Assistant General Manager

Student Housing Operations at Scale

Student housing runs on a calendar that most conventional multifamily operators never deal with. Annual mass turnovers, bed-by-bed assignments, roommate dynamics, and a resident base that cycles out completely every one to four years. The Assistant General Manager role at Alight Fayetteville exists precisely because that complexity requires someone who can run day-to-day operations independently while still developing the judgment to step into the General Manager seat when needed.

The Scion Group operates student communities nationally, and this position sits at the center of everything that keeps Alight Fayetteville running. You're not focused on one functional area. You're moving between leasing metrics, delinquency management, facilities oversight, staff coaching, and resident escalations, sometimes all in the same afternoon. The role reports to the General Manager and is expected to carry full operational authority in their absence.

What This Role Actually Requires and What It Builds

On the requirements side, you need at least a year of hands-on experience in property management or a living community environment. Proficiency in a property management system matters here, and Entrata experience specifically will shorten your ramp time. Beyond software, the role demands genuine detail orientation around financial tasks: reconciling accounts receivable, posting damage charges, enforcing late fee and NSF policies, and keeping delinquency under 2% by month end. Those aren't background tasks. They're core to how student housing communities stay financially healthy.

The skills this role builds are equally worth noting. Managing the annual turnover process at a student property is one of the most logistically demanding events in all of multifamily. Coordinating move-outs, inspections, make-readies, and move-ins across hundreds of bed spaces in a compressed window sharpens operational planning instincts quickly. You'll also develop real fluency in KPI-driven performance management, weekly market surveys, concession budgeting, and local marketing execution. Those skills transfer directly to General Manager roles in student housing or conventional multifamily.

Staff leadership is a genuine component here, not a line item. You'll coach leasing and maintenance staff, manage on-call scheduling, and ensure Fair Housing compliance across the team. That supervisory experience is what separates candidates who are ready for this level from those who aren't quite there yet.

What strong candidates bring beyond the basics:

• Comfort owning financial outcomes, not just reporting on them
• Experience managing resident accounts through the full lifecycle: move-in through final billing
• The ability to shift between a sales conversation and a collections conversation in the same hour without losing composure
• An understanding that in student housing, the "customer" often includes parents, guarantors, and resident advisors simultaneously

This is a salaried, exempt position based on-site at Alight Fayetteville. Peak periods and on-call responsibilities are part of the job. The University of Arkansas student population keeps this market active, and the demand cycle here is predictable but intense around lease-up and turn seasons.