Program Supervisors ensure high-quality educational experiences for students and supervise field instructors in curriculum, route planning, and risk management. Evaluate performance and recommend appropriate work levels for field faculty.

Key Logistical Points:

• Please upload your cover letter and resume as one PDF document when you are prompted to upload your CV/resume.

• Applicants need to hold the legal right to work in New Zealand (or be working holiday visa eligible) to be considered for this position

• Class 1 driver's licence with excellent driving record required. Must undertake and meet NOLS driver training requirements. Passenger endorsement and/or New Zealand Class 2 licence viewed favourably.

• Start Date: 1 September 2025

• Questions: Please contact peopleteam@nols.edu.

What does a Program Supervisor do?

This role is at our New Zealand campus and will be involved in the following activities:

• Facilitate growth-oriented briefings and debriefings for instructors and students.

• Ensure faculty understand NOLS Accepted Field Practices.

• Apply NOLS Field Instructor Skills in evaluating faculty performance.

• Write timely and appropriately thorough faculty evaluations.

• Organise and review all course related paperwork.

• Contribute to an environment that encourages field staff and students to feel relaxed, supported, and focused going into the field. 

• Work to create exceptional student and staff experiences. 

• Actively guide and mentor field staff in their professional development at NOLS.

• Assist in the management of field evacuations and in-town incidents as needed.

• Assume or assist with other projects supervised by the assistant director or director.

• May be required to act as a fill-in field instructor. Must be willing to gain and/or maintain active NOLS instructor status.

• Help maintain NOLS New Zealand’s local social media communications in conjunction with NOLS HQ.  

• Be an active member of NOLS New Zealand’s emergency and evacuation support team, including sharing the monitoring of our emergency phone.

• Facilitate challenging situations including student behavioural issues, injuries/illnesses, and staff performance concerns.

• Must be willing to work in both program and operations roles to ensure a high level of student service. Regularly assist with course transportation, general cleaning, outfitting, and vehicle preparation; occasionally assist with course rationing, meal preparation, and maintenance as necessary to maintain facilities and high calibre student/instructor service. 

• Actively contribute to a positive and healthy community living environment while striving to maintain balance between work and life. Must role model excellent in-town expedition behaviour. 

• Help NOLS foster a strong local presence in New Zealand.

Please note this list is not inclusive of all duties and responsibilities, but rather covers the more frequent tasks of the role.

In your first 6 months, you will: 

• Have gained a strong understanding of NOLS expeditions facilitated in NZ. 

• Support instructors and students who have gone out on expeditions from when they first arrive to when they graduate. 

• Worked closely within the NOLS NZ team to support expeditions running. 

What makes a great Program Supervisor at NOLS? 

We are looking for people who share our values and are keen to learn and develop their expertise. We are looking for candidates with the skills listed below. We expect to provide training and development support in some of the areas.

• Familiarity with and ability to support the NOLS mission and operations, and a commitment to serve our students. 

• A positive attitude, calm demeanour, and high degree of motivation, initiative, and organisational skills are required. 

• Interest and ability to become, or current active status as, a NOLS field instructor. 

• Must be able to work flexible and at times irregular hours, including some weekends and public holidays.

• A background in outdoor education, guiding, or instructing is essential, with particular competence in at least one of the following skill areas: hiking, sea kayaking, whitewater canoeing, mountaineering, keelboat sailing. NZOIA qualifications (or similar) highly regarded. 

How to Apply

It’s super easy! Just enter your email and click the “start your application” button at the top of the screen and upload your cover letter and resume as one PDF document when you are prompted to upload your CV/resume.

At NOLS we use the Applied platform for our recruitment. The Applied platform will ask you some demographic questions before you start your application. We at NOLS never see the responses to these demographic questions with your application. We only see summary statistics to help us check if our candidate pool is balanced and if everyone has an equal chance to get hired irrespective of their background. If you prefer, you can easily opt out of answering these questions.

Who is NOLS?

NOLS is a nonprofit global wilderness school that strives to be the leading source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve people and the environment. Our community—staff, students, trustees, and alumni—shares a commitment to wilderness, education, leadership, safety, community, and excellence. 

We believe that anyone can be a leader; it is our role to provide the environment and training to help people discover their full potential. We do that in classrooms close to home and in remote wilderness areas around the world. We are an organization with heart, expertise, and wildness, and these qualities help us support powerful, authentic experiences.

Why is NOLS a great place to work?

• We have locations in seven U.S. states, and six countries; and courses in all 50 U.S. states and over 10 countries.

• We have fantastic employee discounts on top outdoor gear brands

• We offer discounts on NOLS Courses for you and your family

• All employees can benefit of free outdoor equipment rental" at our various locations

• Insurance Coverage: Medical, dental, and vision benefits are available at a special NOLS rate to seasonal employees. Full-time employees are eligible for benefits package. 

• Wellness Time: Accrued leave that may be used for many HR-approved reasons throughout the season.

• Employee Assistance Program: Access to counselors that are available 24/7 to assist employees with work-life balance concerns.

Additional Information

Please note in order to ensure pay transparency and pay equity the range posted is non-negotiable. If you are unwilling to accept an offer within the posted range, please review our other opportunities to see if one better aligns with your salary expectations.

• A criminal background check is required from all NOLS employees.

• NOLS participates in e-verify for U.S. employees, Certificado de Antecedentes for Chilean or Mexican employees, and other relevant employment verification systems based on location.

• Current NOLS employees please note it is NOLS policy to conduct an internal reference check with People Team and/or your current supervisor as part of the reference check process. If you have any questions or concerns about this process please contact peopleteam@nols.edu.