Director, Youth Exploration & Career Navigation Hub

Director, Youth Exploration & Career Navigation Hub 

The Door | Career and Education Services 

Salary: $100,000 - $110,000 

Reports to: Managing Director of Culinary Initiatives and Community Programming 

Hours: Monday through Friday, 35 hours per week, occasional evening and weekend hours as needed. Opportunity for remote work as needed and approved by supervisor 

About The Door 

The Door has served as one of New York City's most trusted places for teens and young adults for more than 50 years. The Door's mission is to empower young people to reach their potential by providing comprehensive youth development services in a diverse and caring environment. 

A nationally recognized model for holistic youth support, The Door reaches up to 10,000 young people annually through a wide range of free, co-located services. Youth ages 12 to 24 can access health care and health education, mental health counseling and crisis intervention, legal services, career and education programming, housing supports, services for runaway and homeless youth, arts and recreational programming, and nutritious daily meals, all under one roof. The majority of youth served are navigating systemic barriers, including disconnection from school or work, housing instability, and involvement in foster care or the justice system. 

Within this model, The Door operates a robust Career and Education Services Department (CareerED), including general work-readiness training and 14 sector-based workforce programs aligned with high-demand industries such as construction, green jobs, healthcare, information technology, retail, culinary arts, theater production, and commercial driving. These programs combine technical training, industry-recognized credentials, paid internships, and job placement support, in partnership with institutions such as CUNY and leading employers. 

About the Youth Exploration & Career Navigation Hub 

In Fall 2026, The Door will launch NYC's first Youth Exploration & Career Navigation Hub (the Hub). The Hub addresses a longstanding citywide gap: while NYC has invested heavily in education, workforce, and youth services, the broader system remains fragmented, difficult to navigate, and not designed around how young people actually explore options, make decisions, and move forward over time. Over 106,000 young people ages 16 to 24 are disconnected from school and work in NYC, and there is currently no place where a young person can walk in and receive personalized exploration, navigation, and warm connections to best-fit opportunities citywide. 

The Hub is a welcoming, youth-centered space where young people walk in, get paired with a dedicated Citywide Career Navigator, explore their interests and goals through trust-based coaching, and receive warm referrals to best-fit education, training, and employment opportunities across NYC. Onsite, the Hub also offers a Career Exploration & Readiness Continuum: four immediate-entry, stackable pathways (immersive Virtual Reality career exploration with Transfr, a 9-session Career Readiness Certificate Program, the 6-week Transfr Trek cohort, and the 7-week Mesa Alumni Lab cohort) that allow young people to build skills, confidence, and clarity at their own pace. A defining feature of the Hub is its commitment to ongoing support and returnability: young people are never exited from the program, never rejected, and always welcomed back without stigma when a pathway does not work out. The Hub operates on a "No Eject, No Reject" philosophy. 

The Hub is youth-informed and co-designed. Its model was shaped by a comprehensive research and design process that included 8 youth focus groups engaging approximately 75 young adults across diverse NYC populations (foster care-involved youth, runaway and homeless youth, young people in GED programs, CTE seniors, and Eagle Academy alumni), nearly 50 interviews with cross-sector leaders, assessment of 9 national Youth Engagement Centers, and a literature review of 50 reports. Youth voice is not a one-time planning input; it is a core accountability mechanism. The Hub will operate a paid Youth Advisory Council that plays an active, ongoing role in shaping the Hub's design, implementation, and continuous improvement, including naming programs, co-designing curricula, participating in staff hiring panels, and providing ongoing feedback on participant experience. 

The Hub is explicitly external-facing and citywide. Unlike traditional onsite programs, the Hub's mission is to connect young people to best-fit opportunities anywhere in NYC, not just inside The Door. This requires strong cross-sector partnership building with workforce providers, community-based organizations, intermediaries, school networks, postsecondary institutions, public agencies, and employers across the city. The Hub is also closely aligned with the Pathway Gap Collaborative, a 75 organization cross-sector effort building shared infrastructure and tools to strengthen youth pathway navigation citywide, and the broader emerging collective impact effort to improve youth economic mobility across NYC. Every Hub team member is expected to actively build, sustain, and grow citywide partnerships in support of the young people they serve. 

Position Overview 

The Director of the Youth Exploration & Career Navigation Hub will provide strategic leadership, vision, and oversight for NYC's first Youth Exploration & Career Navigation Hub. 

This position is responsible for launching, managing, evaluating, and scaling an innovative citywide model designed to help young people explore career pathways, navigate opportunities, access employment, and connect to education and training programs throughout New York City. 

The Director will oversee all Hub operations, staff supervision, partnership development, program quality, fundraising support, outcomes achievement, and continuous improvement. The Director will also serve as a key ambassador for the model, representing The Door across citywide collaboratives, public agencies, workforce and education partners, philanthropy, employers, and other stakeholders. 

This role requires an entrepreneurial leader who is equally comfortable managing implementation details, building external partnerships, supporting staff, engaging funders, and helping shape broader systems-level solutions. 

