View Vacancy - ROK - ESS Market Advisor, EO

The British Government is an inclusive and diversity-friendly employer.  We value difference, promote equality and challenge discrimination, enhancing our organisational capability. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, colour, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status or other category protected by law. We promote family-friendly flexible working opportunities, where operational and security needs allow.
Department for International Trade roles (DIT)
Department for International Trade (DIT)

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE JOB:

The British Embassy Seoul is recruiting an ESS Exports Support Officer to join the Department for International Trade (DIT) team. The Export Support Service (ESS) programme is the UK’s Trade Support service team, ensuring the delivery of a quality service to small and medium-sized businesses looking to export to overseas.  

This position is an exciting opportunity for an outgoing, proactive, and creative individual to make an impact on the UK commercial relationships with South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. You will be working with the ESS Senior Market Advisor in South Korea to ensure local delivery of service to UK companies with export enquiries. You will provide advice for companies, working with them to understand their requirements, undertaking desk research, and supplying relevant market information. You will utilise a wide range of external sources of information and where relevant suggest local companies suitable for B2B meetings.

Trade Enquiry
You will be asked to cover a cross-section of sectors and types of enquiry and will need to be adaptable to this – providing credible advice to a range of companies. You will not be expected to be an expert in every sector, though may be asked to focus on F&B, consumer goods, and retails sectors often. 

ORN service providers
You will, with support from the Hub, manage the local Overseas Referral Network (ORN). The ORN is composed of service providers of follow up advice and expertise for UK businesses, such as legal firms, accountants, and consulting firms. Your role is to source potential service providers, meet with them, and monitor client satisfaction. 

Market Collateral
You will also manage South Korea's library of Market Information and Collateral. The library comprises of factsheets, sector reports, and treaties that aim to guide UK businesses looking to export to the market. Your role is to ensure the integrity of this important source of information and liaise with the Hub to ensure the smooth delivery of one-off enquiry service relating to materials found in this library. You will support Taiwan and Japan on their information libraries as required.

1. Account Management and Market Enquiry: (60%)

  • Increase the value of UK exports by being a point of contact for small and medium-sized businesses looking to export to the market, providing advice on gaining entry to South Korea. This requires knowledge and strong understanding of the South Korea market.
  • Working to the direction of Senior Market Advisor, provide guidance in identifying UK businesses’ route to market, assessing their market entry needs, and advising on options for making progress; This will at times will be via supporting ESS Korea market lead, and at other times being asked to be lead officer for some enquiries with ESS officer providing oversight.
  • Ensure export account management is followed and businesses are linked into the trade advisors' network in the UK(ITA Network);
  • Join UK facing market information and promotional events as opportunities arise with HQ, UK regions, and devolved authorities’ teams; and

2. Overseas Referral Network and External Partners (10%)

  • Recommend suitable options from the local Overseas Referral Network in South Korea to UK companies after ESS service provision, ensuring regular follow up to track service delivery and client satisfaction.
  • Be point of contact for Export to Japan (E2J) service delivery partners, tracking enquiries delivery and monitoring E2J performance against ESS KPIs. 

3. Market Collaterals library (10%)

  • Research and keep up to date various ‘off the shelf’ market information products. These may include overviews of key sectors of interest, as well as ‘how to’ guides relating to core aspects of exporting to South Korea. This will focus on South Korea but will also support Taiwan and Japan materials development as required. 

4. North East Asia Regional working (20%)

  • Develop methods for enquiry cross referral and opportunity sharing across all three North East Asia posts.
  • Support Taiwan and Japan in enquiry management and first response when Market advisors is out of office or others not available. This will not require Taiwan and Japan market expertise, but will support the office in managing customer enquiries, pipeline, and post-service feedback. This may involve travel to Taiwan and Japan at times. 

RESOURCES MANAGED (staff and expenditure):

  • N/A
  • At least 4 years’ experience in trade promotion or a market entry consulting job
  • Strong stakeholder management skills, comfortable dealing with senior officials and business people
  • Strong identification of client’s requirements and proactive problem-solving skills
  • Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
  • Working with regional and virtual teams
  • Strong skills in Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint
  • English and Korean language fluency required. Chinese and/or Japanese language skills will also be of benefit.

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS:

  • Language: English and Korean
  • Level of language required: (written and spoken) Highly Proficient



  • Familiarity with UK business and/or UK culture
  • Experience with working on projects in North East Asia
Changing and Improving, Managing a Quality Service, Delivering at Pace, Communicating and Influencing
31 January 2023
Executive Officer (EO)
Fixed Term
36
6 months
Asia Pacific
South Korea
Seoul
British Embassy
1
KRW
KRW 4,084,722
1 March 2023

LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES:

The British Embassy is committed to investing in L&D for its staff, and provides a range of L&D opportunities, from learning sets to speaker events, group learning to job shadowing opportunities, as well as an extensive suite of online learning materials. Where job-specific training is identified the British Embassy will provide access to appropriate courses.

WORKING PATTERNS:

The British Government is an inclusive and diversity-friendly employer. We value difference, promote equality and challenge discrimination, enhancing our organisational capability. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, colour, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status or other category protected by law.

While some evening work and travel overseas (which might include weekends) and within Korea is required, we promote family-friendly flexible working opportunities, where operational and security needs allow.

Normal working hours are Monday to Friday, 09:00 – 17:15 (17:00 on Fridays). However, occasional evening and weekend working may be required, for which time off in lieu is given. The British Embassy encourages flexible working and various flexible working arrangements are possible with line manager agreement, including working from home


Kindly note that your application must be submitted before 23:55 on the day mentioned in the above field “Application deadline”.

Please be aware that the deadline for submitting applications is considered to be the time zone for the country where the vacancy has arisen.

We advise you to allow enough time to complete and submit your full application since only applications completed and submitted before the deadline will be considered.  Applicants called for an interview will be assessed on the core behaviours listed above.

All applicants are required to mandatorily fill the online application form completely including the employment and educational details, experience, professional skills and behaviour-based questions. We will be thoroughly reviewing the applications and incomplete form in any respect may not be considered while shortlisting for the next stage.
 
Only shortlisted candidates for interview will be contacted. Interviewees will be assessed on the core behaviours/qualifications listed above. Unsuccessful candidates will be notified via the system in due time. Appointable candidates who were unsuccessful may be placed on a ‘reserve list’.  If during the reserve period of 6 months the same or a largely similar role becomes available, that role may be offered to the second or subsequent candidate”.

For inclusivity and diversity, please remove the following personal information when uploading your CV: name, address, email address, age, date of birth, gender, and nationality.

The start date mentioned in the job advert is a tentative start date. Any offer of employment will be subject to the candidate achieving suitable clearances.

British Embassy Seoul is committed to diversity and inclusion, and we encourage enquiries and applications from under-represented groups. If you would like to speak to someone at the Embassy who is not directly involved in the recruitment process about diversity and inclusion, please enquire to APAC Recruitment <APAC.Recruitment@fcdo.gov.uk>.   

Please be aware that you will only be able to apply to vacancies for Country Based Staff roles with the British Government through this official tal.net site (operated by Oleeo). Jobs may be advertised on third party websites, however our adverts will always link back to the official tal.net site. If you complete and send an application through any other site, we will not receive it.

This opportunity is closed to applications.