Meet Sariti - HR specialist in our People & Culture Team

What my job involves

I work with World Vision UK’s managers to support them in all aspects of people management and development, from recruitment to teambuilding, to performance management, to employee relations. I support the People & Culture Group’s Business Partner for Marketing and International Programmes, and the managers and staff in those two teams. I also provide human resources support for World Vision International’s staff who are based in the UK.

The best and worst things about my job?

It’s really rewarding when I can see that I’ve helped teams to work well together, by helping managers to recruit the people they need and by facilitating good team dynamics. It’s great to know that the work I do here at World Vision UK is helping us to have an impact in the field. Working with Marketing and International Programmes teams means that I have gained an understanding of our development and relief work – I can see the mutually rewarding relationships between donors and beneficiaries.

Challenges in my job

It’s challenging when vacancies are hard to fill – we are often looking for quite specific technical expertise along with an active and committed Christian faith, and in addition to this our location in Milton Keynes can sometimes be a problem for applicants. Another challenge is the remoteness of colleagues in other countries - they have different employment law and contexts, and the time differences can sometimes cause problems. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to learn from those colleagues about very different contexts.

What skills would someone need for this type of job?

You need to have insight into people dynamics and complex situations, and to be able to help managers to think things through clearly. You need to be able to relate to people but also to be objective so you can see different perspectives. You also need to understand the whole business environment that we’re in, not just HR and employment law. I also think communication is key to this type of job.

Before World Vision

After studying for a degree in economics in Bangkok I studied for a Masters in International Management in the UK. I returned to Bangkok and worked for the economic development committee in the Thai parliament, before finding my first job with World Vision.

Development opportunities at World Vision

I started working for World Vision’s Asia Pacific Regional Office, at first as a conference organiser and later in the Human Resources department. After a few years there was the opportunity for a secondment to World Vision UK. This involved moving to the UK, working as the executive assistant to the director of People and Culture, and studying for the professional HR qualification part time at university. This was a fantastic opportunity and I gained a lot from my classmates at university and from my colleagues in People and Culture at World Vision UK. Now I am CIPD qualified and have had three promotions since joining World Vision, so in my experience there are good opportunities for career progression and variety here.

What my team’s like

I love my team! It’s really friendly but also professional – everyone in the team has different strengths and we get on well and work together well. I find it’s a collaborative and supportive environment, in which I’ve always had enough space to try things out for myself

Current Opportunities

View our current opportunities and download a full job description here.

Need help or want to talk to us in person call: 01908 841090

Meet Chris - IT

What my job involves

Within our IT team my main responsibility is to develop new systems and support existing systems.  This involves a lot of interaction with users to ensure that the systems we deliver enable the business to work as effectively as possible.

The best and worst things about my job?

My favourite part of the job (it’s a bit geeky!) is writing code and problem solving. The hardest part is understanding the work that different teams do. For example when working with the International Programmes Group, it’s a challenge to try to understand how the projects and programmes hang together when I’m not experienced in the international development sector. You learn a lot, which is good but it’s hard work!

What skills would someone need for this type of job?

Combining really good questioning and listening skills, to ensure the user's requirements are understood, a logical way of thinking to evaluate the appropriate solution and think through issues.  From a technical perspective we have a number of technologies that we use within the development team including Lotus Notes/Domino, Microsoft .Net, XML/XSLT, Microsoft Office and Jadescript, and an understanding of database technologies is also useful.

Before World Vision

I've had an interesting career path to date spanning the commercial, public and charity sectors.  Trained as a teacher, I then started in IT as a COBOL trainee in an insurance company, moving on to a small company providing Lotus Domino/Web based solutions, and then spent two years helping to run council internet drop-in centres. At the end of my contract, I knew then that I wanted my work to make a difference and so started looking at charities.  My parents have sponsored children through World Vision since I was a child and so I looked on the World Vision website and found a job that perfectly matched my experience!

Advice for someone thinking of moving to the charity sector

Go for it!  I would suggest finding a charity that is aligned to your interests, as there is no greater opportunity of learning about the work a charity does than by working for them.  I have had the opportunity to learn so much about World Vision's work though training days, meeting with Programme Officers and presentations from staff who work in the field. I hope to be able to visit a project for myself later this year!

How is World Vision different to other places I’ve worked?

We’re a small team, so I get to be a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and work really flexibly.  World Vision does have a different atmosphere to other places I’ve worked. You feel like you’re all part of something, whereas in other places it’s been a lot more self-centred, striving to do the best for yourself. Before I started I expected everyone to be super-holy and cheesy Christians but it wasn’t like that at all! Having never had any contact with a Christian organisation like World Vision that’s the one thing I remember – I was kind of expecting to find a whole load of perfect ministers and to feel really inadequate! But it’s been great – not cheesy, not scary, just really welcoming and friendly.

