Local Placement Manager

Local Placement Manager — Lisbon

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Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Duration: Full-time

Application Deadline: 20th August

Start Date: September 2026

The Role

Combine your business development expertise with a passion for international education as the Local Placement Manager for Lisbon. In this role, you will take full commercial ownership of building, managing, and sustaining a high-performing city placement ecosystem. At its heart, this role combines placement execution, business development, relationship management, and commercial ownership. You are the dedicated, full-year owner of Lisbon's placement delivery, responsible for consistently securing high-quality internship matches that align with program demand and student goals.

Reporting to Regional Placement Leadership, you will drive the front-end sales pipeline during the sourcing season and transition into a relationship manager to ensure outstanding, sustainable outcomes. During peak placement cycles, you will also direct and prioritize the work of a seasonal Internship Placement Coordinator to support administrative execution and student mock interviews, while you retain final decision-making power over employer partnerships.

Employer-Facing & Business Development Responsibilities:

- Own and Scale the Lisbon Network: Run targeted business development activities to acquire new host companies, expand corporate partnerships, and consistently hit city-level placement targets.

- Execute Sustained Outbound Activity: Drive cold outreach, physical networking, and lead generation campaigns to build a diverse pipeline of local corporate partners.

- Target Strategic and Global Opportunities: Map local office locations of global host companies, identify nationality-specific business communities in Lisbon, and share cross-regional leads with Regional Placement Leadership.

- Develop Low-Season Collaborations: Source and develop Remote Project Studio projects with new companies during off-peak cycles, building a separate pipeline of project-based partnerships distinct from traditional internship host companies.

- Nurture and Retain Corporate Partners: Strategically leverage off-peak cycles to re-engage previous employer partners, secure early forward volume commitments, and strengthen long-term retention.

- Maintain CRM and Data Integrity: Manage a highly accurate, conversion-focused CRM pipeline in HubSpot, including utilizing account relationship tagging to systematically track account health.

- Provide Market Intelligence: Spot local market trends, corporate demand signals, and commercial opportunities, sharing these insights with Regional Placement Leadership to guide broader strategies.

Student Placement & Relationship Responsibilities:

- Execute High-Quality Placement Matching: Manage the end-to-end matching process, pairing international students with host companies to maximize placement quality, student satisfaction, and conversion.

- Manage Quality Assurance: Maintain and protect strict host company quality standards to guarantee safe, rewarding work environments that align with Absolute Internship's global brand expectations.

- Prepare and Coach Students: Support student interview preparation and placement readiness, ensuring they are positioned to make an impact on day one.

- Direct Seasonal Support: Supervise, mentor, and prioritize the daily work of the seasonal Internship Placement Coordinator, delegating administrative tasks and mock interviews to a high standard.

- Support Visiting Groups: Assist in coordinating Custom Experiential Programs when visiting student cohorts arrive in Lisbon helping to organize itineraries, coordinate host company visits, or arrange local cultural activities.

- Resolve Placement Issues: Act as the primary local point of contact to resolve student or employer placement related friction points dynamically, managing and mitigating risk before challenges escalate.

- Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work closely with Student Experience, Operations, Program Delivery, and Regional Leadership to ensure a seamless, 360-degree journey for both students and employers.

Who You Are

- Commercial Mindset: 3+ years of experience in placement, recruitment, business development, sales, account management, or a comparable commercial environment with a proven track record of hitting targets.

- Resilient Hunter: Someone who is energized by building a network, highly comfortable with cold outreach, and disciplined with pipeline follow-ups.

- Relationship Builder: A natural networker who builds trust quickly, develops strong long-term partnerships, and balances commercial goals with an empathetic focus on student success.

- Bilingu