View Vacancy - Pro-consul (ROU19.022)

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Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Consular Roles)
Consular

The British Embassy in Romania is part of a worldwide network, representing British political, economic and consular interests overseas.

The Consular team at the British Embassy in Bucharest is looking to recruit a part time job share Pro Consul (A2) to join the team in February 2019 on a fixed term contract until 31 March 2020. The successful candidate will help the Consular team deliver effective and efficient consular assistance and services to British Nationals in Romania and contribute to the delivery of regional consular business plan and the country business plan.

As a part time job share Pro Consul, you will be based at the British Embassy Bucharest, working in a team of two, sharing the job with another A2 Pro Consul, reporting to the Vice Consul working remotely at the British Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. You will manage and deliver consular support to distressed British nationals throughout Romania, This means you will need to travel to visit British nationals in, for example, prisons and hospitals, across the two countries (very occasionally at short notice).

Bucharest is a post which has a fair share of notarial work, some complex mental health and child welfare cases and steady stream of Emergency Travel Document applications (ETDs). The number of UK visitors in Romania has been increasing in the last 2 years, mainly city tourism in Bucharest and Cluj Napocaand there are a number of British residents in Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Costanta and Brasov.

The Pro Consul, in close partnership with the other part time job sharePro Consul, is required to build relationships with key external stakeholders in local authorities (police, hospitals, prisons, court, social services) and the British community across the region to ensure we are in the best position to help British National visitors/residents in need of assistance when required. Both Pro Consuls are proactively planning, conducting and evaluating local outreach activities, in agreement with the Vice Consul, and participating in prevention campaigns related to music festivals and sporting events.

The candidate will be a resilient, quick-thinking individual, who can demonstrate empathy towards our most vulnerable customers, with good prioritisation skills and a strong sense of team work.

Main duties and responsibilities

Assistance

  • Lead on consular assistance to distressed British Nationals including visiting detainees and cases of hospitalisations, dealing with bereaved families, child custody issues, mental health, emergency travel documents, victims of crime and sexual violence, financial assistance and welfare in accordance with Consular guidance and with the advice of Vice Consul in Sofia and the Consular network;
  • Alerting the Vice Consul to any cases which may attract high level or media attention;
  • Handle enquiries and correspondence from consular customers and referring to Vice Consul as necessary;
  • Follow up enquiries and cases by phone, email or in person (including travelling to various locations in Romania, including out of hours/overnight in rare but necessary cases) and ensuring all engagement is properly recorded in line with the Data Protection Act, including unofficial translation work when required;
  • Assist in the monitoring and updating of digital customer information such as travel advice, social media and websites;
  • Monitoring changes in local procedures and practices and ensuring that our information and guidance for British nationals reflects any changes and is up to date;
  • Provide resilience and support with case handling to colleagues in the Balkans and Eastern Adriatic Consular region; cover remotely for other posts on a daily basis to cover absences, and possibly deploying to provide physical services if agreed with the Vice Consul;

Partnering & Lobbying

  • Support Vice Consul in preparing and delivering projects;
  • Assist with building relationships with local partners and helping in prevention campaigns to give advice to British Nationals travelling to and living in Romania;
  • Make recommendations to Vice Consul for innovative ways to deliver professional and targeted consular service to residents and visitors in Romania;

Notarial Work

  • Prepare paperwork for fee-bearing services;

Crisis

  • Prepare self and post for any possible large scale event affecting British Nationals;
  • Take part in Embassy crisis preparedness activity and local liaison;
  • Proactively work as part of the Romania consular team in any crisis situation and update the consular elements of the Crisis Management Plan;

Management

  • Submission of accurate Management Information data;
  • Contribute to Europe South Network regional work;
  • Budget monitoring and cashier duties;
  • A broad range of section administration, including filing/weeding, submission of returns to London responding to London requests for information and control of working stocks.
  • 2 years of relevant work experience in a customer facing role;
  • Experience in Customer Service;
  • Excellent command of spoken and written English and Romanian;
  • Proven experience in dealing with the general public and working in a team in a fast moving target-driven environment;
  • Excellent customer focus using problem solving and judgement skills to deliver results within set deadlines;
  • Strong service delivery awareness, adaptability, flexibility, patience and empathy;
  • Self starter with strong time management skills - able to work to deadlines and targets, manage a sometimes heavy workload and prioritise accordingly;
  • Superb attention to detail;
  • Ability to develop, manage and maintain contacts with internal and external stakeholders;
  • Positive, proactive attitude, ability to multitask and work in a team;
  • Good communication and influencing skills;
  • Excellent organisational and administrative skills;
  • Excellent IT skills (MS Office - Outlook, PowerPoint, Word and Excel);
  • Occasional travel and flexibility in working hours will be expected as on occasions out-of-hours assistance to British nationals may be required (overtime or time off in lieu is provided);
  • Availability, on occasion, to travel at short notice to provide consular assistance in Romania.
  • Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work accurately under pressure.
27 January 2019
Administrative Officer (AO)
Fixed Term, Part-Time, Temporary, Jobshare
23
12 months
Europe, Eastern Europe & Central Asia
Romania
Bucharest
British Embassy
1
RON
RON 2660 (Gross) (Salary is not negotiable) +530 (compensatory bonus)
25 February 2019

This is a fixed term/temporary part time job share position (23 hours net per week). Working hours are flexible and shift working is expected (morning and afternoon shifts from 9.00 to 14.00 or 11.00 to 17.00).

The annual leave entitlement is 25 days per year pro rata and the Embassy also enjoys a maximum of 14 Romanian / UK public holidays per year.

Monthly salary is 2660 RON gross. In addition, staff are entitled to a 13th month salary pro rata and may receive a performance related bonus at year end. Staff also receive meal vouchers and a monthly subscription to a medical centre. An individual personal development plan will be agreed with the successful candidate, which may include training outside Romania.

For your information whilst the Emergency Ordinance 79/2017 is in place the job holder will receive a gross monthly compensation bonus of RON 530.

The successful candidate will be subject to confirmation of a background check and security clearance, and satisfactory completion of a probationary period of 30 working days.

All applicants should have a pre-existing legal status to live and work in Romania. The British Embassy does not facilitate/sponsor visa applications and work permits. Staff recruited locally by the British Embassy are subject to terms and conditions service according to Romanian employment law.

Please be advised that Consular positions at the FCO entail dealing with casework in situations that may involve death, detention, rape, assault, post-mortems, prison visits and highly distressed customers. Candidates should therefore have a high level of resilience to trauma.

Please note that the deadline for applications is 23:55 on the day mentioned in the above field “Application deadline”. 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.

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

Please be advised that the British Embassy will not be able to meet the travel costs incurred when travelling to the interview, nor the costs connected with relocation if offered a position.

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.