University Guidance and Career Counselling

The NEST School | Chennai | Full-time

At The NEST School, we believe university guidance begins long before Grade 12.

We are looking for a University Guidance & Student Profile Lead to own the journey of our learners through high school — from understanding their interests and strengths, to exploring careers, building a meaningful student profile, identifying the right university pathways and successfully navigating applications in India and around the world.

This is not a conventional university counselling role. We are looking for someone who can combine deep student understanding with exceptional systems, organisation and execution.

·      Build a deep understanding of each student's interests, strengths, aspirations and potential.

·      Guide students through career exploration and informed academic/pathway choices.

·      Develop individual student profiles and multi-year action plans.

·      Identify meaningful opportunities for students to build their profiles through projects, research, internships, competitions, leadership and other experiences.

·      Guide students and families in identifying right-fit universities and courses in India and globally.

·      Manage the university application process end-to-end, including shortlisting, timelines, documentation, essays, recommendations, submissions and follow-up.

·      Build rigorous systems to track students, applications, requirements, deadlines and stakeholder responsibilities.

·      Work closely with students, parents, teachers and universities, ensuring clear and timely communication.

·      Build and continuously improve the school's University Guidance & Career Counselling framework.

We are looking for someone who is:

·      Exceptionally organised, systematic and detail-oriented.

·      A strong communicator and relationship-builder with teenagers and parents.

·      Analytical and able to connect student interests, academics and aspirations to realistic pathways.

·      Proactive, with strong ownership and follow-through.

·      Comfortable managing multiple students, applications and deadlines simultaneously.

·      Passionate about careers, higher education and helping young people discover their potential.

Strong preference for candidates who have worked in structured student guidance environments, particularly organisations that take students through:

Career Exploration → Profile Building → University Guidance → Application

Relevant backgrounds include:

·      University / college admissions and counselling organisations

·      Student profile-building organisations

·      Career & university guidance organisations

·      IB / Cambridge / international schools

·      Higher-education institutions

Experience working with IB, Cambridge or international-school students, and guiding applications to both Indian and international universities, will be strongly valued.

We are looking for someone who has personally managed students through a structured, step-by-step journey, rather than someone who only provides university information or application support.

You should be able to bring together:

The empathy of a counsellor + the thinking of a strategist + the rigour of an operations professional.

If you believe great university outcomes are built over several years, not during application season, we would like to hear from you.

Location: Chennai | Employment: Full-time