Assistant Consultant,
Oxford,
United Kingdom Oxford Policy Management (OPML)
Closing date: Thursday, 21 December 2017
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This role gives early-career consultants the opportunity to explore their interests in international development by working on projects across OPM. ACs gain exposure to various development sectors (e.g. education, finance and private sector, nutrition, etc.), functional areas (e.g. monitoring and evaluation, research and data collection methods, etc.) or geographical areas (e.g. through projects in one of our country offices). Typically ACs utilise these opportunities to either specialise in a technical or functional or geographical area, or remaining generalists.In this role, a balance of three types of skills, namely technical skills, consultancy skills and management/leadership skills, will guide professional development.
These skills will be learnt through:
- Project work delivered in collaboration with senior consultants (including new business acquisition, overseas fieldwork and client-facing engagements in diverse settings)
- Mentorship from an experienced senior consultant
- Seminars, conferences and training opportunities
Successful applicants can expect to provide wide-ranging support to both project acquisition and implementation across all subject areas:
- Social policy, including teams in poverty reduction and social protection, health, and education;
- Economic policy, including teams in private sector development, financial sector development, trade, aid, microfinance, macroeconomic policy, climate change, and natural resource policy;
- Statistics, evidence and accountability, including teams in social development, official statistics, and political economy analysis; and
- Public sector finance and management, including team in public financial management, public management and accountability, debt management, and regional development and local government.
- Other areas of work (including food security, urban development, nutrition and agricultural development) are growing. More information is available on our website.
Assistant consultants will build:
- general consultancy and development skills;
- primary and secondary quantitative and qualitative research and analysis skills;
- effective writing, presentation and communication skills;
- project and people management and leadership skills; and
- specialisation in the work of one of OPM’s sectoral portfolios
We expect assistant consultants to be promoted within two or three years, depending on performance. After promotion, consultants are expected to progressively start managing their own projects, interacting directly with clients more frequently, and taking on greater autonomy and responsibility for providing advice to policymakers.
Location of work
This is a full-time role initially based in our Oxford office, with possibility of subsequent in-country postings to OPM’s international offices.
Minimum qualifications
For this particular role, applicants must have a:
- Master's degree in Economics, Development Studies or a related field, with excellent academic record ***
- Previous experience working in a developing country, preferably within governments or government agencies
- Strong quantitative and/or qualitative research skills typically demonstrated through graduate thesis/dissertation
- Demonstrated ability and experience of working with quantitative and/or qualitative packages (e.g. STATA, SPSS, NVivo, Quirkos, etc.)
- Strong and demonstrated written and verbal communication skills;
- Demonstrated commitment to international development, ideally evidenced by voluntary or other related work;
- Demonstrated interest to live and work in a low- or middle-income country for substantial periods of time;
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively as part of multicultural and diverse teams; and
- Ability to multi-task well and manage multiple deadlines.
- Ability to work in at least one language relevant to our international offices (other than english)
As well as a competitive salary, OPM offer a rewarding, interesting and collaborative work environment with excellent benefits including 30 days holiday entitlement and a good pension scheme. But don’t take our word for it, listen to what our colleagues have to say (link) !
*** Degrees should be completed by October 2017. Candidates completing their degrees later than this are requested to apply for the next recruitment cycle in 2018.