Assistant Director of Recruitment Marketing

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign seeks an Assistant Director of Recruitment Marketing, offering USD 70,000 - 75,000 annually, to lead graduate recruitment marketing strategies for the Grainger College of Engineering across graduate, professional and online programs.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Associate Director of Marketing to align graduate recruitment marketing with the college wide recruitment strategy and brand initiatives.
• Directly supervise the Senior Recruitment Marketing Coordinator, providing strategic direction, delegating work, setting performance expectations, conducting reviews, and ensuring clear guidance and support for successful initiative execution.
• Lead development of marketing messaging and copywriting for graduate recruitment campaigns, translating complex academic offerings into compelling narratives that communicate program value and motivate applications.
• Partner with MarCom colleagues and vendors to plan, develop and produce materials across digital ads, email campaigns, web landing pages, print collateral, video content and event materials targeting prospective graduate students.
• Collaborate with departments to articulate and amplify the college and university brand, maintain brand compliance for graduate recruitment marketing, and ensure alignment with centrally coordinated recruitment plans across programs.
• Track campaigns, monitor multi channel performance, evaluate outcomes and report ROI with recommendations for optimization.
• Help build a culture of data driven impact by analyzing results, implementing data based decisions and conducting strategic experiments.
• Assist in developing annual marketing plans with measurable objectives and KPIs for graduate enrollment.
• Manage the college’s graduate recruitment marketing plan and execute projects that advance the strategy.
• Act as the main point of contact between Grainger Engineering's MarCom and the college's GPO, overseeing recruitment marketing strategy and implementation.
• Coordinate with MarCom and external vendors/agencies to generate strong campaigns across paid and owned media.
• Strategize, develop, monitor, analyze and refine paid media for recruitment marketing.
• Collaborate on strategy development with departments to coordinate marketing across the entire college.
• Work with the web team to implement web based marketing strategies and ensure college websites reflect brand, goals and digital strategy.
• Collect and analyze data, apply insights and run strategic experiments to learn what works in the market.
• Explore and implement innovative marketing approaches that significantly influence the college's stature.
• Assume additional duties related to marketing and communications to further the mission of The Grainger College of Engineering.
• Other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business administration, communications, public relations or a closely related field.
• Three (3) years of professional work experience in marketing, public relations, communications, brand management or a related area.
• Demonstrated experience managing digital advertising and paid media campaigns in a marketing communications environment.
• Expertise in paid digital marketing with the ability to develop, optimize and analyze campaigns while leveraging owned, earned and paid media for integrated strategies.
• Strong copywriting skills with the ability to engage diverse audiences across multiple platforms.
• Ability to develop and execute comprehensive recruitment marketing strategies.
• Advanced analytical skills to derive insights from data and inform decisions.
• Capacity to manage multiple complex projects and priorities simultaneously.
• Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building abilities.
• Effective communication and responsiveness to customer needs.
• Ability to work collaboratively and independently with strong initiative.
• Demonstrated ability to tailor marketing messages for distinct audience segments, including domestic and international graduate student populations, considering context and preferences.

Technologies

• Adobe Creative Suite
• Canva
• Slate

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Life Insurance
• Retirement Plan
• Paid time Off
• Tuition waivers for employees and dependents

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in marketing, business administration, communications, public relations or a closely related field.
• Five (5) years of related professional marketing experience with at least one (1) year in a leadership or project management capacity.
• Proven supervisory experience with the ability to lead, mentor and develop team members.
• Experience with social media management, web analytics tools and data driven decision making.
• Experience with CMS platforms, design software (Adobe Creative Suite, Canva), email marketing platforms and CRM systems (Slate).
• Experience building effective working relationships with faculty, staff, vendors and stakeholders.