Career Opportunities at British Council Nigeria [3 positions]

The British Council is the world’s leading cultural relations organization and creates opportunities for people in the UK and worldwide to understand each other, to work together and learn from one another. We see this as crucial to building secure, more prosperous and sustainable futures for us all. We build trust and understanding between different countries and cultures and develop strong international links that are of benefit to people in Britain and the rest of the world.

We are recruiting to fill the following positions below:

Job Title: Digital and Social Media Manager
Location: Lagos

Purpose of Job

• The Digital and Social Media Manager will be responsible for developing and delivering high quality content across social media channels for the relevant Strategic Business Unit – Exams & Programmes.
• The content will be delivered through close liaison with teams in question.
• The post holders will be proactive and creative, working collaboratively with colleagues to define and implement digital strategies, plans and campaigns for the Business Units.

British Council Operating Context
Current:

• Nigeria is one of the largest economies in Africa. It is also the most populous country with over 180 million citizens. The UK is its largest trading partner. Nigeria holds significant political power in the region and internationally and its society retains a positive attitude to the UK.
• Therefore, there continue to be major opportunities for the UK and BC to build on our strong existing relationships with the Nigerian government, institutions and customers/audiences. However, there are complex and substantial risks to this work i.e. security and compliance.
• Nigeria is the British Council’s largest operation in sub-Saharan Africa with offices in 4 cities – Port Harcourt in the south, Kano in the north, Abuja the Federal capital and Lagos the commercial centre. We also have a number of project offices across the country.
• Our 200 staff work across a range of states delivering large scale contracts, partnership programmes, examinations, projects as well as services in Arts, Education & Society and English & Exams. We are already achieving substantial impact and income (current annual income is £27.2 million) and have plans to grow and develop our impact further.
• Partners and clients include government, public and private institutions, foundations, private sector organisations and civil society. We work closely with the wider UK mission including DFID and UKTI.
• Nigeria has the largest exams operations in SSA.  There are currently over 40 members in the exams team.  Nigeria examinations work encompasses Schools exams via our partnership with Cambridge International Education (CIE), IELTS (International English Language Testing System), and a wide range of academic and professional qualifications.  Last year, we delivered 90,000 exams on a turnover of £8.2m.
• This financial year, there are growth targets to achieve income of £9.2m.  Customer service, operational quality and compliance are critical to the business.  Developing flexible and appropriate delivery models is vital in responding to the challenges working across the country.

Future:

• 42% of Nigeria’s population is under 14. The government has recognised that its Vision 2020 must address the aspirations of this young population as part of its drive to achieve peace and prosperity. This has led to unprecedented interest and investment in Education, the Arts and good governance.
• This alignment with the UK’s priorities creates a growth environment for the British Council. To be successful in this, we are building understanding with our UK stakeholders of Nigeria as an emerging economy with substantial commercial and development opportunities as well as the challenges they may be more familiar with. In this we seek to integrate our approach with that of the wider UK mission.
• We are expanding and scaling up our existing programmes, contracts and services in the Arts, Education & Society, English & Examinations and developing offers to fill important gaps such as in Skills.
• We are also working to ensure that we have a good balance of partnership, customer services and client funded work across all these sectors. To do all this we need to create the right enabling environment. In addition to developing the professional and technical expertise of our staff, we need to support them to build their relationships within Nigeria, the region and the wider global network.
• This will ensure we develop as well as adopt and use best practice. We also need rigorous and compliant frameworks to support our work in areas such as finance, tax & status, security, procurement, compliance and quality management.
• We have new premises in Kano and have a major premises project under development in Abuja. However, there is still more work to be done, especially in Lagos and Port Harcourt to ensure our premises and technology support our brand reputation for integrity, innovation and professionalism.

Accountabilities, Responsibilities and Main Duties
Digital Communications and Social Media:

• Working with all teams, to develop, implement and maintain an imaginative and comprehensive social media presence for selected projects using a wide variety of tools, setting ambitious targets and monitoring success.
• Develop and execute plans to increase page views, unique visitors, dwell time and site ‘stickiness’ to encourage repeat usage.
• Working with relevant people within teams in the SBU in order to actively contribute to developing and delivering British Council Nigeria’s ‘overarching’ online presence, enhancing our external profile.
• To embed these strategies within the culture of the operation and actively support colleagues in using a wide variety of appropriate tools.

