What's a work day like for an Enrollment Services Advisor? I have read on GlassDoor that there is a culture of fear and deception. However, there are others that say the job is great.
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Does anyone feel guilty about selling a "subprime" college?
Amazingly true depiction of an ESA
First, your day starts off by laying in bed and contemplating if you should call out sick and re-evaluating your life decisions that led to your employment at Ashford. After fighting traffic and arriving to the parking structure, you realize the cars aren't moving; someone forgot their badge again and is holding up traffic into the structure.
After finally getting in the parking structure, you walk into the building where you wait in line to board an elevator to your floor. You get off on the 7th floor, but forget you moved to the 5th floor last week (constant change!). As you mosey on over to your cubicle, your manager starts to get everyone ready for the morning stand up. You quickly clock in and head over to the circle. In this meeting you talk about your "student success stories" aka s---ers you enrolled and what you have going on in the pipeline.
After a possible chant or clapping, you head to your cube where you login to your computer and begin dialing prospects or sit there on your "floor" shift.
If dialing out to prospects, make sure you're in outbound in your aux code. There are several aux settings you can be in. Outbound lets the manager know you are making calls to prospects, they can see how long it has been since your last dial, so don't let too much time pass between dials or you'll hear about it! If you need to go to the bathroom, you put your aux code in personal. But don't be in personal too long or forget to change it back to outbound when you get back, or you'll get a stern talking to about being paid to do your job while you're on the clock.
Back to a floor shift, this is when you are sitting on an open line to take incoming transfers from the student inquiry department. These are employees sitting on an auto-dialer or taking incoming calls from prospective students. Their job is to get someone on the phone and transfer to a sales rep, I mean enrollment adviser. They usually ask basic questions about why they submitted an inquiry online and what they're looking to study. 30% of the time the transfer to the rep is not so smooth and they end up hanging up.
You continue to make outbound dials until lunch time where you can escape for an hour (make sure you don't go over an hour!!). Make sure you change your aux code when you get back!
Depending on the day, you may have a beginning of week meeting with your manager or director. There you'll talk about students you enrolled in the previous month and if they'll become a "start". A start is a student who completes their first class. As a sales rep, your goal is to get starts and that's it. You give zero effs what happens after that first class. You talk strategy about how to follow up with problem students. I had a few myself where I had to call them twice a day, every day to hand hold them through their first class. STARTS STARTS STARTS!!!
After a long day of BS you head down to parking structure to get in your car and fight the traffic heading out. You get home and crack open a cold one. You contemplate not showing up tomorrow, but you're broke.
This is the day in the life of a sales rep at Ashford.