Business Development Specialist (K-12 Educational Market)

Are you looking for more than just a job and do you want to make a difference? If so, then join the National Student Clearinghouse talent community and discover your impact today!

We are a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization and the leading provider of educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services. Serving the education, workforce and learner communities has been at the heart of our mission for over 30 years. Our work - performed in a trusted, secure, and private environment - provides numerous time- and cost-saving benefits to students, schools, administrators, and requestors. Education leaders rely on the Clearinghouse's unique national student data resources to better understand student pathways and outcomes in order to help students succeed, and our research better informs practitioners and policymakers about student educational pathways and enables informed decision making.

About the Role :

Are you passionate about K12 education and do you enjoy working with people? Are you straightforward and engaging, and enjoy providing exceptional customer service? Then come be a member of an innovative team at the Clearinghouse.

The Specialist, Secondary Relationships Business Development is an integral member of the Relationship Management and Business Development team. In this role you will be responsible for promoting and expanding the use of the Clearinghouse's Learner Insights & Student Mobility services among various levels of personnel in secondary education institutions and outreach programs, to reach team goals. You will engage with potential clients via phone and video ensuring a smooth process from initial inquiry through contract signing. In this role you will also work collaboratively across the organization with various departments : Legal, Finance, Education Solutions, and Compliance & Operations. Some periodic travel up to 10% to conferences is a required part of this position.

Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department / division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.

How You Contribute :

• Demonstrate the Clearinghouse's core competencies : Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic.
• Prospect, educate, qualify, and develop target accounts and inbound leads to generate sales-ready meetings and opportunities. This includes cold calling on K12 district leadership, marketing-generated inbound inquiries, and major industry conference attendees.
• Meet with prospective clients via video conferencing to define, and existing clients to increase, utilization of Clearinghouse services.
• Effectively handle and overcome prospect objections with confidence.
• Convert sales opportunities to closed deals.
• Provide post-implementation service checks with clients at appropriate intervals.
• Use a structured approach to opportunity planning to understand customer motivation, buying criteria, selection processes and solution preferences.
• Use a disciplined approach to prepare, set meeting objectives, dialog, position, handle objections, close and follow-up to calls.
• Support existing Learner Mobility and Learner Insights contracts, to ensure participation growth, training, and administrative requirements are met.
• Contribute towards annual defined targets.
• Meet and exceed quarterly and annual sales targets to ensure market segment objectives.
• Participate in major national and regional industry association and themed conferences, and other client events.
• Solicit meaningful client feedback for enhancements and provide it to Management and team.
• Use opportunity management practices to prospect, qualify, propose, negotiate, contract, and provide ongoing support to clients.
• Record activities within Salesforce and other Clearinghouse systems in a timely and accurate manner.
• Support sales team as needed to help reach team revenue goals.
• Partner with others across the organization (e.g. product teams, implementation, legal, finance) to ensure shared objectives are met in growing / retaining a client.
• Bring an outward mindset towards including others in solutioning while maintaining one's own personal interests - demonstrates balance of self-awareness and self determination to create better results.
• Communicate confidently to internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop and maintain support relationships with the secondary clients.
• Bring energy, curiosity, and conviction to conversations; Effective in a wide range of settings, from one on one meetings to presentations.
• Build rapport by relating to others, acknowledging, and empathizing; listen to understand the business issues, and for emotional content.
• Respond to inquiries in a share inbox within SLAs
• Regularly elicit feedback and confirm agreements or need for further clarity.
• Demonstrate openness to new perspectives and ideas.
• Build trust with internal and external stakeholders by demonstrating consistency between words and actions.
• Seek to understand others' interests and needs through thoughtful questioning and listening.
• Face and tackle interactions and opportunities with optimism and confidence.

Position may be required to perform other duties as required. These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

What You Bring to the Table :

Physical Demands :

Benefits and Related Information

The National Student Clearinghouse provides a robust benefit program designed to help meet the needs of each employee and their family, both now and in the future. We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life and disability insurance benefits, for employees and their qualified dependents. Health care, dependent care, and limited purpose flexible spending accounts, as well as a health savings account, are options available for employees to set aside pre-taxed dollars for certain qualifying expenses. We offer a very generous 401k matching contribution program with the opportunity to defer pre-tax and Roth contributions, as well as catch-up contributions for those who are eligible! We are proud to offer a competitive paid leave program consisting of vacation, sick, and personal time, as well as paid holidays, up to 3 weeks of paid parental leave during a 12-month period, and up to 5 days of paid military leave per calendar year. Vacation time will accrue based on length of service, and new full-time hires can accrue up to 13 days of vacation and up to 10 days of sick time per year. On an annual basis, new employees may use up to 32 hours of accrued sick time as personal time. Additionally, the Clearinghouse observes at least 11 paid holidays per year.

Another perk is that employees have the option to get reimbursed for basic wholesale company and roadside assistance memberships (e.g., Costco and AAA) and to request a buy back on portions of unused accrued vacation based on tenure and certain other qualifications. Employees can further their education and professional development by using our Employee Education Assistance Program, which establishes reimbursement for qualified education expenses upon successful completion of the program, and leveraging the enterprise-wide LinkedIn Learning subscription. There are additional employee benefits too, including but not limited to, mental health and well-being benefits. To find out more, please request a copy of our Benefits at a Glance!

Additionally, we reasonably believe that the salary range for this position is between $50,500 and $63,250 and is eligible for incentive compensation.

The pay range listed above represents a general guideline and is not a guarantee of compensation or salary, and the National Student Clearinghouse considers a number of factors when determining base pay for offers, which include but are not limited to, responsibilities and scope of the job and the candidate's experience, education, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.

Internal Candidates : If you feel that you qualify and meet the requirements of the job, we highly encourage you to apply and focus on preparing for the application process. Once the final candidates are selected, they can anticipate a review of the compensation prior to any offer made.

This job announcement was posted to the National Student Clearinghouse's Careers site at www.studentclearinghouse.org / careers on 9 / 5 / 2025 and the online application period will be open for at least 3 days. A completed online application is required to be considered for this opportunity.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Protected Veterans / Individuals with Disabilities : The National Student Clearinghouse is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, marital status, veteran status (or known to have a spousal, family, business, social or other relationship or association with a protected veteran), sexual orientation, genetic information, arrest record, natural hairstyle, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. Our management team is dedicated to this policy with respect to recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, benefits, employee activities and general treatment during employment.

Pay Transparency Notice : The National Student Clearinghouse is a federal contractor that abides by all applicable equal opportunity laws and regulations. Under these laws, companies doing business with the federal government must provide applicants and employees with certain policies, including the following information. The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)