Identifying and developing engaging online campaigns:

• Identify and execute engaging online creative directions for British Council’s projects and examination services that will enhance the council’s online presence and drive online engagement metric objectives as identified.
• Monitor and identify trends in Nigeria social media, market intelligence and insight  to support effective strategies, plans and audience reach
• Identify, build relationships and pro-actively engage with influential bloggers, journalists and on-line commentators and media agencies relevant to our work

Website Management:

• Working with local and regional digital team to edit and create new content for the relevant British Council’s country pages on the country website with the aim of increasing interactive engagement and audience reach.

Tracking, analysis and reporting media coverage:

• Compile monthly reports detailing broadcast, tracking mentions , trends/engagement levels with analysis of data to inform future online presence and approach
• Provide corporate returns as required on our social media / digital reach, channels, audiences and digital engagement figures

Internal Communications:

• Raise profile of relevant British Council Nigeria SBU internally through working with project teams through consistent reporting of BC Nigeria activity on regional intranet, bulletin and other internal media, updating events calendar, information on directorate, office information

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion:

• Ensure that planning, delivery and implementation of managed projects are executed in line with British Council EDI standards

Continuous Professional Development:

• Engage in professional networks and continuous professional development to ensure that knowledge and expertise are kept updated.

Key Relationships

• Local communication team
• Relevant key colleagues in the SBUs
• Regional and UK Digital teams
• Suppliers including marketing, communications, PR and events management
• Key partners and customer groups

Other important features or requirements of the Job
The post holder will be expected to travel within Nigeria. As with any business that experiences peaks and troughs of activity, there is likely to be a need to work outside office hours from time to time. Occasional attendance at events during evenings and weekends.

Person Specification
Essential:

Behaviours assessed during interview stage of recruitment process

• Making it happen (more demanding): Challenging myself and others to deliver and measure better results
• Creating shared purpose (more demanding): Communicating an engaging picture of how we can work together
• Working together (essential): Establishing a genuinely common goal with others
• Being accountable(more demanding): Putting the needs of the team or British Council ahead of my own

Behaviours not assessed during recruitment process

• Connecting with others (essential): Making regular opportunities to understand others better
• Shaping the future (essential): Looking for ways in which we can do things better

Skills and Knowledge:

• Communicating & Influencing Level 3
• Using technology – Level 3
• Managing Projects – Level 3
• Analysing Data & Problems – Level 3

Experience

• At least two years’ experience in similar role (covering key elements of this job)
• Proven success in application of social media for business use

Desirable:

• Web site management
• Graphic design skills

Qualifications

• University degree

Desirable:

• University degree in related area and/or post-graduate courses in areas of Marketing, Digital or Social Media

Application Closing Date
14th October, 2016 (23:59 UK time)

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download job details (pdf)

Click here to download BC Behaviour (pdf)

 

 

Job Title: Head of Examinations Business Development, Nigeria   
Location: Lagos

Purpose of Job

• To support Examination Services in Nigeria in expanding markets for examinations and related programme activity in order drive income growth targets and enhance service offering across exam products.
• To develop and promote the value of the exams offering to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop and execute a clear partner management strategy and work closely with colleagues across British Council Nigeria.

British Council Operating Context

Current
Nigeria is one of the largest economies in Africa. It is also the most populous country with over 180 million citizens. The UK is its largest trading partner. Nigeria holds significant political power in the region and internationally and its society retains a positive attitude to the UK. Therefore, there continue to be major opportunities for the UK and BC to build on our strong existing relationships with the Nigerian government, institutions and customers/audiences. However, there are complex and substantial risks to this work i.e. security and compliance.

Nigeria is the British Council’s largest operation in sub-Saharan Africa with offices in 4 cities – Port Harcourt in the south, Kano in the north, Abuja the Federal capital and Lagos the commercial centre. We also have a number of project offices across the country. Our 200 staff work across a range of states delivering large scale contracts, partnership programmes, examinations, projects as well as services in Arts, Education & Society and English & Exams. We are already achieving substantial impact and income (current annual income is £27.2 million) and have plans to grow and develop our impact further. Partners and clients include government, public and private institutions, foundations, private sector organisations and civil society. We work closely with the wider UK mission including DFID and UKTI.

Future
42% of Nigeria’s population is under 14. The government has recognised that its Vision 2020 must address the aspirations of this young population as part of its drive to achieve peace and prosperity. This has led to unprecedented interest and investment in Education, the Arts and good governance. This alignment with the UK’s priorities creates a growth environment for the British Council. To be successful in this, we are building understanding with our UK stakeholders of Nigeria as an emerging economy with substantial commercial and development opportunities as well as the challenges they may be more familiar with. In this we seek to integrate our approach with that of the wider UK mission.

