The Beyond 12 hiring process is designed to help you identify whether the coach role is a good fit for your working style and career goals, and whether you are a good fit for the mission and work needs at Beyond 12. This FAQ document is designed to provide you with more information about Beyond 12 and the role of a college coach. As you move through the hiring process, there will be additional opportunities to engage deeply with our hiring team and to ask additional questions.
What is it like to be a College Coach?
After you complete your training and onboarding, you will be assigned a caseload of up to 450 first-year and continuing college students to coach. The assigned college students are served by our partners - colleges and universities, school districts, scholarship providers, and other education organizations. These partners have hired Beyond 12 to provide ongoing coaching support to their students for two to four years with the ultimate goal of college graduation.
As a College Coach, you will call each of your students every month, with the goal of speaking with them monthly to provide support as outlined in the curriculum provided by Beyond 12. Early calls focus on building a relationship with your students, and then grow to include topics such as goal setting, creating education plans, time management, and budgeting. You will also text and email your students regularly (weekly, usually) to provide support and deepen your connection. In many cases, students are not always ready to schedule time to meet with you, and a key part of your work is using proven techniques to schedule and connect with your students, as well as working with your team and manager to develop new and better approaches to engaging your students.
In order to meet students where they are, and provide them with support when needed, this position is scheduled to cover a 5-day work week. For 3 days per week, coaches will work 9am-6pm local time, and for 2 days each week, coaches will work from 11am-8pm local time. As part of a rotating schedule, coaches work one Saturday every month for a 9am-6pm local time shift (with 1 hour allocated for a lunch break). After completing any Saturday working shift, coaches will choose their own flex-day to have off the following week.
In addition to working directly with students you will meet virtually with Beyond 12 partners 3 to 4 times a year to share data and trends among the students you are serving and to provide critical updates on students that are struggling.
You will also participate in Program- and organization-wide projects and initiatives based on programmatic annual goals.
You mention data entry and databases. I thought I was talking to students.
While you are talking with your students and providing support you are also using our Salesforce-based student success platform to enter detailed notes about how your student is doing. These notes, along with logging relevant activities and information about students (e.g. number of visits to the tutoring center, curriculum completion, campus involvement, and other relevant milestones), help you and Beyond 12 understand how students are doing and provide the most effective support to your student. This data gathering is an essential part of the coach role.
The information that coaches capture and document is critical to the success of your students and Beyond 12's success. Our organization uses that data to understand trends in our students' persistence and graduation rates and to understand how to best serve them when challenges arise. The data helps us identify whether certain students are more or less likely to drop out and gives us recommended actions to help support them so they stay in college.
The data also helps our partners understand how their students are doing and how to best support them. At Beyond 12, data are an essential tool we use to support students. As a college coach, you will need to ensure that you capture specific information about each of your students and that you enter it into the Salesforce-based student success platform daily and correctly so that it can be used by coaches, partners, and other Beyond 12 teams. You will receive ongoing training on these data processes and systems.
How many students do Coaches call each month?
Coaches will have a caseload of up to 450 students and you will call each of them a number of times every month to provide over-the-phone coaching. A significant portion of your time will be spent scheduling student meetings with you. The number of students in your caseload may increase during your tenure with Beyond 12. As caseloads grow, expectations around the frequency of calls will be reassessed.
When do I get to meet my students?
Almost all (99%) of your student interactions will be virtual (phone and text). In-person meetings are very rare.
What are the greatest opportunities I will have in this specific role?
As a coach, you will have a unique opportunity to have direct contact with college students and offer support and knowledge to help them succeed and graduate from college. You will develop close relationships with students, learn about their challenges, and feel pride and satisfaction with every step forward that your student makes.
Through our training, you will develop coaching and communication skills that will serve you in any role you move into. Understanding powerful questions, listening levels, and key concepts of walking alongside your student as a coach will serve you as your career progresses.
You have an incredible opportunity to impact the lives of college students from communities similar to yours, their families and their communities through the coaching you provide to your college students. Additionally, you will learn invaluable and marketable skills such as collaboration, relationship building, goal setting and exposure to data documentation and analysis which are attractive to future employers.
What are some of the challenges I may encounter?
