Job Opportunity for Lead, Model Development at Teach for India in Multiple Locations

Position Summary

Vision for the Role:

We are entering a very exciting phase of work on the selection team. We’ve just completed a large scale study to understand what is currently predictive of success in the Fellowship and beyond. While we have started to put this into action, we know the world and subsequently, talent pool, is evolving faster than ever. A lot of what we have – particularly in the earlier stages of the selection process, is also inspired from the past work we and other network partners have done. Hence, we are entering a time of intense innovation, agility and experimentation as we look to re-orient to design for the future instead!

Your role will be to continue to strengthen our understanding of what to select for with increased agility. However, the main focus will be on assessment design – design that is exciting, intuitive, effective and relevant to our target applicant pool. You will have to research – Gen Z behaviour, competitors and leaders in the talent market, specialists in assessment design and testing. You will also have to collaborate with other managers on the team to pull this all together, all while continuing to keep one ear to the ground as we learn from our classrooms on who makes a great Fellow and future leader for this movement and adapt quickly to ensure we are selecting the right people.

What makes this role unique:

• Being responsible for the team that designs the next phase of our selection process and what we want for selection in phase 4 of Teach For India’s work as we balance the challenge of improving quality while scaling.
• Getting to tap into your creativity with tons of opportunity for experimenting with assessment design.
• Understanding how to make impact measurement agile, generating quick and actionable insights while also leading a team to operationalise this.

Team Overview

What skills and mindsets drive excellent teachers and how are these similar to or different from those that drive our greatest leaders? These are the questions, which guide the work of the Fellowship Selection Team at Teach For India.

The Fellowship Selection Team is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the best possible makeup of our cohort. We conduct research and analysis to design a selection model, which will lead us to efficiently identify those likely to be excellent teachers and impactful leaders. We design and run systems and processes that ensure efficient and accurate execution of this model across 8 cities in India. All this, by training and supporting over 200 Staff, Fellows and Alumni to execute their roles as interviewers and reviewers. Outcomes are monitored and evaluated at each stage of our process to ensure all decisions are accurate and that every applicant has an experience, which is fair, consistent and leaves them as advocates of our movement. In short, we put teachers in classrooms who will transform the lives of every child they teach and who will, as Alumni work towards eliminating the wicked educational crisis in India. Our team is entering an exciting phase where we strive to maintain the stability of our operations while focusing on innovation and automation of our processes to prepare for scale and strong analysis to better measure the impact of our model.

Responsibilities

As a Lead, Model Development

• Setting a bold, ambitious and exciting vision for the next phase of the implementation of the model and platforms, activities used without compromising on accuracy of who we select (i.e. making sure that in the process of innovation we don’t make type I and type II errors)
• Doing the exploration and research to understand what is the most cutting edge assessment design out there (gamification? VR?), what is the future of assessments (something completely unexplored yet?) and customizing it for our selection process
• Collaborating with and investing key stakeholders such as staff (TnI/Program, etc.), Fellows, Alumni and external partners (assessment design and perhaps even branding specialists and vendors) in the selection process and the role they have to play in ensuring we are efficient and accurate in our evaluation of applicants
• Managing a team of 2, leading them to achieve ambitious team and individual goals as well as supporting them in their professional development; building team capacity for model development, implementation of pilots and new model shifts and being an advocate for the selection model internally and externally
• Designing and implementing a long term research and analysis program to ensure our selection model leads us to efficiently identify those applicants likely to be excellent teachers and leaders of our movement
• Co-designing systems and processes which ensure we can implement the selection model and meet our vision and goals efficiently, with accuracy and in a way is sustainable
• Monitoring and tracking effectiveness and impact of the model while holding the quality conversation and co-arriving at quality indicators with the training team
• Problem solving the various challenges which arise during the selection process through the design and implementation of strategic solutions which are both immediate and sustainable long-term

As a People Manager

• Building a robust pipeline of talent to lead the organization
• Managing and coaching the team members to ambitious outcomes
• Driving engagement, growth, and retention of team members
• Engineering and overseeing a monitoring and evaluation system, coupled with strategic direction, to guide our abilities to continuously improve

As a Lead at Teach For India

• Contributing to the team goals and priorities beyond individual goals and priorities
• Driving internal alignment and support for Teach For India’s core Programs
• Serving as an ambassador of Teach For India and an advocate for our work and for educational equity in our country through both internal and external communication after commiting time in our classrooms to understand our work more deeply
• Supporting with key organizational areas such as Recruitment, Selection, Fundraising, Volunteering, Movement Building

Minimum Qualifications, Experiences and Expectations

• Graduate (any field) with 5+ years of work experience, of which at least 1 year has been in a direct management position (we may consider exceptional applicants without direct management experience. If this is you, please speak with our HR team directly).
• Exceptional English language communication skills – both written and verbal.
• Ability to analyse complex data sets from varied sources (both quantitative and qualitative), drawing conclusions and identifying appropriate next steps.
• End-to-end project management experience (from vision setting to execution).
• A background in either assessment design/testing/technology with a focus on human centric design/research/data science/advanced data handling
• Belief that every child deserves an excellent education and that every single child has the ability to be successful academically whatever their background.

Preferred Qualifications, Experiences and Expectations

• People and team management skills, with the ability to lead and coach a team to achieve ambitious outcomes.
• Strong interpersonal skills, which enable you to build meaningful relationships with diverse others and invest them in a role or purpose, and a focus on collaborating to reach outcomes with teams across the programmatic continuum and beyond.
• Building relationships with and facilitating ongoing training and support to Staff, Fellows and Alumni involved in the selection process to ensure efficient and accurate implementation of our model.