Our Requirement:
Title: Staff Officer (Internal Affairs and Community Relations)
Grade: 17
Duty Location: Brunssum, The Netherlands
Requirement filling date: as soon as possible
Closing date for applications: 6 December 2026
Our organisation
Joint Force Command Brunssum (JFCBS) provides a Joint headquarters to plan, prepare and conduct operations to support NATO’s core tasks, at the Joint Operational level, as directed by SACEUR. The Communication Directorate coordinates and synchronizes information activities and communications activities in support of Commander (COM) JFCBS missions and objectives. The Military Public Affairs Branch supports the commander by communicating accurate information in a timely manner to improve public awareness and understanding, enhancing organizational credibility and community support. The incumbent is responsible for all digital communications outputs, both external and internal, and for managing the JFCBS Community Relations programme as well as the Social Media communications.
The main duties of Staff Officer (Internal Affairs & Community Relations):
·Principal assistant and senior advisor to the Branch Head.
·Acts as JFCBS Spokesperson in absence of Branch Head.
·Section Head Digital Media.
·Manages all aspects of JFCBS Community Relations programme.
·Oversees production and distribution of Public Affairs (PA) products.
·Conducts press conferences, responds to media queries and drafts media stories.
·Supervises PA contributions to Headquarters (HQ) /Communications Directorate workflow and tasking.
·Represents JFCBS at local/regional events when senior leadership is unavailable.
·Plans, prepares and publishes social media posts.
·Prepares, conducts and updates PA briefings for visitors.
·Manages production of JFCBS promotional items.
The incumbent may be required to undertake deployments in support of military operations and exercises, and/or TDY assignments, both within and without NATO boundaries. Such operational deployment may exceed 30 days duration up to 183 days in any period of 547 days and may be on short notice. For NATO International Civilian Staff, acceptance of an employment contract linked to this post constitutes agreement to deploy in excess of 30 days if required.
Required Qualifications are:
ØEnglish – good – NATO Standard Language Proficiency 3333
(Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) in accordance with NATO standard agreement (STANAG) 6001.
NOTE: The work both oral and written in this post and in this Headquarters as a whole is conducted mainly in English.
ØUniversity degree or equivalent in international affairs, journalism, public relations or relevant field / subject (equivalent is Higher Secondary Education AND completed advanced vocational training in relevant field leading to a professional certification or accreditation).
ØMinimum 5 years’ professional experience as a journalist or media staff officer.
ØMinimum 2 years’ professional experience as a Spokesperson.
ØMinimum 3 years’ supervisory experience.
ØProfessional Management experience in a public affairs environment.
ØMinimum 3 years’ professional experience running social media campaigns.
Desirable Qualifications are:
ØExperience in a military PA environment
ØExperience in a joint multinational environment.
ØKnowledge of Strategic Communications.
ØDutch – good – level B2 - independent user - in accordance with Common European Framework of Reference.
ØCompletion of relevant courses/ training.
The successful candidate possesses following personal attributes / skills:
üExcellent communication skills, both oral and written - able to communicate at all levels;
üExcellent interpersonal skills – interacts with tact and diplomacy;
üHigh level of organisational and coordination skills;
üAbility to work independently;
üAbility to work with various stakeholders;
The successfully selected candidate must be able to obtain and maintain a security clearance and is required to pass a medical examination before an employment contract offer is released. The medical examination will take place with our medical consultant. It is required to determine if the recommended candidate is fit to perform the duties and is deployable to NATO's areas of operation.
Due date for receipt of applications: Sunday 6 December 2026: 23:59.
Candidates have to apply electronically in NATO Talent Acquisition Program:
https://nato.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobsearch.ftl?lang=en
IMPORTANT:
Please be aware that a Selection Board will only assess the information provided in the job submission form including the answers to the pre-screening questions and description of your work experiences. Your answers must be comprehensive and stand alone; do not rely on attached documents for essential information (Attachments are supporting documents and should not be referred to in the job submission). For example, if a pre-selection question asks you to justify how you meet the minimum experience requirement, you must explicitly detail in the answer box how your experience directly aligns with, or exceeds, the stated requirement. Simply stating you meet the requirement is insufficient; provide concrete examples and quantifiable details. These experiences should also be included in the description of your work experiences.
Only candidates meeting ALL essential required qualifications will be considered and be assessed in competition with other candidates.
Please note that 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.