We are expanding and scaling up our existing programmes, contracts and services in the Arts, Education & Society, English & Examinations and developing offers to fill important gaps such as in Skills. We are also working to ensure that we have a good balance of partnership, customer services and client funded work across all these sectors. To do all this we need to create the right enabling environment. In addition to developing the professional and technical expertise of our staff, we need to support them to build their relationships within Nigeria, the region and the wider global network. This will ensure we develop as well as adopt and use best practice.

We also need rigorous and compliant frameworks to support our work in areas such as finance, tax & status, security, procurement, compliance and quality management. We have new premises in Kano and have a major premises project under development in Abuja. However, there is still more work to be done, especially in Lagos and Port Harcourt to ensure our premises and technology support our brand reputation for integrity, innovation and professionalism..

The Exams business in Nigeria has grown significantly in recent years. We doubled our income and volumes between 2011 and 2013. In 2014/15 we delivered 90,000 examinations, this financial year the target is 100,000 exams on a turnover of £8.5m.  Nigeria examinations work encompasses School exams, IELTS, and a wide range of academic and professional qualifications.

Customer service, operational quality and compliance assurance are critical to the business.  Nigeria’s operating context means that risk management and contingency planning will be ongoing areas of focus. Developing flexible and appropriate delivery models will be critical in responding to the challenges of working across the country. There are a number of initiatives underway to address these needs.  The Global New Operating Model for Exams (GNOME) and Global Financial Change projects are critical to our business plans.

The Head of Business Development role is a new role and the post holder will have the opportunity to help shape the role and business development team. The post holder will also have a working relationship with the new Marketing Manager and Digital Manager roles based in the Exams team.

Accountabilities, Responsibilities and Main Duties
Business Development and Marketing:

• Business Growth – to develop and support country business growth strategy with Country Examinations Manager.
• To increase the number of examinations across Nigeria.  To identify new markets, customers and channels of promotion
• To research, plan and conduct a number of promotional events – physical, digital and print to drive growth targets
• To collect and analyse qualitative marketing data in order to contribute to market strategy and support business development
• Seek and use customer feedback to identify promotion channels, and new market opportunities
• Identify opportunities to maximise sales to existing customer groups
• Work closely with the product managers across Schools, IELTS and professional/university exams to identify new opportunities and manage new/existing external partners
• Manage a database of clients/customers and create and manage a strategy for its use
• Work with colleagues across Nigeria British Council in other SBUs to identify and devise joint promotional and partner events.  Help build external profile of examinations business with universities, government, corporations and other relevant external bodies.
• Monitor market intelligence within the industry in terms of market development, new products, competitive activity, new customers, etc.

Budget Management:

• Assist Country Examinations Manager and Director of Communications in planning activity and then to assist on monitoring income and expenditure to agreed targets

Team Management and Leadership:

• Serve as member of Senior Leadership Team
• Represent Country Exams Manager
• To contribute to Nigeria Exams team objectives by attending and contributing to staff meeting and working groups
• Engage in successful relationship building within the organisation matrix and externally
• Formulate and implement business development strategy for Exams across all product lines.

Staff Performance Management and Continuous Professional Development:

• Recognise learning gaps and address these with training, coaching or shadowing and address performance issues quickly, effectively and in line with HR policy.
• Ensure the continual professional development of staff by putting development plans in place and offering quality induction, training and coaching required
• Ensure that own professional development and training is continued

Key Relationships
This list is not exclusive but demonstrates that the range of internal relationships reflects the range of external ones.
Key internal relationships include:

• Nigeria Senior Leadership Team
• Examinations Managers
• SBU leads
• Examinations Services staff
• Director of Marketing and Communications
• Director of Research
• Regional Exams Team

Key external relationships include:

• Exams Board representatives in the UK and SSA region;
• Staff from DFID, FCO
• Senior staff from educational institutions
• Professional Bodies
• Cambridge International Education
• Venue staff
• Enquirers
• Candidates
• Global and regional SBU external stakeholders

Other important features or Requirements of the Job
(e.g. travel, unsocial/evening hours, restrictions on employment etc)
Travel across Nigeria will be required. Lead on events in areas outside of Abuja/Lagos is required, therefore, out of hours working including overnight and weekend stays is required.

Person Specification
Essential:

• Working together (more demanding)
• Making it happen (more demanding)
• Shaping the future (more demanding)
• Creating shared purpose (more demanding)
• Connecting with others (more demanding)
• Being Accountable (more demanding)

Skills and Knowledge

• Developing Business – Level 4
• Using Technology – Level 3
• Communicating and Influencing – Level 4
• Managing Accounts and Partnerships – Level 4 (Stakeholder Management)
• Analysing data and problems- Level 3
• Effective Presentation skills.
• Negotiating and Influencing
• English Language proficiency to IELTS band 8.0 in all areas (or equivalent).

