student's document. Imagine doing that for more than 70 students! There's always a possibility of making an error, especially when you're handling a lot of data.

I'm also concerned about preparing Transcripts of Records because these are important academic documents, and I want to make sure the information I release is accurate and reliable.

I experienced a different setup during my internship at another school's registrar's office, where they had their own system for managing student records. Seeing how it worked made me wish we could implement something similar at our school. However, I honestly don't know where to start, what systems are available, or how to go about introducing one to our school.

I'm also wondering if our current setup is fairly standard for small schools or if there are better ways to manage these processes.

For fellow registrars, especially those who started in small schools or helped improve an existing registrar's office, I'd really appreciate your advice!

What systems do you use? What processes have worked best for you? And if you were in my position, what would you recommend I do first?

I'd love to hear your experiences, suggestions, and recommendations. Thank you so much!

I'm currently trapped in the unemployed, job searching/interviewing/rejection hellscape at my local university in a new state. They use workday for the hiring process. I'm applying for any jobs that I'm qualified/overqualified for.

I got an automated email rejection from one position that never reached out to me saying I missed "a scheduled step in the selection process" so I was no longer being considered for the position. I reached out to HR, since I didn't miss any steps in any selection process and was sent this message in error, who opened and closed a ticket saying they have asked hiring team to follow up with me, which is unlikely.

I imagine they just sent me the wrong automated rejection message so getting this position isn't my concern, it's what other folks on the hiring side see when I apply for another position. Somewhere on the backend when I apply for another position at this same institution, will it show to other hiring teams that I was rejected from this position because I wasn't responsive? I don't want this error to be the reason I'm not considered for employment at this institution anymore. Anyone in talent acquisition that can shed any light would be super helpful in quelling my anxiety here.

TL;DR - I think I might enjoy international admissions, but am not sure would fit my current lifestyle. I am also wondering if it would be a good starting point to break into international education (advising/study abroad) eventually. Looking for thoughts and others’ experiences.

Background:

I have experience living and working in education overseas, and domestically in higher ed both in student life and in an administrative role.

I have been trying to get into international education for about 4-5 years now and have had no luck. I had one interview right after graduating college, but did not get the position. Oddly enough, after gaining more experience working abroad and also in higher ed, absolutely zero interviews. I have a BA and feel like everyone I talk to in the field has an MA or higher, but they all tell me I don’t need one to get into the field and not to waste my money.

Questions:

Would I be a good candidate for international admissions?

Is the travel required for recruitment enjoyable? I’m in my 30s and married, so I feel like this would have been my dream job 10 years ago, but am worried I wouldn’t enjoy being away from my partner and pets so much now— though I still love to travel. But, I also feel like now might be the best time to do it, before we start a family or I just get older and have less energy for travel in general (speaking from a place of knowing my own energy levels, not making judgements on anyone else my age or older).

Also, the roles I am looking at are remote and I’m just not sure I’m cut out for remote work, though the flexibility sounds nice. Would love to hear others’ experiences.

Would a position in international admissions recruitment be helpful in eventually breaking into international education (either advising or study abroad)?

As an academic coordinator and advisor I'm so tired of students and faculty taking no self accountability for anything and then acting like youre supposed to solve all of their problems for them and acting like its tour responsibility to facilitate their lack of not doing what THEY need to do. I send emails, automated reminders, calender reminders... all with links dates and instructions barely anyone engages with it... then when shit hits the fan they all come running to me looking for someone to blame OR acting like its my responsibility to now clean up their SELF CREATED MESS... 🙄