Pre Counselling Advisor

What This Role Is

The moment a student decides they might want to study abroad is not the moment they're ready for a counselor. It's earlier — and quieter — than that. It's the moment a classmate got into a UK university and something clicked, or their family started asking questions they couldn't answer, or they looked at a programme abroad and thought: maybe. At that moment, they don't need a full counseling session. They need a conversation that makes the decision feel less overwhelming. One that helps them understand what the path actually looks like, what they'd need, and whether this is genuinely for them.

That conversation is what you own.

The students who reach Cialfo have already expressed interest — they've registered, enquired, or been referred through one of 2,000+ partner schools globally. But interest is not momentum. The gap between someone who is curious and someone who is genuinely moving requires a specific kind of engagement: outbound, well-timed, and human. You are often the first real voice these students hear from Cialfo. You shape whether the process feels accessible or overwhelming, whether the platform feels relevant or irrelevant, and whether a student moves forward or quietly drops off.

Cialfo is the world's leading AI-powered college counseling platform. Saige, our AI layer, helps students identify the right study options. But platforms don't build belief in a student who hasn't committed yet. You do. Your role is to take a student from curious to ready — ready to go deeper with a counselor, ready to take the process seriously, ready to act.

What Makes This Role Different

Most telecalling roles in the education sector are built for volume — a script, a quota, and a commission model that has no stake in whether the placement was right. This role is built differently. The students you are calling already have some context: they have come through Cialfo's platform, been referred by a school counselor, or engaged with Cialfo content. You are not cold-calling strangers. You are having a first meaningful conversation with someone who is already partway through a door, and your job is to help them see what's on the other side.

The broader overseas education industry is contracting. Cialfo is growing. That contrast matters here because it means the students in your pipeline are looking for something that transactional agencies and generic counseling services cannot reliably offer: depth, credibility, and an AI layer that makes the guidance sharper. Across the Manifest ecosystem — Cialfo's 2,000+ school network, BridgeU's international school footprint, and Explore's partnerships with 1,000+ universities in 100+ countries — you carry a product story and proof base that no standalone advisor can match.

What You Own

The outbound pipeline

• Own first-contact calls with prospective students who have expressed interest in studying internationally, ensuring every lead is reached promptly and receives a genuine, substantive first conversation
• Build and manage a consistent follow-up cadence across your assigned lead pool, keeping students engaged through the pre-counseling phase without letting momentum slip
• Drive progression from initial interest to active student status — the point at which a student is ready for deeper counselor engagement

Student needs assessment

• Lead structured conversations with prospective students to understand their academic background, destination preferences, programme interests, timeline, and family context
• Identify the right next step for each student — whether that is a specific program shortlist, a further consultation, or an event — based on what you learn in the call, not what is easiest to recommend
• Recognise students who are not yet ready and maintain appropriate engagement so they do not drop out of the pipeline before their moment arrives

CRM and pipeline integrity

• Maintain accurate, complete records of every student interaction in Cialfo's CRM so the counseling team always has a clear, current view of each student's status and needs
• Document recurring questions, objections, and patterns from your calls to help the team sharpen how it engages the next cohort

What Success Looks Like

The markers below reflect where this function is today. We'll calibrate the specifics once you're in the seat. These are directional, not fixed.

In the first few weeks, success looks like deep listening. You are absorbing the student landscape — the profiles coming through, the questions that repeat, the destinations that dominate — and building a real feel for what a student at this stage actually needs versus what they say they need. You are also getting fluent enough with the Cialfo platform and the study abroad context to be genuinely useful on a call within your first month.

By your third month, you are running calls with consistency and confidence. Your lead pool is active. Students who speak with you are better oriented than they were before the call. Your follow-up is reliable, your CRM is clean, and the counselors receiving your handoffs have what they need to continue the conversation without starting over.

At twelve months, you understand the patterns — which student profiles progress quickly, which conversations stall and why, which destinations and concerns come up again and again — and you are actively contributing to how the team improves. The students who moved through your pipeline are the proof that the pre-counseling function does something real. The specifics will be calibrated once you're in the role. The direction won't change.

What You Bring

You have at least two years of experience in the study abroad industry, specifically in a telecalling or outreach function. That means you know what a real student conversation sounds like — not the version in a training module, but the one where a parent gets on the line halfway through, or a student is clearly interested but cannot articulate why. You have navigated both. You know how to hold the thread.

You have a working knowledge of international study destinations — the UK, Australia, Canada, the US — at the level that makes you genuinely useful in a first conversation. You do not need to know every university's entry requirements by heart. You need to know enough to make a student feel less lost than they were before they picked up the phone, and to recognise when a question needs to go to a counselor rather than be answered on the spot.

You are organised in the way this role demands. You track your own follow-up. You do not let leads go cold because you lost track of timing. You use the CRM as a tool, not a chore — because you understand that a missed follow-up is a student who loses trust in the process before it has really started.

You are coachable. The study abroad landscape shifts — visa rules, intake cycles, destination preferences — and the advisors who stay sharp are the ones who update their knowledge consistently and take feedback without defensiveness. You have two-plus years of real experience, which means you have earned opinions. You also know that the best of those opinions are the ones you are willing to test.

Most importantly, you read the description of what Cialfo is building and your first reaction was: I know how to have this conversation, and I want to be the person who makes a student's first step feel like a beginning, not a maze. That's the person this role is for.

Why Manifest

Manifest Global is building the infrastructure for global human capital mobility — connecting students, schools, universities, and employers across 50+ countries. Our portfolio spans Cialfo (AI-powered college counseling, 2,000+ schools), BridgeU (university guidance for international schools globally), Kaaiser (trusted study abroad counseling since 1997 across India and Southeast Asia), and Explore (AI-powered university outreach, 1,000+ university partners). Together, we move talent across borders at scale. $700B flows annually in remittances from migrant workers. 85M workers will be missing from developed economies by 2030. We're building the operating system which changes that. $80M raised. Still early.

For this role specifically, the pre-counseling function is the top of the funnel that everything else depends on. Every student who moves from curious to committed, from enquiry to application, started with a conversation. This role is that conversation. The students you engage today are the enrolments, the data points, and the school referrals that make the Cialfo flywheel turn. The work is closer to the mission than the title suggests.

Cialfo is part of Manifest Global — a multi-brand group building the infrastructure for global human capital mobility, operating across 50+ countries.

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