Position Vacant
Position Vacant – Constituent and Communications Advisor, Office of Ellen Sandell
We’re looking for an enthusiastic team member to join our office for a 2-day a week role. The office currently has two full-time staff members plus casual staff from time-to-time. This role would be the third regular staff member.
This role will be responsible for a varied range of tasks including:
- Daily checking our office email inbox and replying to constituents about issues that concern them, including responding to enquires about Greens policy
- Answering the phone in the office and dealing with constituents who come in the door
- Writing regular articles for local media
- Helping Ellen write opinion articles for state and national media
- Pro-actively looking for opportunities to get Ellen in the state and national media, and pitching ideas to the media
- Working with local residents on issues - either through helping to run local campaigns or directly assisting residents by contacting the Council, Departments and Ministers' offices. This may include attending events and meeting with residents on behalf of Ellen.
- Helping manage communications materials for the office such as:
- Managing and regularly updating our website www.ellensandell.com
- Helping manage our supporter database, including coming up with new strategies to engage supporters, tracking our email, social media and website data to make sure we’re effectively communicating with people, and writing campaign emails to supporters
- Helping manage brochures, birthday cards and letters that are send to local residents
Although the following tasks won’t be a regular part of your role, you may need to step in where needed to:
- Help Ellen in Parliament - such as doing research on issues, writing speeches, and working out how to use Parliament to achieve our outcomes.
- Coordinate campaigns and communications with other Greens MPs’ offices.
- Develop and driving short term campaign opportunities, particularly involving local community organisations or environmental, housing and climate change issues.
You must be happy and willing to do admin and customer-service type work, but ideally we also want someone who can help us look for new opportunities to get lift Ellen's profile through media and other communications. If you're excited by communications and running campaigns - that's great. Campaigning is a core focus of our office and we'd love you to be involved in that as well as the constituent-related tasks.
We’re looking for someone who:
- Is enthusiastic and can work unsupervised. Ellen is often out of the office so you need to be a self-starter!
- Is flexible. You never know what will come up each day in our office. You may be asked to pitch in with whatever needs doing -- campaigns, media, events, helping residents, you name it. Some of it will be really exciting and fun. Some of it might be a bit more of a slow grind :)
- Aligns with the Greens’ values of social justice, environmental sustainability and peace.
- Is a good communicator with excellent written and oral communication skills
- Is enthusiastic about helping our constituents with issues that matter to them, and with local campaigns (like getting new schools built, getting more investment in public housing, protecting our environment, helping residents resist inappropriate development, and more)
- Has the ability to successfully manage competing priorities, and meet tight deadlines.
- Has the ability to maintain a friendly and approachable manner with people of all backgrounds and personalities and develop and maintain strong relationships even under pressure.
- Has the ability to manage a diverse array of stakeholders towards an outcome
- Has the capacity to comprehend complex issues and quickly adapt to changing circumstances at short-notice
- Has the ability to maintain strict confidentiality on all issues associated with the office and their duties.
Our office is small, collaborative and strategic. We want someone who is an innovative thinker and loves getting outcomes. We thrive on getting results for our residents and on the big issues we care about, like climate change, affordable housing, and social justice -- and we want someone who can fit with this culture.
Note | Electorate Officers are employees of the Victorian Parliament, directly accountable to the Member of Parliament whose electorate they are employed. Electorate Officers are required to support the MP, a position that requires a high degree of loyalty, versatility and the ability to maintain confidentiality on behalf of the MP and those who contact the office.
Term of Appointment | This role is 2-days a week equivalent which is 15.2 hours a week. This can be spread over 2, 3 or 4 days depending on your needs. The position is based at the office in Peel Street, North Melbourne. The position is for a fixed term until 30th June 2017 with the possibility of extension depending on budget.
Salary | Salary is $68,818 (pro rata) plus superannuation. This is Grade 2.1 on Parliament of Victoria’s Electorate Officer Salary Scale.
Key Dates | Applications are open now. They will close at 9:00am on Tuesday 15th November. We want someone who can start as soon as possible, ideally in the next few weeks.
Please submit applications to [email protected] with the subject line “Application for 2-day a week role.”
To apply, simply email us your CV/resume and a short (500 words max, please!) letter in the body of the email that outlines why you’d like the role and why you think you’d be a good fit for us, including your relevant experience.
We are an equal opportunity employer. People from diverse backgrounds, people of colour, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, LGBTIQ+ and gender-diverse people, and people living with a disability and all strongly encouraged to apply.