Sr. Director, Workforce Development
YouthBuild USA, United States

Job Summary

The Senior Director, Workforce Development will lead YouthBuild USA’s work to define, create, and strengthen connections between career readiness, training, work-based learning, pre-apprenticeship, apprenticeship, placement in first jobs, and long-term career success for opportunity youth. This new role is accountable for developing and implementing equitable career pathway models for opportunity youth and marginalized populations aged 16 to 24 across the full breadth and expression of the YouthBuild network, including urban, rural, and tribal implementing partners. This position will report to the VP of Program Impact, with expected travel up to 25%.

Requirements

Essential Duties/Responsibilities

Be YouthBuild USA’s subject matter expert, chief implementer, and compelling leader for Workforce Development by:

• Researching, analyzing, and tracking data trends and labor market statistics to inform effective program design that meets existing and emerging labor market needs.
• Researching, analyzing, and assessing the effectiveness of existing workforce development approaches in the YouthBuild network.
• Understanding and building on the intersecting elements of educational programming and career development.
• Designing a youth workforce strategy that includes on-the-job training, job shadowing, sector-based approaches, and pre-apprenticeship to apprenticeship career pathways.
• Implementing, evaluating, and refining a youth workforce strategy that drives continuous improvement and ensures programs across the full diversity of urban, rural, and tribal communities can prepare opportunity youth for current workforce options and emerging labor market needs.
• Through a defined evaluating rubric, fostering, establishing, and stewarding partnerships and relationships with workforce boards, industry sector leaders, partner nonprofits, and related associations.
• Representing YouthBuild USA at conferences, industry sector workgroups, and education and workforce advisory panels.
• Authoring or guiding content, such as reports, blog posts, factsheets, toolkits, webinars, and other communications that contribute to YouthBuild USA’s thought leadership in the field.
• Participating in organizational strategic planning, advocacy, and policy recommendations to accelerate YouthBuild USA's goals to amplify YouthBuild as a proven and effective model and expand the impact of our work.
• Designing and facilitating presentations tailored to specific audiences (e.g., government officials, national nonprofits, the workforce system, YouthBuild program staff, and YouthBuild participants/alumni).

Other Duties/Responsibilities

• Work cooperatively with the DOL YouthBuild TA Collaborative (National and regional federal staff, DOL TA consultants, YouthBuild USA, and grantees) to ensure effective communication, tools and training resources, and recommendations to support grantees.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (e.g., Corporate Strategic Partnerships, Development, Network Engagement, Marketing amp; Communications, etc.) to deepen external relationships and expand the impact of YouthBuild's work.
• Work closely with the VP of Program Impact and Director of Operations to support the management of the Program Impact team to ensure vision alignment, pressure test new concepts and ideas, and ensure contract-related goals are on track.
• Indirect to direct supervision of up to three Program Impact team members
• Serve on senior management-level committees

• Other duties as assigned

Competencies and Qualities

• You are a service-oriented leader who leads by example and engages people’s strengths
• You are a workforce development thought leader who can explain the field, changes in the field, and emerging trends to broad audiences.
• You are a relationship builder who is skilled at building and maintaining relationships with staff and key stakeholders
• You have a successful track record of articulating strategy, creating roadmaps, and implementing programs from scratch
• You have managed complex projects with varied deliverables and competing priorities and timelines
• You are highly collaborative and adept at bringing together diverse perspectives - experiences, expertise, and exposure to other ways of doing things - to drive and improve work
• You have a willingness to embrace, seek out, and act on feedback from various stakeholders
• You have a growth mindset and are willing to see failure as an opportunity to learn
• You have high empathy and emotional intelligence with a passion for uplifting and leveraging the proximate expertise of underserved communities and members
• You are a strong communicator

Job Rewards and Benefits