While our most successful coaches are very invested in the Beyond 12 mission to ensure college success for all students, the remote aspect of our coaching model can be challenging. You may not meet your students in person and spend a lot of time on the phone. Some coaches find this to be challenging, especially as their relationships with students develop over two years. Additionally, you are not sitting next to your coaching colleagues, and will meet them virtually but may never meet them in person during your time at Beyond 12.
In successful student relationships, coaches develop trust through conversations where students share personal challenges and concerns. While coaches are trained to support students in many situations, the conversations can be emotionally challenging. Our approach is to coach the “whole student” so your conversations will not only focus on academics but any aspect of a student’s life that may need support so they can achieve their college goals, including sense of belonging, financial challenges and more.
As Beyond 12 works to reach more students, you'll be building relationships with a large number of students at once. At times you may feel a tension between wanting to go deeper with individual students and needing to distribute your time and energy across your full caseload. Through our ongoing training, our most effective coaches learn to navigate that balance well, and adapt throughout the year as needed.
Reaching students also requires consistent outreach. Many of your calls and texts will go unanswered before a student engages, and the pace of that outreach can feel demanding. Custom automated tools help, but the work requires a steady persistence and comfort with outreach that doesn't always lead to an immediate connection.
Coaches play an important role in providing student information to Beyond 12 and to the partners who have engaged us to coach their students on a daily basis as they connect with students. This information plays a central role in Beyond 12’s ability to provide targeted support to a large number of students, and you will be required to document and submit this data on a timeline set by your manager. Every week, you will review and discuss your coaching data with your manager to identify opportunities for improving outcomes for your students. Some coaches find that data capture and entry don’t feel central to their role and often consider it the least exciting part of the work.
What experience do you need for this role?
We are seeking college graduates with 1-2 years of post-college professional experience who understand first-hand the challenges of achieving a college education. In order for coaches to be successful in this role and for our students to be supported effectively, coaches must have demonstrated experience of working with students from underrepresented backgrounds (first-generation, low-income, students of color). Similarly, coaches must have a demonstrated understanding of the challenges that underrepresented students face in and out of college.
Because student data entry and analysis is a critical component of the role, coaches must also demonstrate experience in data logging, analysis, and interpretation.
Additionally, coaches need to be comfortable navigating a very independent role that requires transparency and honesty when challenges arise. Self-reflection and awareness are crucial in your success as a coach, as is understanding when to ask for help and identifying gaps in your understanding.
Successful coach candidates must also demonstrate experience navigating a heavy workload in a fast-paced environment; the role requires skill in effectively organizing your time to balance the needs of your students with other team and partner responsibilities. Successful coaches demonstrate their investment in our mission and the success of our organization by actively providing insights and recommendations based on their student interactions. They proactively seek ways to contribute to the success of the Program department and to Beyond 12 as a whole.
How do you measure success for this role?
Engagement with students: Successful Coaches will call all of their students multiple times per month to reach their goal of 1-2 phone conversations per month for each student. Coaches will demonstrate knowledge of the Beyond 12 curriculum, deliver the appropriate curriculum to students, and also be responsive to student needs and issues as they arise.
Capturing data in a timely fashion: Successful coaches understand the importance of capturing information about every call, text and email with their students in relation to the mission of Beyond 12. Successful coaches consistently capture and enter this data daily (according to the schedule set by their manager), and review the data weekly to identify opportunities to improve outcomes with their students.
Strong partner representative: Successful coaches are prepared to speak with partner organizations about the students in their caseload. Coaches demonstrate professionalism and clear communication in these partner meetings and contribute to their success.
Contribution to the Program team: Successful coaches are engaged with their manager and provide regular, detailed updates on their work, challenges, and successes. In addition, coaches are engaged with the other program team members by leading team meetings, actively participating in program team projects, and contributing to a positive and collaborative environment.
What type of training and support do coaches get?
Coach training begins with a 2-3-week onboarding starting July 9, 2026. There, you will meet your fellow coaches, your managers, and members from all other departments at the organization. You will learn about the Beyond 12 mission, vision, and values.
