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Personal Assistant/Diary Manager

Employer
Department For Transport
Location
Birmingham, London , Leeds
Salary
National: £26,126 London: £29,965
Closing date
2 Feb 2022

Job Details

About the job Summary

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

Are you someone who is highly organised, proactive and has a forward-thinking approach?

Can you communicate effectively and confidently create trusting working relationships?

Would you like the opportunity to work in a dynamic and exciting environment where you can be stretched to reach your full potential?

If so, we would love to hear from you!

Job description

This role is an exciting opportunity to provide high quality administration and diary assistance to Rail Senior Leaders during a defining moment for the railways.

The Department and the rail industry are undergoing the largest transformation in decades. The sector needs a workforce and staffing landscape that supports a commercially viable environment and a passenger-focused service. You will play a key role supporting the Directors to effectively lead a team working through the implications of these and other changes, with the goal of ensuring the long term operational and financial sustainability of the industry.

We are seeking talented and highly organised individuals to take on the roles of Personal Assistant/Diary Managers and Business Support to the team and broader Directorate, who can confidently communicate at all levels with internal and external stakeholders, both verbally and in writing.

You will be an experienced Diary Manager / Personal Assistant who is a proactive, ‘can-do’ person with a willingness to take the initiative. You will possess exceptional time management skills in order to effectively prioritise workloads. This role is fascinating post at the heart of the Directorate with the challenge of dealing with an interesting variety of tasks from day-to-day, in a fast-paced and high-profile environment.
 

Responsibilities

The duties for the role will include:

• Be the main point of contact for diary organisation. Be responsible for the day-to-day running of the diary and forward planning for specific meetings.

• Managing the schedule and arrange meetings to ensure sufficient time for priorities, preparation, travel, desk-time, and breaks.

• Managing the inbox, ensuring urgent/important correspondence is prioritised and brought to their attention.

• Dealing with emails, phone calls and correspondence promptly.

• Being responsible for managing One-Note which is used for briefing.

• Make judgement calls on what takes priority, anticipating issues and challenges, taking steps to mitigate these in advance and communicating relevant information.

• Providing administrative and logistical support to directorate events and ad-hoc projects.
.
• Building strong relationships with both senior leaders, , with colleagues in your area and DfT more broadly,

• Attending the weekly update meetings to understand the key things happening in those area and note any actions as needed..

• Treating sensitive and personal information with discretion and ensure it is carefully managed.

About You

You will bring great experience of of diary management and secretarial support at a senior level.

You are an approachable and energetic individual with excellent interpersonal skills, displaying confidence when engaging with stakeholders and colleagues at all levels to build trusted working relationships.

You will have excellent communication skills both verbally and in writing with the ability to adapt your delivery to suit a wide variety of audiences.

You are someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment, who is highly motivated and has exceptional organisational and time management skills, with the ability to prioritise a busy workload and work under pressure.

You proactively forward plan and track ongoing work, ensuring the delivery of high-quality outcomes, showing resilience and tenacity to manage changing priorities and recognise key areas of work that will need urgent attention.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

  • Communicating and Influencing
  • Making Effective Decisions
  • Working Together
  • Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits. We offer generous annual leave, attractive pension options, flexible working, inclusive working environments and much more to support a healthy work/life balance.

Find out more about what it's like working at the Department for Transport.

Things you need to know Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

People working with government assets must complete basic personnel security standard checks.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

We are closely monitoring the situation regarding the coronavirus, and will be following central Government advice as it is issued. There is therefore a risk that recruitment to this post may be subject to change at short notice. In addition, where appropriate, you may be invited to attend a video interview.

Please continue to follow the application process as normal and ensure that you check your emails regularly as all updates from us will be sent to you this way.

How to Apply

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

After submission of the first stage of your application you will be invited to complete a Civil Service Verbal Test. If you successfully pass the test, you will be invited to complete the final stage of the application (CV and Personal Statement).

Please complete the online tests as soon as possible (within 24-48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the tests and application is 23:55 on 2nd February 2022. If you fail to complete the online test before the deadline your application will be withdrawn. Guidance for the test will be available when you are invited to take the test. The tests are administered online and accessed via the CS Jobs website.

Your full application (including Civil Service Verbal Test, a CV and Personal Statement) will need to be submitted by the closing date of 2nd February 2022.

When considering your experience, please tailor your CV/Personal Statement to provide evidence of the below:

• Your experience of diary management and secretarial support
• Your experience of inbox management
• Your experience of using verbal and written communications skills to manage internal and external stakeholders at all levels
• Your experience of providing business administration support

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

The sift is due to take place from 3rd February 2022

Interviews/assessments are likely to be held from 17th February 2022

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates will change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.
The selection process will be designed specifically for the role. As a result, your assessment could include:

• an interview with one or more exercises

You’re encouraged to become familiar with the role profile, as you may be assessed against any of the criteria recorded within.

The Department for Transport alongside other Government Departments recruit using Success Profiles. This means for each role we consider what you will need to demonstrate in order to be successful. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

For further information on Success Profiles visit our Careers website.

Please see attached candidate notes for further information about our recruitment process.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section

Further Information

To learn more about applying for a role within the Department for Transport, visit the Application Process page of our Careers website.

Before submitting your application, we encourage you to visit our Things You Need to Know page for further information about applying for a role within the Department for Transport and the Civil Service.

Throughout this job advert there are links to the DfT Careers website, which provides you further information to support your application. Should you be unable to access the information on our website, please email [email protected] for assistance.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

  • UK nationals
  • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
  • nationals of the Republic of Ireland
  • nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
  • certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

Further information on nationality requirements

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Apply and further information

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants Job contact : Name :   Rail Resourcing Email :   [email protected]   Recruitment team : Email :   [email protected] Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact Government Recruitment Services via email: [email protected] If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website Here

Company

We work with our agencies and partners to support the transport network that helps the UK’s businesses and gets people and goods travelling around the country. We plan and invest in transport infrastructure to keep the UK on the move.

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