Emily McCorkle

As the Director of Recruitment & Retention in the Pamplin College of Business, Emily McCorkle works hard to build strong bonds with her students and employees and to help them find personal and professional success during their time as students here at Virginia Tech.

Emily graduated Virginia Tech Class of 2011 with a degree in Marketing Management and a minor in Business Leadership. After graduation, she worked as a staffing recruiter in Roanoke before returning to Pamplin as Associate Director of Recruitment in 2012. Over the past 6 years, she has celebrated numerous achievements, including her promotion to Director of Recruitment & Retention this past November.

Within this role, she does all recruitment for incoming freshmen and transfers, manages diversity initiatives, and works on enrollment management analysis. She also manages the PUMP mentorship program, created a retention program with the Freshmen Merit Scholars, and is working on establishing a tutoring program for introductory business core courses.

She loves getting to learn the ins and outs of the education system, but is especially proud of how her role creates real, positive change for her alma mater. “Being able to come back and help shape the college, shape the students, and graduate students who are successful, have great careers, and who have the same great experiences that I had as a student…that’s what I love the most about my job.”

At its core, she sees great leadership as having a responsibility to serve the people one leads. “Leadership is helping develop others and reach their potential…helping them reach their goals.” She likes to work with her students and employees to find out “what personal goals they have and what professional goals they have, because you can’t achieve professional goals if you aren’t achieving personal goals at the same time.”

“Being a leader is really understanding the goals of your team, being able to step in when your team needs you, and really supporting them in all aspects of their life. What I try to do is to dig deep into what their personal goals are and what their career aspirations are, because I don’t want to just be here to check the box… I want to know what they want to accomplish and help them be successful in their goals and aspirations.”

Post written by Mary Callihan, President Pamplin Leadership Development Team