Why This Role Matters 

The Director will help launch and lead a model with the potential to influence how New York City supports career exploration, navigation, and workforce pathway development for years to come. The work of this role will inform broader citywide and collective impact efforts, position The Door as a national leader in this space, and most importantly, change the experience of opportunity for tens of thousands of young people. 

Primary Responsibilities 

Strategic Leadership & Vision 

• Lead day-to-day operations and implementation of the Hub across all program components: 1:1 Citywide Career Navigation, the Career Exploration & Readiness Continuum, job placement services, and college advisement. 

• Ensure fidelity to the Hub's youth-centered, trauma-informed, and relationship-based model, including the "No Eject, No Reject" philosophy. 

• Develop and execute annual goals, work plans, and performance metrics. 

• Identify opportunities for innovation, scale, and continuous improvement. 

• Help position the Hub as a citywide model for career exploration and navigation. 

Staff Leadership & Supervision 

• Supervise the Assistant Director, Senior Citywide Career Navigators, Employment & Partnership Manager, and other staff as needed.   

• Foster a positive, collaborative, and mission-driven team culture. 

• Provide coaching, professional development, and performance management. 

• Establish and sustain a strong learning culture grounded in youth development best practices and trauma-informed care. 

• Ensure staff are equipped to provide high-quality services and build strong relationships with young people. 

External Partnerships & Ecosystem Building 

• Build, sustain, and grow citywide cross-sector partnerships with workforce providers, intermediaries, community-based organizations, school networks (including NYCPS District 79), CUNY, ACCES-VR, public agency partners (DYCD, SBS, ACS), employers, and funders. 

• Manage partnerships with the Hub's core implementation partners, including Transfr, Mesa Charter School, the Center for Fair Futures, WPTI, and Shared Lane. 

• Lead engagement with the Pathway Gap Collaborative and the emerging collective impact effort, ensuring the Hub contributes to and benefits from citywide infrastructure, tools, and field-level coordination. 

• Represent The Door in citywide initiatives, collaboratives, and strategic planning efforts. 

• Serve as a thought partner and resource to stakeholders interested in strengthening youth workforce pathways. 

Youth Voice & Program Quality 

• Lead Youth Advisory Council engagement, ensuring young people play an active, ongoing role in shaping the Hub's design, implementation, and continuous improvement. 

• Ensure the YAC plays an active role in staff hiring panels. 

• Regularly gather and utilize participant feedback to inform program design and operations. 

• Monitor service quality, participant experience, and outcomes in partnership with The Door's data and program evaluation team. 

Fundraising, Reporting & Sustainability 

• Support fundraising efforts, grant reporting, presentations, and funder engagement. 

• Monitor program outcomes and performance metrics; use data to drive continuous improvement. 

• Identify long-term sustainability opportunities, including public funding and systems partnerships. 

• Manage Hub program budgets in partnership with the finance department. 

• Help communicate impact and lessons learned to external stakeholders. 

Internal Coordination 

• Coordinate closely with The Door's broader Career and Education Services Department to ensure seamless service delivery, warm referrals, and integration with existing programs and supports. 

• Serve as part of The Door's leadership team, contributing to agency-wide priorities and decision-making. 

• Handle any appropriate responsibilities and functions assigned by supervisor. 

Additional Leadership Competencies 

Strategic Leadership 

• Able to translate vision into action. 

• Balances innovation with implementation. 

• Makes thoughtful decisions in complex and evolving environments. 

• Inspires others around a shared purpose. 

Partnership & Coalition Building 

• Builds strong relationships across sectors and stakeholder groups. 

• Navigates differing perspectives and competing priorities effectively. 

• Represents the organization with professionalism and credibility. 

• Understands the value of collective action and shared ownership. 

Coaching & Team Development 

• Invests in the growth and development of others. 

• Creates a culture of accountability, learning, and collaboration. 

• Provides clear expectations, constructive feedback, and support. 

• Leads with humility, empathy, and integrity. 

Qualifications 

Required 

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree preferred. 

• Minimum 7 years of progressively responsible leadership experience in workforce development, youth development, education, postsecondary success, social services, or related field. 

• Demonstrated success supervising staff, implementing new initiatives and managing programs 

• Demonstrated success in grant management and reaching performance metrics 

• Demonstrated success building and sustaining cross-sector partnerships; partnership building is a core requirement of the role. 

• Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills. 

• Commitment to authentic youth voice as a core accountability mechanism, not a one-time input. 

Preferred 

• Experience launching or scaling new initiatives in a startup or pilot environment. 

• Experience engaging employers and workforce partners. 

• Familiarity with NYC workforce, education, and youth-serving systems, including programs offered by DYCD, SBS, CUNY, and NYCPS. 

• Experience with public-private partnerships, collective impact initiatives, or systems-change efforts. 

• Deep commitment to youth voice, equity, and trauma-informed practice. 

• Experience working with young people navigating systemic barriers, including foster care involvement, court involvement, runaway and homeless youth, and others. 

• Proficiency using Microsoft Office and Salesforce or similar database systems. 

The Door is an Equal Opportunity Employer 

The Door is committed to building a diverse workforce and strongly encourages individuals with lived experience and those reflective of the communities we serve to apply. 

Salary : $100,000 - $110,000