Communications Manager

Job Title                          : Communications Manager

Program                          : Youth Employment and Business Start-up (YouLead)

Location                          : Colombo, Sri Lanka with travel to regions as required

Anticipated Start Date  : 1 December 2022

Expected Duration         : 31 December 2023

Reports to                      : Communications Director

Eligibility                        : Sri Lankan nationals / authorized to work in Sri Lanka

ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVE

YouLead is a USAID-funded, seven-year program implemented by IESC to improve technical and vocational education and training and increase the employability of young people in Sri Lanka. YouLead will create a more skilled and flexible workforce by undertaking activities that support and strengthen students, teachers, institutions, and young entrepreneurs. The program will ensure that high-quality, market-oriented career counseling is equally available to traditionally underserved groups, especially rural youth, girls and young women, and ethnic minorities. YouLead will work closely with key government ministries and private and public training institutes to design and improve educational and vocational training curriculum, always with a market-driven approach, and will help develop master trainers and counselors.

Strategic communications is essential to creating positive behavoural change among youth that accelerates the acceptance and adoption of project developed tools and resources as well as participation in outreach interventions.

YouLead is seeking an Associate who can support the Communications Director in

YouLead is seeking a dynamic Communiations Manager able to formulate and implement a communications campaigns project wide, in both digital and traditional media.

DURATION AND TIMING

• This assignment will be a fulltime contract covering a period until December 2023.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES.

The duties and responsibilities of this assignment are the following:

1. Lead the strategic direction and implementation of the communications plan in order to deliver the outlined communications objectives of the project.
2. Manage productive relationships with communications agencies, partners and stake holders in order to execute successful communications campaigns.
3. Be finely tuned to evolving Sri Lankan youth behavior and attitudes in order to provide insightful input in formulating outreach briefs and campaigns for both digital and traditional media, online and onground activity.
4. Closely monitor communications performance and impact in order to improve effectiveness.
5. Facilitate project communication activities both internal and external such as content development, video production and events.
6. Gather and document success stories in collaboration with project technical heads.
7. Monitor and manage communications budget and adherence to vendor contracts to  improve best value delivery and compliance.
8. Support the development of project documentations and project reporting activities.
9. Travel to regional offices, partner organizations and regions relevant to project execution, as required.
10. Perform any other task assigned by the supervisor to meet program objectives.

REQUIRED SKILLS SET

• Ability to understand different types of consumers and contribute to formulating communications strategy to influence attitudes and behavoir in order to achieve brand/project objectives.
• A practical understanding of evolving digital media, measurement and effectiveness. Experience in delivering results through digital campaigns.
• Experience in planning and providing direction and constructive feedback to communications agencies / vendor partners in the implementation of online and offline campaigns, events, audio visual content production, PR, creation of digital assets.
• Stakeholder communication, management, collaboration, building and maintaining productive professional relationships both within and outside the organization.
• Ability to think creatively and solve problems independently.

QUALIFICATIONS

• A Bachelor’s degree or relevant equivalent in communications, marketing, media or other relevant field.
• Minimum 5 years experience in marketing or communications preferably with experience at a similar level.
• Experience in development projects is an advantage.

REPORTING

The Communications Manager will report to the Communications Director.

LOCATION OF WORK.

• This assignment's primary activities will be performed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, but frequent travel to regional offices and other districts will be needed.
• Qualified and Interested Candidates: Please apply directly on the “Careers” page of  IESC.ORG.
• The review period is open and applications will be accepted up to September 12, 2022

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