A GRE and GMAT coaching business runs small batches with verbal and quant trainers and offers application counselling. Here is how to hire, grade and keep trainers and counsellors for students heading abroad.
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Share your requirementsA GRE and GMAT coaching business prepares students for tests used for admission to master's and MBA programmes abroad, with batches in verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and writing. Classes are small and often held on weekday evenings and weekends for working professionals and final-year students. The team includes verbal and quant trainers, writing evaluators, one-to-one tutors, application and profile counsellors, sales staff and operations people. Trainers often have taken the test themselves and score high. Clients are older and expect personal attention. See also HR for education. People work here is about keeping a few expert trainers, fairly sharing small batch income, checking writing evaluation quality and keeping counsellors honest about outcomes.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in GRE and GMAT coaching. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A batch of a few students barely covers a trainer, so pay and batch size are constantly argued over.
High-scoring trainers can earn more from private tutoring, so loyalty to one centre is weak.
Trainers work unsocial hours alongside other jobs, and cancellations and clashes follow.
Different evaluators give different feedback on the same essay, and students notice.
Students look at a trainer's test score before enrolling, and the centre cannot always show it.
Application guidance affects real admissions, and quality depends on the counsellor's knowledge.
Executives promise score gains or private sessions that trainers must then fit in.
Students book tests at different times, so batches start and end at irregular points.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for education, not in general.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a GRE and GMAT coaching business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A demo class, test score proof and student feedback, run under the recruitment process.
A demo class, test score proof and student feedback, run under the recruitment process.
A minimum per class, a rate by batch size and treatment of cancellations, kept with other HR documentation.
A minimum per class, a rate by batch size and treatment of cancellations, kept with other HR documentation.
A timetable that spreads unsocial hours fairly, using the attendance, shift and leave process.
A timetable that spreads unsocial hours fairly, using the attendance, shift and leave process.
A shared rubric and monthly marking of the same sample essays to align feedback.
A shared rubric and monthly marking of the same sample essays to align feedback.
What counsellors may and may not say about admissions chances, with review under the performance management process.
What counsellors may and may not say about admissions chances, with review under the performance management process.
A trainer or academic lead checks any promised gain or extra session before it is sold.
A trainer or academic lead checks any promised gain or extra session before it is sold.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Selection for teaching ability as well as test scores.
Clear pay terms for small and uneven batches.
Review of trainers, evaluators and counsellors.
Fair evening and weekend rotation.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in education, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Faculty, administrative and support staff leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it within the academic calendar.
7 min readRead article
Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
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How a D2C founder can test a performance marketing hire on real work, ignore weak signals such as dashboard screenshots, and run a fair process.
7 min readRead article
A practical design for an IT services appraisal cycle: when to run it, how to rate fairly across projects, and how to explain hikes so they hold.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Set a minimum per class and a rate that rises with batch size. Write in how cancelled classes are paid.
Offer fair pay, reliable hours, a role in curriculum or review and recognition. Agree notice and handover terms at hiring.
Use one rubric, calibrate evaluators on sample essays each month and spot check marked work.
They can describe the profile, options and past patterns generally but should not guarantee admission. Review calls to keep this honest.
Ask the academic lead to approve any promised score gain, sessions or support before it goes to the student.
Share evening and weekend loads fairly, publish the timetable early and allow swaps with notice.
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