Below are the topics that will be covered:
- Training begins with a 2-3-week
- Onboarding on July 9, 2026
- Coaches then participate in monthly 1:1 meetings with their Co-Active coach trainer
- There are also monthly trainings on additional topics to deepen coaching skills and experience in the following areas:
- Co-active coaching (coaching sessions with your students)
- Data logging/analysis
- Coach experience (e.g., boundary setting, time management)
- Navigational/Transactional (e.g., FAFSA/financial aid)Future planning (e.g., financial education, career planning)
- Mental Health First Aid
Additionally, coaches receive training about each partner that they support, and the characteristics of their students and for specific school systems that will give them insight into their students’ unique college experience.
What kind of person are you looking for in this role?
Great coaches have come to us from many different backgrounds, and our most successful coaches exhibit the following traits:
- Understands and aligns with the mission of Beyond 12
- Does more than is required or expected in the job in order to improve or enhance impact
- Models our core values -- Collaboration, Excellence, Innovation, Knowledge, Respect, and Trust -- at all times
- Establishes and maintains healthy and rewarding relationships with students through virtual means (phone, text, email, and social media)
- Has an authentic and enthusiastic personality, and can effectively use those attributes to help students recognize their successes and inspire students to act.
- Works well individually and on a team, contributing insightful ideas and carrying out tasks that will add to the growth of the organization.
- Is invested and eager to become an expert in all aspects of the coach role. Commits to understanding the details that lead to successful coaching and data management. Seeks out and reflects on feedback from managers and peers regularly to ensure a path to excellence.
What are some of the unwritten rules of success in this role?
Individuals with varying work experience have successfully navigated the coach role. Overall, individuals who are goal-oriented, able to self-assess, communicate effectively with their students, peers, and manager, and ask for help are incredibly successful. Coaches need to be proactive, and utilize creativity and drive, particularly when working to engage students: students may not pick up your calls initially because they are getting adjusted to their new environment, or they are uncomfortable with the idea of virtual coaching and may take some time to adjust to our model.
A successful coach understands that this role involves an ongoing learning curve and requires a high level of self-motivation, creativity, determination, and commitment. Due to the independence of the role, a successful coach needs to be able to receive and give feedback regularly and effectively, and to critically incorporate it into their work moving forward.
Where is this job located?
This role is region-specific, and candidates must reside in the region they support:
Atlanta Program: Must be based in GA
Chicago Program: Must be based in IL
Bay Area Program: Open to candidates based in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
We strongly value candidates with experience in the education systems most closely connected to each region:
Atlanta Program: Atlanta Public Schools; Georgia University System
Chicago Program: Chicago Public Schools
Bay Area Program: Oakland Unified School District; University of California system; California State University system; California Community Colleges
What is the salary range for this job?
Salary is determined by the candidate’s work location and aligned to regional cost of labor and local regulations:
California (Bay Area Program): $70,304
Colorado, Oregon (Bay Area Program): $59,000
Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming (Bay Area Program): $53,276
Illinois (Chicago Program): $59,000
Georgia (Atlanta Program): $53,276
Is the salary negotiable?
The salary for the college coach role varies by location, considering cost-of-living differences and local regulations. Beyond 12 does not negotiate salaries for this position.
Will Beyond 12 help me with relocation expenses for this job?
For this role, Beyond 12 does not offer reimbursement for relocation expenses.
What does the interview process look like?
The application process consists of five parts.
1. Submission of a resume and written application questions (cover letter is not required)
2. On-Demand, One-Way Video Interview (via the Sparkhire platform)
3. Zoom Interview & Role Play with Beyond 12 Staff
4. Submission of references and transcripts
5. Completing and passing a background check
How should I prepare for my interviews?
Full details, along with resources to help you prepare, will be provided before interview events.
What if I miss the application deadline?
Due to the number of applications we receive, we are not able to consider candidates who apply past our deadline.
Do you pay for my cell phone costs? What about my internet?
Beyond 12 provides a $150 remote work stipend to all full-time employees to help offset cell phone and internet expenses.
Who will my manager be?
Coaches are managed by Associate Directors. Those assignments are determined by Program need.
Can I set my own hours?
No. This position follows a 5-day workweek. For 3 days per week, coaches will work from 9am-6pm local time, and for 2 days each week, coaches will work from 11am-8pm local time. Coaches work one Saturday each month during a 9am-6pm local time shift (with 1 hour for lunch). After completing any Saturday working day, coaches will choose their own flex-day to have off the following week.
Beyond 12 is always closed on Sundays.
