Senior Advisor, Programs

The Agency You’ll Join: The New York City Mayor’s Office is responsible for overseeing city services throughout the five boroughs, coordinating public agencies and departments, and managing public property. The administration is leading the fight in making the city more affordable, reducing inequality, improving public safety, ensuring delivery of efficient and effective services, and working to make New York City’s economy stronger. We value leadership, transparency, fairness, and efficiency as we actively seek diverse talents from various sectors to join our team. For current job opportunities, visit our careers page.

The Team You’ll Work With: The mission of the Office of Talent and Workforce Development (NYC Talent) is to ensure all New Yorkers can access good-paying careers and employers can access New York City's talent so they can thrive today and in the future. Sustaining a dynamic, accessible city requires intentional support for good jobs, worker power, and the economic ecosystems that allow communities to thrive.

To achieve this mission, NYC Talent aligns efforts across the city's public-private workforce development ecosystem, provides data and policy expertise, and supports program innovations and process improvements for services offered by the City of New York and other workforce stakeholders. NYC Talent works in partnership with government, employers, industry professionals, educational institutions, nonprofits, and philanthropic organizations to ensure the City's workforce development strategy aligns with employer demand, jobseekers’ needs, and the rapidly changing economy.

The Problems You’ll Solve: Reporting to the Chief Policy and Programs Officer, the Senior Advisor, Programs will serve as an advisor and manager for a range of NYC Talent priorities, including:

• Leveraging the resources of New York City and our partners to build an integrated, equitable, and efficient workforce system that gets New Yorkers good jobs and supports a strong local economy. This role brings creativity and a drive towards measurable results, finding smart ways to work within strict funding rules without losing sight of the big picture.
• Overseeing important programmatic initiatives that focus on priority populations such as young adults, people with disabilities, older adults, immigrants, veterans, public benefits recipients, and justice-impacted.
• Supporting programs funded by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and related program oversight via the Workforce Development Board.
• Advising City agencies on workforce best practices for program model design and RFPs, and workforce resources that can be leveraged across the system.
• Developing ways to leverage public and private partnerships and funding streams to improve the workforce system at scale.

Specific tasks may include interacting with senior staff across the team and externally, implementing new programs or policies across agencies, reviewing relevant legislation, studies, and reports; producing background and position memos and fact sheets to support executive decision-making; drafting talking points; and support for interagency collaboration to support systems change. This position will also supervise a current team of at least two staff.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Senior Advisor
• Serve as a senior advisor to the Executive Director, Chief Policy and Programs Officer, and other colleagues on talent and workforce priorities, vision, goals, and programmatic initiatives.
• Project & Team Management – Supervise internal staff responsible for key programmatic portfolios serving priority populations and the City’s workforce and systems change goals to monitor progress and to ensure that goals and timelines are met. Key initiatives under the Senior Advisor’s purview include: o Workplace Accessibility and Inclusion, supporting its staff to increase accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities in employer workplaces and workforce provider programs.

o Youth employment, supporting agency partners to coordinate the goals and strategies aligned with the City’s priorities, and provide expertise to internal NYC Talent teams on incorporating youth populations within their initiatives.

• Agency Liaison
• Convene agency partners as needed to support City Hall workforce development initiatives, RFP development and feedback, and work with relevant agencies to support connecting priority populations as outlined in the WDB WIOA Local Plan to the City’s workforce system. Priority populations include Veterans, public assistance recipients, out-of-school youth, immigrants, older adults, individuals who are justice-impacted, and single parents.
• Team Coordination
• Coordinate with internal teams—including Office of Community Hiring, Industry Partnerships, NYC Workforce Development Board, Apprenticeship Accelerator, Data & Impact, and External Affairs—to ensure that programmatic and policy priorities are consistent and coordinated across the NYC Talent portfolio of work.
• NYC Workforce Development Board o Serve as a subject matter expert on career pathways development, referrals, and resource sharing to support WIOA programs including youth, adult education, vocational rehabilitation, and local education institutions.
• Employer Engagement Support
• Provide expert technical assistance to NYC Talent’s Industry Partnerships and other employer engagement intermediaries to understand City programs and to maximize their use by NYC businesses.
• Resource Development Support
• Support City efforts and strategy to source new city, state, and federal funding streams, including through new public grants, private partnerships, and philanthropic funding.
• General Support
• As needed, serve as spokesperson, representative, and ambassador of NYC Talent in public forums, advocate for the work of NYC Talent initiatives, and prepare effective written materials, including memos and decks to be used in presentations, external meetings with senior executives, and public speaking engagements.

About You:

• You have Integrity, credibility, and a demonstrated commitment to NYC Talent’s mission and goals.
• You have extensive knowledge of New York City’s workforce development landscape, including youth and adult learning best practices, skills training, and culturally competent, industry-specific curricula development and program design.
• You have a commitment to increasing equitable job access to growing sectors for New Yorkers.
• You have exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including formal presentation skills.
• You are comfortable working in a fast-paced environment, managing multiple projects simultaneously and prioritizing projects to meet deadlines.
• You can represent NYC Talent with confidence when presenting to senior-level public and private sector partners.
• You are a self-starter who positively contributes to a learning culture and collaborative team and is willing to perform the full range of tasks required in a dynamic, rapidly responsive, and growing organization.
• You can quickly absorb complex, technical concepts and brief staff within the Office as well as senior external stakeholders.
• You have excellent analytical and creative problem-solving skills.
• You have thorough knowledge and proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• You have experience working within workforce development, preferred.
• You have preferred knowledge of the NYC labor market and in-demand occupations.

Minimum Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, and
• 8+ years in government, non-profit sector, education, human resources, or intergovernmental affairs, with at least three years in a managerial capacity, or
• You have 10+ years of related work experience, with at least three years in a managerial capacity.
• You have a Master’s degree in Public Administration, or a related field, preferred.

Additional Information

• In addition to the resume, a cover letter is required to apply.

Minimum Qualifications

• Do you have a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university?
• Do you have an associate degree from an accredited college or university along with two (2) years of experience with administrative, analytic, coordinative, supervisory or liaison responsibilities?
• Do you have a four-year high school diploma, or its educational equivalent approved by a state's Department of Education or a recognized accrediting organization along with four (4) years of experience as described in question "2" above?
• Do you have a satisfactory combination of education and/or experience equivalent to that described in questions "1," "2," and/or "3" above?

Residency Requirement

New York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County. To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of the interview.