Experience

• A minimum of Five years of proven experience in a similar role within an educational context (or corporate sector, public/NGO)
• Demonstrates ability to understand scope of academic systems in accordance with quality assurance standards.
• Demonstrable experience of sustaining/and or growing a product/service to meet income and impact targets.
• Demonstrated experience managing relationships with external clients, partners and stakeholders

Desirable:

• Experience organising promotional events such as roadshows conferences, etc.

Qualifications

• Education to degree level or equivalent.

Desirable:

• A business-related degree.

Application Closing Date
26th October, 2016

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download Job details (Microsoft Word)

Click here to download BC Behaviour (pdf)

 

 

Job Title: Marketing Manager, Exams
Location: Lagos

Purpose of Job

• To directly contribute to growing British Council Nigeria’s operation, building positive perceptions of the British Council and the UK, with the British Council as a leading global Cultural Relations organisation.
• As an effective member of the Exams Team, with strong link to MarComms team, the Marketing Manager, Exams will be responsible for developing and delivering high quality promotional material and campaigns across a range of channels, supporting the British Council Nigeria’s Examinations strategy and offer.
• S/he will demonstrate a deep understanding of the organisation’s aims, stakeholders and target audiences, the Nigeria operating context and the ability to connect with operational colleagues.

British Council Operating Context

Current
Nigeria is one of the largest economies in Africa. It is also the most populous country with over 180 million citizens. The UK is its largest trading partner. Nigeria holds significant political power in the region and internationally and its society retains a positive attitude to the UK. Therefore, there continue to be major opportunities for the UK and BC to build on our strong existing relationships with the Nigerian government, institutions and customers/audiences. However, there are complex and substantial risks to this work i.e. security and compliance.

Nigeria is the British Council’s largest operation in sub-Saharan Africa with offices in 4 cities – Port Harcourt in the south, Kano in the north, Abuja the Federal capital and Lagos the commercial centre. We also have a number of project offices across the country. Our 200 staff work across a range of states delivering large scale contracts, partnership programmes, examinations, projects as well as services in Arts, Education & Society and English & Exams. We are already achieving substantial impact and income (current annual income is £27.2 million) and have plans to grow and develop our impact further. Partners and clients include government, public and private institutions, foundations, private sector organisations and civil society. We work closely with the wider UK mission including DFID and UKTI.

Future
42% of Nigeria’s population is under 14. The government has recognised that its Vision 2020 must address the aspirations of this young population as part of its drive to achieve peace and prosperity. This has led to unprecedented interest and investment in Education, the Arts and good governance. This alignment with the UK’s priorities creates a growth environment for the British Council. To be successful in this, we are building understanding with our UK stakeholders of Nigeria as an emerging economy with substantial commercial and development opportunities as well as the challenges they may be more familiar with. In this we seek to integrate our approach with that of the wider UK mission.

We are expanding and scaling up our existing programmes, contracts and services in the Arts, Education & Society, English & Examinations and developing offers to fill important gaps such as in Skills. We are also working to ensure that we have a good balance of partnership, customer services and client funded work across all these sectors. To do all this we need to create the right enabling environment. In addition to developing the professional and technical expertise of our staff, we need to support them to build their relationships within Nigeria, the region and the wider global network.

This will ensure we develop as well as adopt and use best practice. We also need rigorous and compliant frameworks to support our work in areas such as finance, tax & status, security, procurement, compliance and quality management. We have new premises in Kano and have a major premises project under development in Abuja. However, there is still more work to be done, especially in Lagos and Port Harcourt to ensure our premises and technology support our brand reputation for integrity, innovation and professionalism.

The Exams business in Nigeria has grown significantly in recent years. We doubled our income and volumes between 2011 and 2013. In 2014/15 we delivered 90,000 examinations, this financial year the target is 100,000 exams on a turnover of £8.5m. Nigeria examinations work encompasses School exams, IELTS, and a wide range of academic and professional qualifications.

Customer service, operational quality and compliance assurance are critical to the business. Nigeria’s operating context means that risk management and contingency planning will be ongoing areas of focus. Developing flexible and appropriate delivery models will be critical in responding to the challenges of working across the country. There are a number of initiatives underway to address these needs. The Global New Operating Model for Exams (GNOME) and Global Financial Change projects are critical to our business plans.

The Marketing Manager role is a new role and the post holder will have the opportunity to help shape the role and business development team. The post holder will also have a working relationship with the new Head of Business Development and Digital Manager roles based in the Exams team.