Current Opportunities

View our current opportunities and download a full job description here.

Need help or want to talk to us in person call: 01908 841090

Meet Hilary - Programme Officer for Asia Pacific

What my job involves

I work in the Regional Programmes Team, where I look at the quality of the programmes in World Vision’s national offices and help them to find funds either through grants or by linking them to private funds that are available. Each programme officer deals with programmes in a particular region of the world – Asia Pacific, Middle East and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, East Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa. The region I work with is Asia Pacific, with a particular focus on India.

The best and worst things about my job?

For me the best thing is working with the staff at World Vision India. They are really hard-working and like discussing things in depth. I like working with them on designing projects because you can address the key causes of poverty. When I first started I went to India for 6 weeks for the Tsunami response – I was working with them on a day-to-day basis so I got to know all the staff there well. That has been really helpful. My least favourite part of the job is the administration: filling in documents, filing things, working out budgets and filling in the right spreadsheets!

What skills are useful in a Programme Officer job?

I’ve found that it’s not just about technical knowledge; people management skills are essential for a programme officer, as well as experience of managing budgets. This is because a lot of the time the job is about making sure things get done on time and within budget, and that you encourage people to develop their skills.

Before World Vision

I studied Biomedical Science at university and after graduating I spent a year working with a church. I was meant to go to America but it changed at the last minute and I ended up going to Norfolk! I worked in a seaside community, visiting the elderly, painting with them, providing counselling and arranging community activities. After that I followed a friend’s advice and did a Masters degree in Water and Sanitation. This included a period overseas – I did research at an NGO in Ethiopia for three months. Afterwards, the NGO offered me a job for a year and from there I took emergency response jobs in Cambodia, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. After four years of moving frequently and living in remote places I started to wonder “how much longer can I survive this kind of lifestyle?” I ended up getting malaria and got shipped back home, and at that point I decided it was time to find a job in the UK. In total I was overseas for four years before getting my first UK-based job.

From living overseas to living in Milton Keynes

Working overseas, the best thing was that I felt quite involved in people’s lives. Here in the UK, it feels like work and the rest of your life is separated but working in the field you live much more with people. You see the villages and you know the challenges the people are facing – and you can see real change. On the other hand, personally it can be quite difficult to be so isolated and far away from your own family and culture. You can end up just being a work-focused person rather than having your own life. That can be quite hard for a long period. It’s quite typical for programme officers to spend a significant chunk of time abroad towards the beginning of their careers and then to be based in the UK later on.

When I got the job with World Vision, I didn’t know Milton Keynes at all – I found a room to rent in a shared house by looking on the Internet! This worked out fine as I got on well with the other people in the house, and then after a while I started to look for a house of my own. I’ve now got a house in Wolverton, which is a nice little town on the outskirts of Milton Keynes.

 I have two lodgers at my house – one is a colleague from World Vision. There are quite a few shared houses in Wolverton so it feels like there’s a close-knit community of people – we sometimes have barbecues at each other’s houses and some people share lifts to work. It’s a nice feeling to have Wolverton as my base now, rather than moving from place to place every few months.

Any advice for students who want to get into the development sector?

A Masters degree in international development can be a good way into the sector because most people find getting experience is difficult, whereas if you are at a university they can link you to opportunities overseas. It’s expensive to study for a Masters but if you want to work overseas for an NGO you need to be well qualified – it’s such a competitive sector. I took a career development loan because the interest rate was better than a standard loan. Apart from study, it’s also essential to get some experience. A lot of people I know have volunteered overseas, for example with VSO or a local NGO. It’s also possible to gain community development experience here in the UK.

But thinking about it even working in the UK I gained a lot of experience of what community development is. It is really important to understand your own community because its easy to have that romantic idea ‘ I am going to Ethiopia to help these poor orphans’ but when you’ve been in your own community and see people with mental health issues or on benefits or who’ve been in abusive relationships you learn what a churches role is or what an organisation’s role is and how disjointed communities are. I learnt so much in Norfolk. But now my thinking comes form that, when I look at Ethiopia or Sierra Leone and I compare it to that. In the UK people don’t get involved so much and it’s a different poverty. Overseas the physical poverty is very stark but here there’s that social poverty and barriers to people being included, like the stigma of people with mental health and people who are depressed and lonely and those issues that exist and how we can take responsibility. If you don’t care about your own community how can you care about other people? I personally find it easier to work overseas because its not so much about mental health problems its like anyone can be poor. They can be a teacher, a lawyer but they just don’t have work opportunities. It seems more unjust somehow.

