View Vacancy - Consular Assistant, Goa (Consular Section, Goa-British Deputy High Commission, Mumbai)

Main purpose of job:

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a high-performing team making a real difference to people’s lives, often during times of real distress. The main purpose of the job is providing consular assistance to British nationals in Goa, including in times of crisis. We are committed to providing the highest levels of customer service.

Roles and responsibilities :

Consular Assistance:

• Handling a full range of assistance cases, including arrests, hospitalisations, deaths, victims of crime, welfare and mental health cases, etc, working to resolve cases, while delivering great customer service within consular policy guidelines. This will include meeting, assisting and guiding distressed British nationals; liaising with their families, casework teams in London, local authorities and stakeholders; updating consular casework systems with the latest information;
• Handling applications for Emergency Travel Documents (ETDs), from guiding customers over the phone, meeting them at the counter, all the way through to issuing the ETD and advising about the exit clearance process;
• Meet with members of the public across the counter, as well as over the phone and by email; handling the consular enquiries mailbox, responding to emails within customer service targets and maintaining statistics;
• Sharing the role of the Consular Duty Officer with the other team members, once the probationary period has been successfully cleared. This needs careful planning, and being on-call at least one in three weeks;
• Preparing weekly/monthly management information reports and statistics, we well as office management tasks as necessary.

Resource and Office Administration

• Completing all consular fee-related activity within deadlines;
• Managing the consular online appointments system and the Contact Hub; ensuring all Post Essential Information documents used by the Contact Centre and the Global Response Centre are updated regularly;
• Liaising with Corporate Services in Mumbai and local providers to manage estate related services;
• Managing the office facilities folder;
• Filing and registry management for consular files and post, both electronic and hard copies;
• Maintenance of the consular waiting room and public counter, ensuring the area is stocked with communications material and consular notices and responsibility for the public computer;
• Liaising with the IT team in Mumbai and London, as well as local providers regarding Goa IT issues as necessary.

Prevention, Communications and Networking

• Working with the team on Goa elements of the Preventive Communications Strategy;
• Active involvement in designing and distribution of key consular prevention messages and material;
• Building and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders across Goa and maintaining updated active contact lists for use in assistance work and crises;
• Administrative support and attendance at consular networking events (such as the annual consular reception) and outreach activity.

Crisis Planning and Response

• Contributing to updating consular annexes on the Crisis Management Plan bi-annually;
• Admin support and participation in all Goa-focussed crisis exercises;
• Learning the Crisis Hub and accessing/practicing monthly;
• Monthly charging and testing of all consular crisis equipment, grab bags, etc;
• Responding to crises in Goa and Western India, and the wider India/MENASA network as necessary, including obtaining, verifying and updating information through key contacts and field deployment.

Pan-India activities (June – September only)

• Taking on projects as required for the India network, including working on communications, service provider lists, contextual vulnerability assessments, etc;
• Travel to other Posts in the India network to support Consular teams as required (more likely from June to September)

• Graduate with at least two years relevant experience (candidates without the required academic qualifications but with exceptional practical experience will be considered)
• High proficiency in English language communication – both written and verbal
• High capability in MS Office applications, especially MS Outlook, Word and Excel
• Strong administrative skills
• Ability to adapt to immediate and long-term changes in priorities
• Good interpersonal and time management skills; a team player
• Ability to focus on deadlines with attention to detail and accuracy
• Minimum two years’ experience in a frontline customer service role; strong customers skills with the ability to focus on customer requirements.

Language requirements:

Language: English, Konkani, Hindi

Level of language required:

-          English – spoken and written fluency required

-          Konkani – spoken fluency required

-          Hindi – spoken fluency required