About Reformers Academy:

Reformers Academy (RA) recruits, trains, and deploys policy-interested professionals into positions of influence that impact human flourishing in the healthcare, education, and human services arenas, equipping them to empower individuals and families to fight for the future of the next generation, our economy, and the American dream.

As a growing organization, we have built a policy training academy for working professionals who want to focus on influencing policy. We are looking for a passionate, talented, and hard-working professional committed to this mission to join our team.

Our core values are:

• Invested in people
• Partnership-focused
• Intent on continuous improvement and challenging the status quo
• Built for changemakers

About the position: 

Reformers Academy is seeking a mission-driven professional to lead our twice-annual admissions process and help shape the next generation of policy reformers. This role sits at the center of our talent pipeline, overseeing the applicant review and evaluation process and prioritizing candidates with the greatest potential for long-term placement in high-impact policy positions across the country.

The Manager of Admissions will design, run, and continually improve the systems that power our application, interview, and selection processes for all three RA fellowships. This includes refining application materials to ensure we collect the right information for downstream placement, coordinating and scheduling more than 100 interviews per cycle, managing candidate communications, and ensuring every applicant has a clear, professional, and mission-aligned experience.

Beyond operations, this role requires strong judgment. You will assess ideological alignment, evaluate candidate strengths and growth areas, track cohort composition, and help ensure each class reflects the mix of skills, experience levels, and geographic representation needed to strengthen our policy networks. You will collaborate closely with RA’s outreach team to build strong state-by-state pipelines and maintain a running list of high-potential emerging leaders.

As RA grows, this position represents half of a newly split function—giving the Manager of Admissions the opportunity to build scalable systems, introduce new tools and processes, and help define what excellence in admissions looks like for a fast-moving, impact-oriented organization.

Key Duties

Admissions Operations & Systems

• Lead and manage the full admissions cycle for all three RA fellowships, from application launch through final cohort selection.
• Design, refine, and improve admissions systems, workflows, and evaluation tools to ensure a consistent, high‑quality process as RA scales.
• Maintain accurate, organized candidate data across Airtable and other platforms; ensure information is complete and ready for downstream placement.

Candidate Evaluation & Selection

• Review applications, assess ideological alignment, and evaluate candidate strengths, experience, and growth areas.
• Coordinate and schedule 100+ interviews per cycle; ensure interviewers have the materials and context needed to evaluate candidates effectively.
• Track cohort composition to ensure a balanced mix of experience levels, skills, and geographic representation.
• Coordinate with placement staff to study what characteristics that emerge in the admissions process tend to lead to good placements over time.

Recruitment Strategy & Collaboration

• Partner closely with RA’s outreach team to build strong state‑by‑state recruitment pipelines and ensure a healthy mix of applicants for each fellowship.
• Convene informal recruitment councils (state‑ or policy‑specific) to identify emerging leaders and strengthen local networks.
• Support content creation for LinkedIn and other recruitment campaigns to attract high‑potential candidates.

Stakeholder Coordination & Representation

• Serve as a primary point of contact for applicants, providing timely, professional communication and a strong candidate experience.
• Represent RA at select events, conduct occasional trips to priority states, and participate in biannual fly‑in weekends.
• Prepare accepted fellow directories and other materials needed for onboarding and cohort launch.

Success

• Deliver a smooth, timely, and well-organized admissions cycle with timelines set well in advance. Maintain high standards of applicant evaluation that result in strong cohorts.
• Ensuring we are leveraging technology, when appropriate, to screen candidates and collect the information needed to set the cohorts and be available for future placement efforts.  

Requirements

• Attention to detail and accuracy in managing complex, multi-step processes.
• Demonstrated ability to improve systems and workflows. A systems-builder mindset looking for ways to streamline, and/or automate.
• Strong judgment and discernment, including the ability to evaluate ideological alignment, candidate strengths, and areas for growth with professionalism and nuance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Comfort with learning new technologies and data systems.

Preferred

• 3+ years of experience in admissions, recruiting, talent selection, or project management involving complex administrative workflows.
• Familiarity with policy ecosystems (state legislatures, think tanks, advocacy organizations, or government roles).
• Experience conducting structured interviews or using evaluation rubrics.
• Knowledge of Airtable, LinkedIn Recruiter, or similar CRM platform—or a demonstrated ability to learn them quickly.

To Apply

Qualified candidates should submit the following application materials (in order) in one PDF document:

• Cover letter including:
  • An introductory paragraph describing three distinct reasons you are drawn to Mercatus’ mission
  • Salary requirement
• Resume

Who We Are

Independent Women's trusted experts, analysis, and data enable us to drive informed conversations to build support for better policy solutions. We are different, in that we successfully talk to not only the conservative base, but to centrist women independents, and Millennials/Gen Z helping them embrace policies and approaches that improve lives.

IW operates as a virtual office. While we maintain regular working hours, our virtual office means staff spends more time getting things done and less time sitting in traffic. Still, we understand the importance of personal relationships, which is why we remain in constant daily communication and hold regular staff and department calls.

Job Summary

Independent Women's Legal Policy Analyst supports the work of the Independent Women’s Law Center and broader policy team by tracking, analyzing, and translating legal and regulatory developments. She will assist in producing legal and policy content that supports IW’s mission and advances its policy priorities. She will serve as a key support resource for the Law Center and policy teams, helping bridge legal analysis and policy work across issue areas.

She must be comfortable working to advance IW’s mission and share our core values, be a team player who is happy to say “yes” to any and all tasks, and have a strong interest in legal and regulatory policy. She should be a self-starter who is detail- and results-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.

With hard work, IW’s Legal Policy Analyst could gain significant exposure to legal and policy work, develop specialized expertise, build relationships across policy and legal networks, and grow into a more senior role. Initially, the role is focused on supporting the Law Center and IW’s policy experts.