It’s worth looking at www.charityjob.co.uk and www.bond.org.uk for volunteering opportunities with NGOs because you get an idea of what happens in one and how an organisation functions, for example I didn’t realise before I came here that there’s a Marketing team. You can learn a lot from observing.

Current Opportunities

View our current opportunities and download a full job description here.

Need help or want to talk to us in person call: 01908 841090

Meet Mathew - Head of Supporter Development

Challenges in my job

We don’t sell a product, so the challenge is to communicate the needs of communities and the benefits of engaging with World Vision.

What skills would someone need for this type of job?

You need professional skills and an understanding of marketing, but most of all you need people skills because you need to get on with a diverse range of stakeholders. The type of person we need in Marketing is someone who will love and understand our supporters and be focused on what our supporters need and want, someone who will understand who they are and how they will want to interact with us.

What is marketing like at World Vision UK?

Being a marketer at World Vision, you’re faced with more diverse challenges compared to the challenges in the commercial sector. We have fewer resources so each person gets more involved in the whole marketing process than someone in a similar role would in a commercial organisation. We are working with very complex issues – it is a real challenge to distil those issues into marketing messages that can be communicated in a very short ad or in a short direct mail piece. Here it’s not as straight forward as a commercial org – we aren’t focused on just making money and cutting costs so that money can go to shareholders. Here when we say marketing we really mean income generation – but that isn’t the end of it…once we’ve got the money we then use it for maximum benefit to the communities we’re working with. What the money has been used for needs to be communicated back to supporters and opportunities for engaging further with us need to be created.

Experience of moving from the commercial sector

Before I started working at World Vision I worked at Orange as Head of Fixed Voice. There I ran a product management team. Before that I did an MBA at Cranfield University. Prior to that I had been working in corporate development in various companies in the ISP sector.

Transitioning from the commercial sector to the charity sector was a challenge – and to some extent it still is challenging for me!

One thing that really struck me when I first moved sectors was the fact that suddenly my work mattered! What I do impacts people’s lives directly. It felt quite a responsibility at first – a strange one, until you’ve got your head around it. It means that here I’m so much more emotionally involved in the successes and challenges of everything I work on.

Another thing is that managing people at World Vision is very different to managing people in my previous workplaces. People work at World Vision for different reasons and people are motivated in a different way not just by bonuses.So managing people here is more about tapping into people’s core reasons for being here – the management skills that are required are more subtle and quite a lot more demanding.

Since moving sector, I still struggle with the challenge of doing more with less! Here you need to roll your sleeves up and do more of the jobs that elsewhere would be done by other people.

Having said that, here I have a much better work-life balance. This actually took some getting used to! It’s so much healthier – I get to see my family a lot more than I used to. I really love that.

Advice for anyone considering moving sector?

There seems to be a widely held view that it’s difficult to move from the commercial sector to the charity sector. What I would say is that we in the charity sector really need people who will bring expertise and drive – wherever they have gained that. If you feel you have something to offer, then get in touch!

I would say to anyone considering the move: expect to gain more from the experience than you give. Allow yourself to be enhanced by the experience. Things are done in a different way – you can learn from that.

Finally, when moving to a charity, expect to find a professional, commercially-driven environment. Charities are increasingly being run in such a way – they have learned things from the commercial sector and they could also teach the commercial sector a lot.

Current Opportunities

View our current opportunities and download a full job description here.

Need help or want to talk to us in person call: 01908 841090

Meet Anna - Senior Emergency Communications Officer

What my job involves

I work with the media to raise the profile of both long-term chronic crises (e.g. in Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan) and sudden emergencies (e.g. earthquakes, floods, sudden conflicts). This involves working with World Vision staff all over the world to gather information, eyewitness accounts and pictures to tell the real story on the ground in emergencies. World Vision is often on the scene of a disaster within hours, so I link our staff With the media who need comment and analysis from the grassroots.

The best things about my job

“Emergencies” means I work on natural disasters and conflicts where the poorest are often hit the hardest. It means I’m constantly challenged and learning about new areas of the world. I really love getting to know the communities we work with, knowing that by telling their stories, I can in a small way help bring about change to their situation. The more people that know what’s really happening in crises, the more effectively we can respond.

Challenges in my job

Journalists and international organisations alike have the great challenge of communicating complex situations in an increasingly crowded media space. It’s difficult to continue to raise awareness about a situation that may have been ongoing for more than 20 years. However there are always inspiring people making small progress in every crisis, so it’s exciting when you find a new story you know has to be told.

