Community Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL

Covista is America's largest healthcare educator, serving more than 97,000 students and supported by a community of 385,000 alumni across five accredited institutions. Through personalized, tech-enabled education powered by 10,000 faculty and colleagues, Covista expands access to healthcare careers and addresses the U.S. healthcare workforce shortage at scale. Covista is the parent company of American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, Chamberlain University, Ross University School of Medicine, Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and Walden University.

Our colleagues come from a wide range of backgrounds, business, academia, healthcare, government and nonprofits, and are part of a culture where doing exceptional work and making a meaningful difference for students and society aren't separate goals—they're one and the same. This means creating an environment where colleagues can develop new skills, build careers that match their ambitions and see the tangible impact of their work on healthcare education and workforce development. Colleagues who deliver results and embrace new tools to work smarter are valued for their contributions. But what makes working at Covista distinctive is our impact. Our faculty and colleagues don't just support healthcare education—they shape it. This isn't abstract purpose work. It's solving real problems for real people in real communities while advancing careers.

We operate on a hybrid schedule with four in-office days per week (Monday–Thursday). This approach enhances creativity, innovation, communication, and relationship-building, fostering a dynamic and collaborative work environment.

This role supports real-time community engagement for Covista's university brands— Chamberlain University, Walden University, Ross University School of Medicine, Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine—serving as the always-on voice that listens, responds and builds trust with our audiences in the moment. Beyond day-to-day engagement, this person leads Covista's Social Ambassador Program, building and mobilizing a network of alumni, faculty and students who serve as authentic brand advocates across social and digital channels as well as partners with the AEO team to translate Covista's SEO/AEO priorities into community engagement and ambassador content. The goal is to advance the reputation of Covista and its institutions, building positive sentiment with answer engines and other online platforms.

Reporting to the Director of Digital Storytelling & Strategy, this role sits within Corporate Affairs and partners closely with the Alumni Communications and institutional marketing teams.

What You'll Do: You'll be the connective layer across Covista's brands—setting shared process, tools and standards for community engagement and ambassador activity, and partnering closely with each brand's social manager, who continues to own content strategy and channel voice while you own the day-to-day engagement.

Real-Time Engagement & Social Listening

• Serve as a manager of real-time community engagement across Covista’s university brand channels, responding to comments, conversations and mentions so our audience always feels heard and the brand shows up consistently.

• Continuously monitor brand mentions, sentiment and audience behavior across platforms, surfacing insights that inform strategy and flag opportunities and risks before they pass.

• Keep a weekly pulse on the cultural and platform moments, so the brands lead conversations rather than reacting to them.

• Partner closely with each brand's social manager on tone, escalation and emerging issues and escalate crisis communications concerns to Corporate Affairs leadership as they surface through community channels.

Social Ambassador Program

• Build and manage the Social Ambassador Program, recruiting and cultivating a network of alumni, faculty and students who serve as authentic brand advocates across Covista's university brands.

• Plan signature brand activations and ambassador events, managing everything from concept and creative direction to logistics and on-the-ground execution for large groups of participants.

• Design and execute both large-scale campaign moments and ongoing, targeted advocacy efforts — knowing when to mobilize the full ambassador community around a major moment versus deploying an individual voice for a specific need or opportunity.

SEO & Social-Driven Content

• Partner with AEO team to translate Covista's SEO/AEO priorities into community engagement and ambassador content, so brand messaging, keywords and topic themes stay aligned with how Covista is surfaced in search results and AI-generated answers.

• Identify community and ambassador content opportunities based on what people are searching and asking, not just what's trending.

• Partner cross-functionally with marketing, communications teams to align content and messaging with broader brand and reputation goals, building the tools, briefs and processes that keep work running smoothly.

Skills Needed:

• Creative and strategic thinker who can conceive campaign ideas and activations that feel genuine and resonate with different audiences.

• Highly organized project manager who thrives on process, can juggle multiple concurrent initiatives with firm deadlines and brings structure to ambiguous or fast-moving work.

• Natural relationship-builder and collaborator, comfortable working directly with alumni, faculty and students as well as cross-functional internal partners.

• Social-first and digitally fluent, with strong platform knowledge and an understanding of advocate and ambassador marketing best practices.

• Comfortable operating in real time, with sound judgment on tone, escalation and when to loop in leadership.

• Working knowledge of social listening tools and sentiment monitoring.

• Fluency in SEO/AEO principles and how social content and community engagement contribute to brand visibility in search results and AI-generated answers.

• Performs other duties as assigned
• Complies with all policies and standards

Critical features of this job are described under Essential Duties and Responsibilities. They may be, however, subject to change at any time due to reasonable accommodation or other reasons.

• Bachelor's Degree required

• 5-7+ years of experience in community management, social media or digital engagement

• Proven experience building or managing an ambassador, influencer or advocacy program

• Experience with social listening and sentiment monitoring tools

• Excellent written communication skills with strong judgment on brand voice and tone

• Experience managing a program budget

• Background in higher education, healthcare or nonprofits not required, but preferred

In support of the pay transparency laws enacted across the country, the expected salary range for this position is between $80,337 and $145,077.00. Actual pay will be adjusted based on job-related factors permitted by law, such as experience and training; geographic location; licensure and certifications; market factors; departmental budgets; and responsibility. Our Talent Acquisition Team will be happy to answer any questions you may have, and we look forward to learning more about your salary requirements. The position qualifies for the below benefits. Covista offers a robust suite of benefits including:

• Health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance
• 401k Retirement Program + 6% employer match
• Participation in Covista’s Flexible Time Off (FTO) Policy
• 12 Paid Holidays
  
  For more information related to our benefits please visit: https://careers.covista.com/benefits
  
  You are also eligible to participate in an annual incentive program, subject to the rules governing the program, whereby an award, if any, depends on various factors, including, without limitation, individual and organizational performance.

Equal Opportunity – Minority / Female / Disability / V / Gender Identity / Sexual Orientation