*Pending Approval*

As this post still requires North Atlantic Council’s (NAC) approval, the contract may only be offered once approved by NAC.

If you are an experienced Staff Assistant (Travel and Procurement) looking to join a dynamic team working in a multi-national environment, JFTC would be interested in hearing from you!

Post Context

The Joint Force Training Centre supports Warfare Development, contributing to concept development and maintenance of joint doctrine and standards while coordinating the integration of experimentation, capability development, and interoperability to improve NATO’s interoperability, capabilities, and operational effectiveness.

The Deputy Commander/Chief of Staff (DCOM/COS) leads and coordinates all aspects of the staff’s work in support of the COM, including tasking, direction and guidance, cross-staff support, oversight and management of resources, and development and delivery of training and experiments.

The Staff Advisory Group (SAG) provides general staff support, coordination, management, administrative service, and specialists’ advice to the COM and DCOM/COS.

The Office of Budget and Finance (BUDFIN) ensures financial management at the JFTC and in support of static and, as required, distributed training and experiments. The Office executes financial control of the JFTC and its activities, implements internally all instructions, directives, plans and procedures in the area of finance, facilitates efficient use of financial resources and provides continuous guidance to the staff on all financial and budgetary matters related to JFTC mission and Programme of Work. It administers and executes financial privileges (tax and excise reimbursement) granted by the Host Nation to JFTC. The Office provides full BUDFIN functionality in the areas of budgeting, contracting, accounting, fiscal, disbursing and travel.

The Staff Assistant (Travel and Procurement) is the primary point of contact within JFTC for all matters related to duty travels.

Reports to: Staff Officer (Contracting and Travel) – A2/G15

Principal Duties

Staff Assistant is responsible for planning and arranging duty travel, and providing purchasing and contracting assistance; which includes the following duties:

a. Assists in ensuring support for daily operations, static and, as required, distributed training and experiments, high-level and other visits with focus on, but not limited to duty travel, and purchasing and contracting services.

b. Reviews and approves travel requests for duty travels of JFTC staff in Centralized NATO Automated Financial System (FinS) in accordance with NATO policy.

c. Plans, coordinates and prepares travel arrangements for approved duty travels.

d. Purchases travel tickets for and distributes them to JFTC staff traveling on duty.

e. Establishes normal modes of travel and generic and case-by-case cost ceilings for various duty destinations.

f. Monitors the expenditure of funds allocated for duty travel.

g. Provides assistance on procurement matters, ensures that requisitions have been prepared in an appropriate manner and can be used as a basis for a request for price proposal.

h. Assists in composing requests for price proposal, invitations for bid, purchase orders and all pertinent correspondence.

i. Conducts market surveys and quality inspections prior to procurement.

j. Exercises a limited contracting warrant:

k. Authorized to negotiate and award contracts on behalf of the organization.

l. Authorized to commit NATO by signing contacts and purchase orders up to EFL level B.

m. Initiates service calls/work orders against service type contracts.

n. Controls all active purchase orders assigned.

o. Coordinates internally on all kinds of potential suppliers queries.

p. Maintains contract files and records (paper and electronic versions) for contract closure, audit trail and future references.

q. May be assigned to substitute Staff Officer (Contracting and Travel), Junior Contracting Officers/ Buyers / Contracting Assistants during periods of absence.

r. Performs other duties as assigned by Head (Budget and Finance) or Staff Officer (Contracting and Travel).

Special Requirements and Additional Duties

Lessons Learned (LL) is an integrated part of all activities. LL requests, planning, creation, collection, staffing and handling in accordance with the NATO LL Process as an integrated part of any activity.

The employee may be required to perform a similar range of duties elsewhere within the organisation at the same grade without there being any change to the contract

a. Flexibility Clause: In order for the command to deal with emergent requirements the incumbent may be required to perform other related duties as directed (in particular, the incumbent can expect to work as a member of Working Groups, Project Teams, etc. for defined periods of time). Additionally, for military personnel the incumbent may also be reassigned as directed by Chief of Staff for up to 365 days (through consultation with the Allies concerned).

b. Operations/Temporary Duty: The incumbent may be required to undertake Operational Deployments consistent with ACT’s transformation mission, both within and outside NATO’s boundaries, in compliance with agreed NATO workforce policy and subject to national caveats.

c. Annual TDY Requirement: The incumbent may be required to undertake TDY both within and outside NATO’s boundaries for up to 10 days per year.

Personnel are expected to conduct themselves in accordance with the current NATO Code of Conduct agreed by the North Atlantic Council (NAC), and thus display the core values of integrity, impartiality, loyalty, accountability, and professionalism.

The work is normally performed in a Normal NATO office working environment.

Normal Working Conditions apply.

