ASSIGNMENT TITLE: Short Term Consultant, Employability for Higher Education Institutions
ASSIGNMENT COUNTRIES: Vietnam
DURATION: 50 days through June 30, 2022
BACKGROUND:
IFC’s Manufacturing, Agribusiness and Services (MAS) department covers sectors which cater to basic human needs such as food, shelter, jobs, and health and education. These sectors play a critical role in providing goods and services to consumers, create jobs, contribute to government revenue, and stimulate growth through SMEs.
In education, IFC offers investment and advisory services to tertiary educational institutions. In advisory, IFC offers support to colleges and universities to help them prepare their students for the job market. Called “Vitae”, this service provides employability assessment and improvement support, delivered by IFC experts. Vitae takes a 360-degree view of the education provider (TVET, institute, university) to arrive at a comprehensive assessment of the institution’s ability to deliver employability support, as compared to good practices of leading institutions worldwide. IFC also offers tertiary educational institutions advisory on digitalization through its “D4TEP” program. Clients participate in a 12 week process to understand digital transformation options, good practices, and to align their own needs and priorities for digitalization. D4TEP is offered by IFC in partnership with Deloitte’s higher education team.
IFC is looking for a Consultant to complement its team in Vietnam in the delivery of these advisory initiatives. The Consultant will be responsible for:
- building a pipeline of clients for education advisory amongst private educational institutions in Vietnam. Estimated time commitment: 35 days to June 30, 2022.
- supporting the Vitae employability assessment process, once clients are signed. Estimated time commitment: 15 days initially estimated for one client assessment, with additional days to be added in line with business need.
The Consultant should have prior experience consulting private sector companies on change initiatives. The Consultant is not expected to be a specialist in higher education however an understanding of the higher education landscape and drivers of graduate employability in Vietnam is expected.
THIS CONSULTANCY POSITION IS BASED IN VIETNAM.
ACCOUNTABILITIES:
1. Help to build a pipeline of institutions for IFC education advisory support, working closely with the global education teams and with regional advisory and investment teams in Vietnam.
- Identify tertiary education institutions that meet IFC criteria for investment and advisory services in Vietnam;
- Liaise with institution management to set up meetings to discuss IFC’s offer on education advisory and investment, together with the IFC team;
- Present advisory and investment services to the institution in cooperation with the IFC team;
- Build working relationships with clients who have interest in advisory and/or investment services and who meet IFC criteria;
- Sign up educational institutions for IFC advisory support;
- Check and edit Vietnamese language pitch materials for education advisory to ensure proper translation.
Deliverables (Pipeline):
- Updated mapping list of tertiary institutions in Vietnam.
- List of client meetings with dates, summary of discussion, next steps and follow up items.
Time estimate: 35 working days through June 30, 2022
2. Support delivery of employability assessments for tertiary education institutions in Vietnam.
- Liaise with the client’s leadership team to ensure understanding of the employability assessment methodology; support leadership to reach out to faculty and staff at institution level to present the assessment.
- Facilitate a kick off with institution management to answer questions on the process.
- Prepare and agree an agenda for the overall assessment process as well as the site visits.
- Advise the client in completing the self-assessment and survey portions of the Employability Assessment online.
- Facilitate a 3–5-day site visit at the client institution (or virtually): help to interview staff, management and faculty as well as support the team with students and alumni focus group sessions. The site visit interviews will be led by specialist IFC staff.
- Support data analysis, preparation of presentations and reports including:
- Preparing and providing an early PPT debrief to institution management at the end of the site visit, to summarize and validate key findings
- Preparing a Back-To-Office Report post the site visit for internal circulation
- Preparing a draft assessment report (based on IFC template) within 2 weeks of the site visit; incorporate internal comments into a revised draft and deliver to the client
- Preparing a PPT summary for discussion with client management
- Gathering data on good practices identified during assessments to leverage in future engagements
- Contributing to improving the employability assessment process based on client experience
- Supporting the development of local language communications materials on employability, assessment process and client results.
Deliverables (Assessment):
Summary of deliverables per client assessment:
- PPT summarizing early findings delivered to the client at the end of the site visit.
- Back to Office Report for IFC staff.
- Employability Assessment Report with findings and recommendations (draft and final version).
- PPT debrief for client senior management.
Time estimate: 15 working days per client through June 30, 2022
Selection Criteria
- Commitment to the World Bank Group mission, strategy, and values
- An advanced degree and at least 7 years’ work experience in consulting and/or education
- Demonstrated experience in delivering consultancy engagements for private sector clients
- Self-starter with sound business judgment, ability to deliver results under challenging timetables
- Strong client relations and problem-solving skills, drive for excellence
- Native Vietnamese with good English communication skills
- Understanding of the landscape of higher education and the drivers of graduate employability in Vietnam
- Willingness to travel regionally once local requirements permit travel
- Preference will be given to candidates who meet the above criteria and also have work experience in tertiary education.
Interested candidates should review the complete job description and selection criteria and submit CVs to email: [email protected] [1]. The closing date is 13th January. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence. Please note that only short-listed candidates will be contacted.