JOB DESCRIPTION: Student Success Manager
for the Memoir Writing Ink online course & community
Summary:
The Memoir Writing Ink Student Success Manager supports students by offering timely, personal, compassionate and effective support, including basic tech support, during the student journey and beyond. This person also supports the organisation as a whole through course management and updates, product launches, and assistance with workshops, retreats, and live/virtual events, as needed.
Specifics:
Position: Independent contractor with option to hire.
Location: Preference for Canada, but other locations will be considered.
Hours: Part-time, flexible, approx. 5 hours/week, M-F; potential to increase hours depending on the level of tech support the candidate is able to provide.
Must-haves: Excellent writing and communication skills, a keen desire to help others, an understanding of memoir writing and/or the Memoir Writing Ink course, comfort with our key tech platforms (ActiveCampaign, Thinkific, Squarespace, Thrivecart, Dropbox, Stripe, Google Drive, Zoom), compassion and patience in challenging situations, self-motivated, responsible, genuine, kind, and fun-loving.
Bonuses: Tech expertise: ability to administer/manage our key platforms, ability to design and manage new products and systems, video editing skills, organic marketing experience, social media management, blog writing, graphic design.
Compensation: CAD$30-40/hr (approx. US$23-30), commensurate with experience and tech abilities.
Start Date: Immediately or before the end of May.
Who we are:
We are a small but mighty (and joyful!) team, based in Canada, that runs Memoir Writing Ink, a popular digital course in which we guide people in the creation and transformation of their personal stories into memoir. Our founder, and the course’s main instructor/facilitator, is author Alison Wearing.
In this company, we lead with our hearts. We see every interaction – even the difficult ones – as an opportunity for kindness and compassion. This isn’t ‘just another online course,’ it is a place where we help people (mostly women over 55) find and honour their voices, often for the first time, and craft their personal stories into art.
Once again: our audience and students are mostly women, from numerous cultures all over the world, who are in the sterling years of their lives. They have lived most of their lives without computers and they appreciate clear, patient, compassionate support. Also, the process of memoir writing can bring sensitivities to the surface. Empathy and heart-centred support are vital.
Who you are:
You are someone who finds purpose and joy in helping others, who sees support as a creative opportunity to connect with and assist others, including our founder, Alison Wearing, and members of our fabulous team. You have a great sense of humour and can laugh at yourself and with others in trying circumstances (we are a very fun bunch!).
While you do not need to define yourself as ‘a writer', you are familiar with the Memoir Writing Ink program, a sense of the flow and tone of the course, and you have a passion for reading and writing memoir.
You are able to gently help people find their way through the sometimes maddeningly dense tech forest of online learning. You do this joyfully and patiently. It is in your nature to be helpful.
You love language (including grammar and punctuation!) and strive for precise and eloquent writing, even in emails, marketing and support materials.
You are comfortable learning new tech platforms and/or are already familiar with some of the platforms we use most often: ActiveCampaign, Thinkific, Squarespace, Thrivecart, Dropbox, Stripe, Google Drive, Zoom.
You are an extremely organised person. You delight in creating systems that turn a complex, creative idea into a series of efficient, actionable steps. You are both meticulous and creative, two qualities that, when woven together in balance, mean that your work is both satisfying to you and of excellent quality.
You are someone who feels good by making other people feel good, whether that be via email to our clients or just banter among the team. Ours is a mutually-supportive, honesty-driven, light-hearted, gossip-free, often but not always hyphenated, world. :)
You lead with kindness, always.
In short, your job is to support the students of Memoir Writing Ink in having the best possible experience in the course and beyond, as well as supporting the organisation as a whole. And to have fun at work (who wants a job that isn’t fun?!). Our company is casual and we don’t expect perfection, just acuity, responsibility, commitment and heart.
About the work:
You will be the ‘front-facing’ support person for Memoir Writing Ink, meaning that you will be the first point of contact for all students and graduates.
You will answer all student email queries and requests for support (we do not currently offer phone or chat support). This can range from helping people find and access the course materials and live events to resolving problems with email delivery to navigating the Facebook community or special events.
Students will also be looking for support of a less practical nature: navigating the emotions that can come with writing personal stories from our past, having second thoughts about the value of the process, considering withdrawing, navigating misunderstandings or conflicts, problematic expectations, etc.
Ongoing course support: uploading replays of live events, overseeing course updates, offering live support for Zoom events and ‘welcome/orientation’ sessions.
The hours are flexible, but we guarantee timely support for our students. In practical terms, this means checking the support@ inbox at least once/day, Monday-Friday, attending to all new emails and new business or working on any ongoing projects. There are quiet periods and busy moments in the Memoir Writing Ink universe, so this could mean as little as a few hours per week to as many as 5-6/week, depending on the time of year and how involved you became with the tech/systems part of the organisation.
Some skills we’re looking for include:
Excellent written and oral communication skills. You are a proud grammar nerd(!) and are also comfortable offering live (Zoom) orientation sessions and/or assisting with other live events.
Innate kindness, patience, compassion and empathy, even and especially in trying situations and/or when faced with people who are projecting the opposite. You are, in the very best way, a grounded, and grounding, personality.
A willingness to crawl behind the scenes and figure things out, to view challenges as learning opportunities. This includes tech platforms that might be unfamiliar to you. If you are afraid of technology, please do not apply for this job. :)
An ability to exemplify the tone and manner of the Memoir Writing Ink ethos (kindness, creativity, joy, compassion, respect, playfulness and humour) in all communications and engagement.
Some bonus skills might be:
video editing, organic marketing, social media management, blog writing, graphic design, event planning, tech wizardry — none of these are essential for this job, but all of these could be put to good use in the Memoir Writing Ink world.
