The posting
Job Description
Your opportunity
EF High School Exchange Year sponsors international high school students who spend a semester or academic year living with volunteer host families across the United States. In order to provide exceptional support for these students, we seek to hire a Program Advisor with a track record of proven success in the education sector, volunteer management, teenage mentorship, customer service or other related field. This position is based in our Cambridge or Denver offices, and is eligible to remote candidates depending on location.
Our international teenage students experience a true cultural exchange as they leave behind the familiarity of their home country, culture, and language, and immerse themselves in the local lifestyles of their host community. Imagine being a 16-year-old foreign student who has grown up living in a big city and is now on an exchange year living in a small town in the Midwest. What challenges might you encounter as you settle into a new community at the start of a new school year? How do you adjust to the expectations of your new host family? How do you manage homesickness and culture shock? Who do you turn to for guidance and support? The Program Advisor is a resource, mentor, and coach who is there to help with all challenges our teenage students face.
What You’ll Do
Our Program Advisors are responsible for supporting participants through the predictable and unexpected challenges of being part of exchange. The Program Advisor partners with a team of local coordinators to support high school exchange students, while also communicating with volunteer host families and colleagues in our recruitment offices abroad to ensure seamless collaboration. Our goal is to help students learn, grow and succeed in their American surroundings and provide personalized support to them along the way. Working across different cultures and time zones adds yet another global layer to this dynamic role! To further strengthen the support provided to program participants, you will also be tasked with overseeing projects that are aimed to enhance program quality. The Program Advisor monitors student safety and wellbeing in-line with the industry standards set forth by the US Department of State.
Members of our Program Support team experience seasonality with student support much like the academic calendar. The fall season is fast paced as students settle into their exchange year, with spring and summer focused on quality-driven initiatives to enhance team operations. Program Advisors join a team of responders to our 24/7 emergency support line, serving as a point of contact
several times per year.
Who You Are:
Your outstanding relationship building, communication, and mediation skills, combined with your passionate performance and creative approach, and your sincere interest in international education will ensure a positive program experience for all participants.
- Bachelor’s degree or commensurate experience
- 3+ years of previous experience in related field
- Ability to travel 2-4 times per year
- Ability to work a flexible shift a plus
- Commitment to ensuring student safety and wellbeing
- Relationship building, conflict resolution and mediation skills
- Ability to communicate diplomatically with diverse program participants
- Desire to find innovative ways to connect with and coach all program participants to success
- Ability to make and implement difficult decisions and compromises while prioritizing competing projects and issues
- Attention to detail and strong writing skills
- Strong work-ethic, personal accountability, ability to work well both individually and in a team environment
- Experience working with diverse cultures and backgrounds a plus
About Us
EF High School Exchange Year (HSEY) is a non-profit high school foreign exchange program affiliated with Education First. We bring students from around the world to live with volunteer host families and enroll in local high schools for either one semester or a full academic year. Our mission is to promote international understanding and global awareness across the US. Together we share culture and languages, open communities to the wider world and create lifelong bonds that span the globe. For more information about our program, please visit www.efexchangeyear.org.
Why you’ll love working here: Perks, Benefits, and more!
This is the most fun, high caliber place you’ll ever work. Ask any employee why they love EF (whether they’ve been here 10 minutes or 10 years) and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: it’s the people. When you work at EF, you join a purpose-driven, international and energetic community that thrives on continuous learning, fearless innovation and mutual support.
In addition, you can expect:
- Commitment to professional growth: robust monthly calendar of trainings and workshops
- Four weeks paid vacation your first year, ten paid holidays, and two floating holidays
- Exciting business travel opportunities
- 25% company match on your 401(k) contributions
- Market-leading medical, dental and vision coverage, along with options for life and disability insurance, accident and hospital insurance, legal and pet insurance
- Dependent care, healthcare and commuter Flex Spending Accounts (FSAs)
- Access to fertility care and family-building support
- Wellness benefits including a yearly fitness reimbursement
- Frequent social and learning events, including access to our employee-run resource groups
- Robust Employee Assistance Program
- Tenure-based sabbatical eligibility
- EF Product Discounts (discounts on travel, international language schools, Au Pair program and more)
- Discounts at local venues and businesses
- Amazing offices designed to match the caliber of the people who work there, plus the flexibility of working from home one day a week.
- Compensation range for this role is $52,000-$62,000, based on experience.
- Deadline for application is November 1, 2026
About EF Education First
At EF we believe that the world is better when people try to understand one another. Since 1965, we have helped millions of people see new places, experience new cultures, and learn new things about the world and about themselves. Our culturally immersive education programs—focused on language, travel, cultural exchange, and academics—turn dreams into international opportunities.
When you join EF, you join a multicultural and diverse community working across more than 600 schools and offices in 50 countries, all with one shared mission of opening the world through education. Whoever you are, whatever you are passionate about—we welcome you and want you to bring that to work every day. EF is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to inclusion and belonging across race, ethnicity, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, ability, parental status, experience and everything else that makes you unique.
Founded in Sweden in 1965, EF has school and offices around the world, including hubs in Boston, London, Mexico City, São Paulo, Shanghai, Stockholm, Zürich, and more. Learn more at https://ef.com.
About Us
Some companies are in the business of banking. Others are in the business of shoes. Or sports. Or soft drinks. At EF, we're in a different kind of business. One that's a little less tangible, and a lot more important. Because our business, what we make, makes everything else possible. We're in the business of understanding. Between people. Between cultures.
For over half a century we’ve been the leader in international educational programs and experiences designed to foster such understanding. Through language, cultural exchange, academic studies, and educational travel, we create the kinds of immersive experiences that challenge biases, open minds, and pave the way for a more understanding world.
You’ll find our offices and schools located in some of the world’s greatest cities, and filled with smart, driven people (over 50,000 of us) who push each other to be better every day. But it’s what we do together - building greater understanding, breaking down barriers, and creating a better world - that makes all the difference.
Founded in 1965 in Sweden, EF (Education First) is a global association of education companies that share a common mission of opening the world through education. EF has been recognized on Forbes 2025 and 2024 World’s Best Employers and 2024 Top Companies for Women lists, Fast Company’s 2025 Next Big Things In Tech, and was a 2024 App Store Award winner in Cultural Impact.
EF High School Exchange Year is a non-profit high school foreign exchange program affiliated with Education First. We’ve been promoting global awareness through student exchange for over 40 years. Our ideals are simple: we believe that cultural exchange makes the world a better place. We bring high school students from around the world to live with volunteer host families across the USA for a semester or full academic year. This J-1 Visa exchange program fosters cross-cultural understanding, tolerance, open-mindedness and global connections.
Learn more about EF High School Exchange Year: www.efexchangeyear.org.