What skills would someone need for this type of job?

You need an understanding of international media – the way it works and what it’s looking for – so you can find and tell good stories. Most people in my team have a background in PR or journalism and have proven themselves as a good writer or broadcaster. You need to be creative and able to solve complex problems. You also need to be able to build relationships easily with people from all over the world .

Before World Vision

I trained as a journalist and worked in magazines. A friend of mine worked at World Vision UK and she told me about the job. I was looking for a way to connect with issues and injustices I was passionate about so it was perfect. . I’ve had three jobs since joining World Vision – I started as a Communications Officer for news and advocacy, then moved into a website role, and now I’m overseeing our emergency communications.

Is there any travel involved?

I have just come back from a six-month secondment in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I was helping the team respond to the recent peak in conflict. I spent a lot of time talking to people affected by violence and the turmoil of being forced from their homes. I have also travelled to Uganda and Kenya on shorter trips, supporting journalists as they look at the story behind food shortages and displacement.

Being in two different teams

I’m in the Communications team but I also work very closely with the Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs (HEA) team. It’s my job to gather new information and trends from the emergencies we’re responding to so I’m always learning about how we respond to crises and the complex situations we’re working in.

Have you had development opportunities?

The best development opportunities I’ve had have been travelling to communities where we work and talking to people affected by emergencies. I’ve also taken some language lessons before trips. Our communications team is part of several PR and journalism networks (such as the CIPR - Chartered Institute of Public Relations - and the IBT - International Broadcasting Trust). Being part of these networks means there are always ongoing discussions across the sectors.

My ambitions

I’m really enjoying working on a new campaign here in the UK and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into a new strategy over the next year. Long-term I’d like to live and work in the South communicating the views of communities affected by conflict.

Current Opportunities

View our current opportunities and download a full job description here.

Need help or want to talk to us in person call: 01908 841090

Meet Philippa - Senior Emergency Communications Officer

About my job

My job is to research issues that impact upon the rights and well-being of children in the countries in which we work and lobbying the UK government and others to ensure that children are able to thrive and have their needs met within their families and communities. At the moment I'm working on education for all children and looking at how children can be protected from the negative impacts of armed conflict.

Influencing policy-makers involves…

researching the issue, identifying what needs to change and figuring out who we need to influence in order to bring about change. We then work closely with our Campaigns, Communications and Public Affairs Teams to get these issues out to politicians and the general public so that they can add their support for the changes we want to see.

The best things about my job are…

being able to engage with issues that matter and to see that you really can make a difference, open doors, and speak to the people with the power to change things.

Challenges in my job

It’s not a “9 to5” job because you’re dealing with issues that don’t go away, so even at weekends and in the evenings you’re still thinking about them…and these are really difficult issues, such as sexual exploitation and trafficking, so the job can be quite tough.

What skills would someone need for this type of job?

You need analytical skills, so that you can read something and react to it quickly. You need to be able to put forward clear arguments, both verbally and in writing. This can be to a big audience but also on a one-to-one basis. As you are trying to encourage people to make changes, you have to be able to put forward a convincing case. You also need good networking skills as you need to work a lot with other NGOs and partners to have an impact on government policies.

Who do you partner with in your policy work?

It depends on the issue, as some agencies are specific to an issue or region. World Vision’s Policy and Research Team has specialists in Health, Child Rights, Disability, HIV & AIDS, Economic Justice, and Peace & Conflict. By working together with partners such as Save the Children, PLAN, Handicap International, Sightsavers international, Oxfam and Actionaid, we can have a much stronger, collective voice. Examples include the Global Campaign for Education, which involves over 30 organisations in UK, and the Global Health Campaign.

How do you influence policy-makers?

First we find out what the issue is and gather lots of research, and then we figure out who we need to influence in order to bring about change. Our Campaigns Team works closely with the Communications Team to get coverage in the newspapers and on radio and television, to generate public support for the campaign.

Before World Vision...

after school I spent three years at a Romanian NGO, working with street children and children affected by HIV and AIDS. Back in the UK I was youth worker for a year before going to university to study for a undergraduate degree in social policy and social psychology, and then a Masters in NGOs and development – part of which was on child rights. After I finished my Masters, I applied for a job at World Vision because of its focus on children and the issues it worked on.

Have you had development opportunities at World Vision?

Every month I have a study day to keep up to date on child rights issues. That way I can update my knowledge – there is always so much new research coming out that it is good to spend a day each month taking it all in and not getting sidetracked by emails for once!

Current Opportunities

View our current opportunities and download a full job description here.

Need help or want to talk to us in person call: 01908 841090