Overview

Reports to: Director of Workforce Development and Career Advancement

Summary:

The Internship Liaison builds internship relationships, to strengthen and expand core program and alumni opportunities for our young people. The individual in this role is highly collaborative and enjoys working in a dynamic environment that is focused on providing the highest quality internship and external opportunities for court-involved youth. This individual is passionate about utilizing exalt’s unique, humanizing, critical pedagogical and culturally relevant curriculum and methods of youth development. With this approach, they will empower court-involved students to thrive in their internships, re-engage in education and avoid further criminal justice system involvement. They will strategically seek out and build new partnerships to help advance the mission of exalt. They will work closely with various members of the program team including Teachers and Program Coordinators to place interns and assist with the management of the experiences of core and post-graduate exalt students at their internship sites. The Internship Liaison acts as a point person for external partners, working to sustain and strengthen pre-existing partner relationships. They will be supported by the Director of Workforce Development and Career Advancement to meet and exceed annual goals around cultivation of new internships and work creatively and strategically to prospect new partners.

 

Responsibilities

  • Strategically envision, seek out and build new internship and external partnership and opportunities to help exalt’s young people advance in terms of their education, employability and criminal justice avoidance.
  • Assess the current platform for virtual and in-person internships and use a data-informed analysis to make recommendations to organizational leadership about how to best optimize a hybrid, virtual or in-person programming in response to the pandemic. 
  • Leverage current and internal relationships among staff, board and friends of exalt to cultivate new and additional internship opportunities.
  • Sustain and strengthen current internship relationships with a special eye towards maximizing a hybrid virtual and in-person model that can help feed the growth and development of our internships and external opportunities beyond the pandemic. 
  • Conduct frequent outreach via phone, email, and in-person visits to NYC businesses, NYC government agencies and NYC nonprofits to develop exciting, innovative and enriching internships that provide meaningful and transformative experiences for exalt students and that help them meet their interests and goals.
  • For each active cycle, provide Teachers and Program coordinators with a list of active/eligible sites and assist them with placement of 15-20 core program participants (per cycle/cohort) to internships sites. Collaborate with Teachers and Program Coordinators to secure placement and schedule interviews.
  • For each graduating cycle, assist with placement of 2-3 graduate interns at extended 3 month graduate internship sites and support experience of students to circumvent attrition.
  • Ensure that all data related to internship development, cultivation and placement as well as interviews and intake, is captured in salesforce as needed.
  • Assist program staff and leaders with intake on a case by case basis.
  • Support Alumni Division with special events, outreach and recruitment and other alumni engagement tasks as needed. 
  • Organize internship match meetings to help Teachers and Program Coordinators determine program participants’ career interests and best fit.
  • Assist with organization and outreach for special events such as our annual cultivation event, annual gala and internship cultivation mixers.
  • Vet new internship sites to ensure that burgeoning partnerships align with exalt’s mission, 4-tenets and development of participants 4-Core skills.
  • Work with exalt’s program leaders to develop innovative and effective communication strategies to attract and sustain new internship and community partners that will ultimately create pathways to higher levels of engagement (i.e. new donors, in-kind donations, workshop providers).

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent level of experience in internship placement, management, matching with system-involved youth required.
  • 5-7 years experience in youth development, youth justice, internship, partnership and/or network development fields.
  • Familiarity working with court-involved youth or similarly population of system-involved youth many of whom have never had on the books jobs and have never previously been successful working in a professional setting and will require patience, development and critical pedagogical approach/motivational interviewing approach to help them to succeed.
  • A deep and nuanced understanding of the business, political, non-profit criminal justice/human services relationships and landscape in the New York City area.
  • Bilingual (Spanish speaking) a plus.

Compensation:

exalt is prepared to offer a competitive base salary in the range of approximately $58,500 to $61,800 per year, commensurate with experience.

exalt is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status, or any other protected class under Federal, State and Local law. People of color and formerly system-involved individuals strongly encouraged to apply.

exalt is an equal opportunity employer.