The risk of injury is categorised as No Risk.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS

Professional Experience

1. Minimum of two year experience as a Purchasing and Contracting assistant.

2. Experience in Logistics and/or arranging duty travels.

Education/Training

Higher Secondary education and completed higher vocational training leading to a formal technical or professional certification with 3 years function related experience, or Secondary education and completed advanced vocational training leading to a professional qualification or professional accreditation with 5 years post related experience.

Language

English – SLP 3322 – (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing)

NOTE: The work both oral and written in this post and in this Headquarters as a whole is conducted mainly in English.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

Professional Experience

1. Minimum 2 years of experience in military organizations.

2. Minimum 2 years of experience in international environment.

3. Organization of events.

Education/Training

1. Resource management.

2. Microsoft Office.

Language

Polish – SLP 1111 – (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing).

Attributes/Competencies

• Personal Attributes: Works under direction. Resolving basic issues or enquiries. Works without frequent reference to others. Interacts with and may influence immediate colleagues. Has external contact with customers, who are mostly JFTC staff members. May have more influence in own domain. Performs a range of work activities in a similar environment. Contribute to resolution of issues. Understands and uses appropriate methods, tools and applications. Demonstrates a rational and organized approach to work. Identifies and negotiates own development opportunities. Has sufficient communication skills for effective dialogue with customers and other staff members. Is able to work in a team. Is able to plan, schedule and monitor own work. Absorbs new information and applies it effectively.

a. Must possess strong interpersonal and verbal/written communication skills;

b. Capable of working effectively and harmoniously in a fast-paced multi-national environment, while representing and projecting the needs and requirements of JFTC as a whole in a firm but diplomatic manner.

c. Displays initiative in planning ahead and ability to find solutions to problems that arise in the daily conduct of responsibilities including resolution of schedule conflicts, working out details associated with travel plans, and finding solutions to problems with office equipment;

d. The ability to adapt to flexible work patterns and work as part of a team; must be able to react quickly and without concern to last minute changes and to work independently;

e. Must be able to work under pressure and should have a pro-active approach to his/her duties;

f. May be required to assist at functions outside of normal work hours. Travel on temporary duty will not normally be required;

g. Must be able to liaise effectively, internally with NATO military and civilian personnel, and with external agencies as required.

• Professional Contacts: Works with the entire JFTC staff as customers, works with the external travel agency while arranging duty travels, works closely the JFTC BUDFIN staff interfacing travel activities and financial operations and JFTC Contracting Officer supporting him in the acquisition domain.

• Contribution To Objectives: Supports all JFTC Objectives that require JFTC staff to travel through efficient and timely travel arrangements conducted in line with the NATO regulations.

• Supervisory Responsibilities: Dependent on requirements may be required to direct and supervise the work priorities of one or more JFTC multifunctional teams.

There are no reporting responsibilities.

Security Clearance

The successful applicant will be required to apply for and receive a NATO SECRET Security Clearance prior to final confirmation of contract and commencement of employment.

Contract

Serving NATO International Civilian staff will be offered a contract in accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations. Newly recruited staff will be offered a three year definite duration contract.

As this post still requires North Atlantic Council’s (NAC) approval, the contract may only be offered once approved by NAC.

Notes for candidates

The candidature of NATO redundant staff at grade G10 will be considered with priority.

Applicants who are not successful in this competition may be offered an appointment to another post of a similar nature, albeit at the same or a lower grade, provided they meet the necessary requirements.

Notes for NATO Civilian Human Resources Managers

If you have qualified redundant staff at grade G10, please advise the JFTC Civilian Human Resources Manager no later than the closing date.

Recruitment Process

Due to the significant volume of recruitment being undertaken by Joint Force Training Centre (JFTC) the processing time for applications will take longer than normal. Once you have submitted your application please ensure that you have received a TALEO/NTAP acknowledgement email, which is your proof that your application has been submitted. After this you will be contacted in due course by our recruitment team with further information on the status of your application, but please note that this may not be for several weeks after the vacancy notice closes.

Please answer each of the pre-screening questions completely in English. Expressions such as: “please see attached CV, please see annex, please see enclosed document, etc.” are NOT acceptable; this is a cause of immediate rejection of the application.

Particular attention should be given to Education and Experience sections of your application form, which should be populated with details fo your career to date and educational acheivements and certifications as they relate to your application.

When completing the application form using the NATO Talent Acquisition Platform, you will be able to add attachments. One of these attachments must be a copy of the qualification or certificate covering the highest level of education required by the job description. If this certificate is not in one of the official NATO languages, you should include a translation into English.

You should attach only RELEVANT certifications and diplomas to support your application for the given post.

NOTE: NATO will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. NATO reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at NATO’s sole discretion, and NATO reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.

For any queries, please contact the JFTC Recruitment Team at: [email protected] .