Accountabilities, Responsibilities and Main Duties
Strategy Development and Implementation:

• Develop, plan, deliver and evaluate the Exams Marketing strategy and plan, working with the Exams Management Team, the regional Comms and Digital team and relevant corporate teams. The Marketing strategy and plan will include agreed targets and reflect the strategic focus of the Nigeria exams operation.
• As an ‘internal consultant’ to the business area, provide support and direction on the creation, planning, delivery and evaluation of business specific marketing strategies and campaigns, which include market sizing, financial data, targets, customer segmentation, competitor analysis and market data

Management and Delivery of the Marketing Function:

• Manage the day-to-day activities associated with all marketing efforts, including: project management; commissioning content; content creation; creative development; campaign tracking and reporting as necessary.
• Closely collaborate with business and project leads to develop an integrated and sustainable marketing approach, capitalising on common customer base, promoting synergies and economies of scale, and delivering maximum impact and business returns.
• Track performance of marketing campaigns through measurement and analysis to understand effectiveness and ROI
• Conduct quarterly reviews of market-specific strategies and action plans and develop initiatives that support country-specific marketing activities.
• Working with the Digital and Social Media Manager (Exams), drive the content and creative strategy for business areas on all digital platforms, including but not limited to websites and social media, e-mail marketing and digital campaigns.
• Across all activities, manage brand guidelines to ensure all vendors and internal customers follow corporate standards.

Sourcing of Goods and Services, Supplier Management:

• Working with product managers and Head of Operations, lead on the commissioning (procurement) of MarComms services from external suppliers supporting projects, programmes and events, defining Terms of Reference to provide a clear brief to suppliers. Services include: PR; Events Management; Marketing; Communications; Media coverage. Ensure all campaigns are based on sound briefs that support business and brand objectives, are customer-focused, closely adhere to brand guidelines and are produced to British Council standards
• Proactively manage the relationship with key suppliers and specifically the quality of service / value for money from suppliers engaged on specific activities
• Lead on and manage the procurement of exams team ‘collateral’ including but not limited to brochures; banners etc
• Commission high quality and creative photography and videography which captures the essence and impact of our work.

Brand Champion:

• To support the MarComms team to promote brand standards across all channels of engagement, including digital and print.

Collaborative Working:

• Proactively engage with product and customer service leads and their teams to understand in depth the nature of the British Council’s operation and ambition, supporting effective marketing activities and credibility in the role
• Coach and support individuals and teams – the internal customer.
• Actively support equality and diversity and work to the British Council’s EDI policy at all times

Continuous Professional Development:

• Engage in professional networks and continuous professional development to ensure that knowledge, networks  and expertise are kept updated

Key Relationships

• Head of Operations, Exams
• Nigeria Exams Team
• Director Communications and Digital and Social Media Manager
• Exams Management Team
• Regional Communications & Digital teams
• UK based Marketing, Brand and Communications teams
• Key colleagues in Strategic Business Units (SBUs)
• Suppliers including marketing, communications, PR and events management
• Key partners and customer groups

Other important features or requirements of the Job
The post holder will be expected to travel within Nigeria. As with any business that experiences peaks and troughs of activity, there is likely to be a need to work outside office hours from time to time. Occasional attendance at events at weekends and evenings.

Person Specification
Essential:
Behaviours assessed during interview stage of recruitment process

• Making it Happen – Most demanding level
• Connecting With Others – Most demanding level
• Working Together – Most demanding level

Behaviours not assessed during recruitment process

• Creating Shared Purpose- More demanding level
• Shaping the Future – More demanding level
• Being Accountable – More demanding level

Skills and Knowledge

• Communicating and Influencing – L3
• Using Technology – L3
• Managing Projects – L3
• Analysing Data and Problems – L3
• Teamwork.

Desirable:

• Supplier management
• Knowledge of the education and qualification system in the UK and Nigeria

Experience

• A minimum of 5 years of proven experience in a similar role within an educational context (or corporate sector, public/NGO)
• Track record with developing promotional campaigns online/offline communications to drive customer growth and/or sales growth

Desirable:

• Experience in a similar role in an international organisation

Qualifications

• Degree level qualification in a relevant field or equivalent experience

Desirable:

• Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing (or equivalent)

Application Closing Date
26th October, 2016

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download job details (Microsoft Word)

Click here to download BC Behaviour (pdf)

 

Note

• As part of the recruitment exercise, shortlisted candidates will undergo recruitment tests in Lagos or Abuja.
• Interviews to be held in Lagos only.