Career Counselling Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

As the United Nations lead agency on international development, UNDP works in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities, and to build resilience to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our work is concentrated in three focus areas; sustainable development, democratic governance and peacebuilding, and climate and disaster resilience. UNDP’s mandate is to end poverty, build democratic governance, rule of law, and inclusive institutions. We advocate for change and connect countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life.

Context

Timor-Leste is an LDC with lower-middle income status that relies on its natural oil and gas revenue-based sovereign wealth Petroleum Fund for its annual state budget. Besides this fund, there are no other substantive sources of income. Economic diversification with a focus on job creation and poverty reduction is a great need. Timor-Leste already has 30% of the population living below the national poverty line and 46% are multidimensionally poor. 70% of Timor-Leste’s population live in rural areas, most of whom (64.2%) are dependent on subsistence agriculture. This young nation has 74% of its population under 35 (Census 2015), and according to the 2018 Labour Market Outlook, 20.3% of the youth population (aged 15-24) were not in employment, education or training (NEET). 78% of the people between the age of 15 to 64 were not employed, of which around 36% were youth aged 15 to 24 years. There is more demand for laborer with vocational skills as well as ‘soft’ skills. Long-term investment in human capital is needed to produce skilled human resources to meet the labor market demand— something that requires increased investment in quality education. However, in the short- and medium- term, many initiatives can be taken to prepare youth with the required soft skills, have greater access to the right information, enhance their readiness for the work world through internships/mentorships and meet the labor market demand. At the same time, more efforts are needed to develop SMEs to increase employment and income opportunities, particularly for women, people with disability, unemployed youth, and poor and vulnerable communities. Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Skills (YEES) Project aims to tackle two most pressing issues in Timor Leste’s youth employment: 1) limited opportunity of being employed and 2) limited opportunity of being entrepreneurs for youth and migrant workers. The project is mainly funded by Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for six years starting in 2022. This project will focus on producing two medium-term sub-outcomes: 1) youth become employed and 2) youth become entrepreneurs, which will contribute to UNSDCF/CPD outcome 2: By 2025, institutions and people throughout Timor-Leste in all their diversity, especially women and youth, benefit from sustainable economic opportunities and decent work to reduce poverty, with three interrelated outputs: • Output 1: Youth obtain skills, competencies and knowledge to be employed. • Output 2: Service providers are available to deliver holistic support to enhance employability. • Output 3: Youth, including migrants/returnees, obtain skills, knowledge and services to start or expand their business

Task description

Within the delegated authority and under the supervision of YEES Project Manager, the UN Volunteer International Career Counselling Specialist will: • Develop a career counselling module to be adopted by the government officials, university, training center, and all related stakeholders. • Provide day-to-day career counselling sessions to youth by offering resources such as assisting in job searches, creating resumes, and preparing for interviews that will help youth to be prepared academically for professional success and in taking the next step toward their goals. • Provide training of trainers on career counselling to government officials in all project areas. • Provide support to the whole component of youth employment of the YEES Project that includes soft skills development, internship, job fair, and online job portal development. • Perform any other related duties as required. Furthermore, UN Volunteers are encouraged to integrate the UN Volunteers programme mandate within their assignment and promote voluntary action through engagement with communities in the course of their work. As such, UN Volunteers should dedicate a part of their working time to some of the following suggested activities: • Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day); • Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country; • Provide annual and end of assignment self- reports on UN Volunteer actions, results and opportunities. • Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.; • Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers; • Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible. Results/expected outputs • As an active UNDP team member, efficient, timely, responsive, client-friendly and high-quality support rendered to UNDP and its beneficiaries in the accomplishment of her/his functions • Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) perspective is systematically applied, integrated and documented in all activities throughout the assignment • A final statement of achievements towards volunteerism for peace and development during the assignment, such as reporting on the number of volunteers mobilized, activities participated in and capacities developed