Startup Operations Associate

NEXT is a highly-selective private membership network for entrepreneurial mid-career and exec-level individuals who are intentionally planning their next career chapters. We are a one year old startup and have welcomed our first 300 members during this time, chosen from 2,000 applicants.

We're looking for a mission-driven Operations Associate to join our team, supporting hundreds of job-seekers as they navigate the next steps in their startup career journeys 🤩

Role Overview

As an Operations Associate, you will be at the center of everything we do to support job-seekers. You will have both community-facing and operational responsibilities, including planning and executing virtual events, supporting our candidate admissions process, and creating no-code infrastructure to support the business.

As one of our first employees you’ll be creating new things from scratch everyday and need to have a relentlessly positive, can-do attitude coupled with the ability to quickly figure things out.

Responsibilities

• Plan and execute virtual events.
  • We host ~4 live events per week: you’ll help execute these sessions to ensure maximum impact. It should look seamless but really require a lot of thoughtful preparation to appear that way 😉
  • You’ll also handle post-event follow-ups, including ensuring that session recordings are uploaded to our community space and participation is tracked.
• Create no-code infrastructure to support the business, setting up workflows and automations that make our daily tasks more efficient.
  • At the beginning you’ll primarily make updates to our existing infrastructure, but then will be responsible for identifying and implementing ways that we can improve.
• Lead the operational side of our candidate admissions process, including screening applications, moving candidates through the process, and ensuring that we’ve thoughtfully followed up with everyone.
• Engage with community members, respond to inquiries and feedback, and help create a positive and inclusive community vibe.
• Be a problem-solver. Operational challenges pop up everyday in a startup — we’re looking for someone who spots problems and jumps in to fix them!

Prior Experience

• Demonstrated interest in the career development of others since that’s our core mission.
• Current college senior or recent alum: 0-3 years of post-college work experience. This role is for someone with a very high ceiling who wants to learn and grow while building a new business.
  • You should be able to demonstrate how you’ve done community management, event planning, and/or operations work during your internships or extra-curriculars in college as well as in any post-grad experience.
• Experience working with Slack as well as Google Docs/Slides/Sheets.
• Familiarity with no-code tools such as Make and Airtable is a very strong plus. If no prior experience, you’ll need a strong willingness to learn.
• Interest in the US startup ecosystem is a plus.

Working Style

• You demonstrate a high degree of intensity in your work and will take pride in delivering an amazing experience for community members as a result.
• You like to juggle many different projects at one time while still exhibiting very high attention to detail. You’re thoughtful about clarifying prioritization, executing, and then moving down the list. You’ll balance these projects alongside daily community engagement needs.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, startup environment. You’ll be relied upon to have an opinion on how best to accomplish something, agree with the founder on the approach, and then get it done efficiently and accurately.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage with community members in a positive and inclusive manner.
• Have a no-task-is-too-big-or-too-small attitude. Some days you’ll work on strategic projects and others you’ll be responsible for accurately tracking our event participation. We’re looking for someone who approaches everything with the same optimistic outlook and realizes that all of these things are essential to running the business.
• You like to give and receive thoughtful, candid feedback since open communication about areas of improvement is the only way we can all perform at our best.
• You’re excited to create most things from scratch, experiment with new ideas, and realize that no two days will look the same.

We welcome and encourage applications from those who identify as women or LGBTQ+ as well as those from historically under-represented backgrounds in tech. We believe that a variety of perspectives and experiences enrich our team and drive our community’s success.

Employment details

This role is based in Los Angeles. You’ll co-work with and train under NEXT’s founder Anthony approximately 3 days per week, generally in Culver City or Playa Vista.

This is a full-time position with a salary of approximately $60-70k per year + a performance-based cash bonus after each successful cohort (roughly 3x per year).

Candidates will be asked to complete a paid contract role to ensure this is a fit on both sides prior to joining full-time (”contract-to-hire”).

The community we’re building is cohort-based, so our team will naturally have periods of active fellow engagement followed by time preparing for the next cohort. Employees are expected to take paid time off between each cohort to be fully rested before the next sprint begins.

Application process

Apply by emailing anthony@nextcareers.co. Please reference Operations Associate and your name in the subject line. Include your LinkedIn profile as well as a few sentences about why you think you’d be the perfect fit in the email. You’re welcome to include your resume if you have one ready, but it’s not required.