Communications Internship

Under the overall management of the OSU Manager and direct supervision of the Communications Senior Officer, the Communication Intern will have a primary focus on supporting communication activities in addition to providing ad-hoc support to the operations services provided by the team. S/he will also promote a client-oriented approach to deliver high-quality support services. 

The successful candidate will be responsible for supporting a variety of tasks and work packages as a part of her/his internship period. We are seeking qualified applicants who have strong communication skills and capacity in desktop publishing software and website management. The successful candidate must be client/service-oriented as well as structured, organized and detail-oriented. In addition, the incumbent is expected to demonstrate willingness and ability to learn online tools managed by UNOPS, provide guidance and assistance as required to IPMG and PG personnel and overall continually improve required technical skills under the guidance of the Communications Senior Officer. 

One flagship project to be delivered under this internship is the Project of the Year Award (POTYA). It is an exciting corporate award that celebrates project management excellence and projects that have great impact on beneficiaries. During the award process, the OSU team collaborates with the country offices and field project teams, which would provide the Communication Intern with a fair insight into UNOPS activities across the world. A second important aspect of this internship involves several knowledge products to be released this year that are critical to UNOPS organizational success – and related to UNOPS mandate in project management, infrastructure and procurement; and UNOPS priorities in sustainability+ (including GESI and climate).

The incumbent is also expected to support tasks including graphic design, proofreading and layout of publications. As a Google-based organization, there is an opportunity to further develop and refine how publications and other knowledge products are shared digitally as well as leverage communication data to analyze the performance of our communication activities. Depending on his/her interests, the successful candidate may be exposed to other support services (beyond communications) as wished.

At the end of this internship, the successful candidate will have gained:

Exposure to UNOPS project management, infrastructure and procurement corporate standards and activities;

Exposure to the Support Services area, which is a core function within UNOPS (ultimately leading to Head of Support Services career path);

Specific experience in communications at the corporate level, another core function within UNOPS (ultimately leading to Communication Advisor career path);

Exposure to an international work environment;

Exposure to headquarters.

• The internship is expected to start in June 2025 for an initial duration of 6 months, which may be extended to 12 months subject to availability of funds and satisfactory performance.

 Functional Responsibilities:

• Overall support to a variety of tasks and work packages in the area of support services, more specifically communications, in alignment with the IPMG and PG annual work plan:

Communications support and content management:

• Support IPMG compliance with the corporate communication strategy and branding by editing and designing specific documents to align them with UNOPS branding;
• Support the implementation of IPMG content and publication rollout strategies, specifically the communication and dissemination of products developed by IPMG;
• Provide support for content translation into French and Spanish, and other larger translation exercises, including the review and the management processes, as requested;
• Support knowledge sharing and the maintenance of IPMG-owned intranet pages (using our content management system);
• Support the identification of areas for the improvement and development of the IPMG workspace with new case studies and UNOPS best practices;
• Support the collection of information and drafting of articles, presentations, emails and other communications on infrastructure, project management and procurement practices and tools to share with the organization through available internal channels;
• Support the editing and publishing of IPMG content, including news articles, factsheets and other materials for primarily electronic publication;
• Support the setup of web conferencing and other online collaborative workspaces as requested.
• Support monthly reporting and analysis of communications insights.

Support communications-related work packages and initiatives:

• Support the organization of the Project of the Year Award, including but not limited to the nomination and evaluation process, template design and communication material development, including video development and editing;
• Support the revision of the IPMG internal communication strategy;
• Support the revision of the IPMG onboarding package (from a communication/knowledge-sharing angle);
• Research and support the assessment of how Artificial Intelligence (in particular Gemini) can be leveraged to enhance our communications activities;
• Provide support to UNOPS Town Halls and other corporate initiatives involving IPMG products and initiatives.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

Education:

• Completion of secondary school or equivalent is required.
• To be eligible for this particular internship with UNOPS, the candidate must be studying towards a university degree in a relevant discipline, or have graduated with a relevant university degree in the past three years.

Experience:

• While no prior work experience is required, some experience in support services, communications, desktop publication, web content management or journalism, ideally within the development sector, is highly desirable.

Additional requirements:

• Excellent communications skills, especially English writing skills and copy editing, is an asset ;
• Strong technical skills and experience working with Google suite and desktop publishing software (e.g. Adobe Creative suite) is an asset;
• Experience with digital communications and social media is an asset;
• Experience working with content management systems and Google Analytics is an asset.

Language Requirement:

• Fluency and proficiency in English is required.
• Proficiency in French or Spanish is strongly desirable.

Source: https://jobs.unops.org/Pages/ViewVacancy/VADetails.aspx?id=29730#1