View Vacancy - BK - Entry Clearance Assistant, A2 (Internal Vacancy)

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Other British Government Departments (Partners across Government, including UK Visas)
UKVI (UK Visas and Immigration)

In June 2018 UKVI will complete its consolidation of South East Asia visa-decision-making into UKVI Sheffield and UKVI New Delhi.

Following the move of visa-decision-making to New Delhi in June 2018, UKVI will maintain a small support team in Bangkok. Led by a B3L Thailand Country Manager, a team of 5 will be established, including 4 new Entry Clearance Assistant posts. The A2L ECA jobs will support UKVI by delivering:

  • Visa writing (remote-printing) all SPV and PV applications made in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Cambodia.
  • Document verification, enrichment and interview capacity for Thailand (and resources allowing for Cambodia, Laos and Burma and Vietnam).
  • Delivering UKVI’s partnerships with FCO, British Council, Thai MFA and FCO colleagues in Laos, Burma and Cambodia to ensure UKVI’s work is fully understood by relevant partners.
  • Delivering customer outreach presentations to support customer growth: in particular for education and business sectors in partnership with British Council, UKVI and Embassy colleagues
  • Delivering a close working relationship with VFS-Global in Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia to support VFS’ VACs deliver all relevant customer service expectations.
  • Handling all relevant correspondence, face-to-face callers, telephone and email enquiries to / from customers and corporate partners.
  • Other A2L level duties, including office administration, to support the smooth running of the UKVI operation in Bangkok.

The role of the 4 Entry Clearance Assistants is to be part of flexible, joined-up and multi-skilled team that delivers UKVI’s core operations in Bangkok on a day-to-day basis. Daily tasking will come from the B3L manager and the job holder will report to the B3L - and be countersigned by an ECM in New Delhi.

The job holder’s primary role will be to work within the flexible team, under the supervision of the B3 and ECM to ensure that 100% of each day’s visa writing caseload in Bangkok is printed and dispatched to VFS within UKVI’s customer service standards.

In addition to visa writing, the ECA roles will also be responsible for supporting the B3L manager to deliver all UKVI’s other priorities; in particular document verification & interviews, corporate messaging, outreach presentations, customer correspondence and office administration.

Essential to the role will be your ability to flex your workloads and help balance all the competing operational demands throughout UKVI’s peak and low seasons, as well as on a day-to-day basis.  

Good communication skills in Thai and English will be needed as the team will be a bridge between stakeholders in South East Asia and UKVI in Sheffield and New Delhi.

The job holder will be exposed to a wide range of UKVI and FCO business and will absorb parts of the current work objectives of the Visa Writing, Workflow, Customer, Office Manager and Enrichment team ECA functions.

In support of the B3L manager you will be representing UKVI and will thus be exposed to unique issues, giving the job holder excellent development opportunities as the job combines operational delivery, stakeholder engagement and customer service. 

This job will be based in the current British embassy compound and is planned to move with the rest of the embassy in 2019 to the new premises in Sathon.

This is a permanent job but UKVI’s strategic direction is changing and there is a long-term goal to become digital by default, handle more of our workload on-line, to introduce e-visas and remove the need for vignette printing. The pace of change is currently unknown but the job holder will need to be aware that changes in the future will have clear implications for this job. Please speak with Robin Humphris if you have any questions about the future of this role.

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • Deliver highly effective remote-printing visa writing operations in Bangkok for SPV and PV decisions made in Sheffield and New Delhi for customers based in Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia.
  • Deliver enrichment activity to ensure all enrichment checks and interviews are delivered within agreed priorities and customer service-standards.
  • Work with FCO’s Communication Team to support UKVI corporate messaging.
  • Support the B3L manager deliver a “gateway” between VFS and UKVI to support the lead ECM ensure all relevant Visa Application Centres meet UKVI’s customer Service standards.
  • To establish and maintain a good working relationship relationship with the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver the smooth running of UKVI’s official expedite system for Thai diplomats and officials travelling on official business.
  • To establish and maintain a good working relationship with the British Council to promote UKVI’s Prosperity priorities by delivering student outreach activities and acting as a gateway to UKVI for the British Council for priority enquiries.
  • To work within a flexible and multi-skilled team to help deliver all UKVI’s operational priorities under the management of the B3L manager.
  • Other A2L level duties to support the smooth running of the UKVI operation in Bangkok.
  • Fluent command of Thai (written and spoken) and good command of English (written and spoken). Formal qualifications are not needed.
  • Recent UKVI experience
  • Good communication and people-friendly interpersonal skills
  • The ability to work in close partnership with internal and external stakeholders
  • The ability to take personal responsibility for operational delivery, learn new skills and flex resources, tasks and activity according to ever-changing demands
  • Excellent computer skills (MS Office, accessing databases & web based applications)
  • The ability to work in a small team and work under pressure to meet challenging targets
  • A positive can do attitude, with attention to detail
  • Experience of Visa Writing 
28 January 2018
Administrative Officer (AO)
Full-time
36
Asia Pacific
Thailand
Bangkok
British Embassy
4
THB
37, 102
2 July 2018

The British Embassy offers a competitive remuneration package, including salary (will be abated for those not liable to tax), benefits, a leave entitlement, Health Insurance and comprehensive development programme based upon business need and individual staff requirements. 

Employment offers are subject to successful clearance of pre-employment and security checks. Staff who are locally recruited by the British Embassy are subject to Terms and Conditions of Service according to local employment law.

No accommodation or relocation expenses are payable in connection with this position. You must have or be able to obtain work authorisation in Thailand in order to apply. Any costs related to obtaining or renewing permits and visas are the responsibility of the successful applicant.

This vacancy is for British Embassy Bangkok internal candidates (only UKVI staff under notice of compulsary redundancy)

All applications must be received before 23:55 on  28 January 2018.

Incomplete application forms will not be taken into consideration, so please ensure you provide the information request. We regret to advise that we will only be contacting short-listed candidates. Applicants called for an interview will be assessed on the core competencies listed above.

Interviews for this position will commence during the week of 12 February 2018.


Reminder for existing Embassy staff who will be interested to apply:

Along with the completed online application form, candidates should upload their last two years End of Year Appraisals if applicable. If applicants have been employed for less than twelve months, they will need to provide permission from their Head of Section to apply and should attach this to their application. 

Guidance on completing competency based application forms and sitting Interviews can be found on the BE Website and also on the Civil Service Learning portal, Virtual Ashridge portal and Goodpractice.net (both accessed through the CSL). Staff are strongly advised to refer to these. 

We recommend all applicants to understand the Civil Service competences before applying for any role and in preparation for interviews. For more information, you can visit our website - https://www.gov.uk/government/world/organisations/british-embassy-bangkok/about/recruitment. 

Please check your application centre regularly for any update on your application 

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.