Client Support Specialist for Integration & Language

The position

As an Integration & Language Client Support Specialist, you will guide new residents through their integration and help them participate in the city of Amsterdam. You serve as a bridge between vulnerability and strength for status holders. Together with the client, you will seek that perfect balance to help them reach their full potential, while collaborating with various partners and stakeholders.

You’ll literally go out into the field to discuss your clients’ progress in the integration process with them. You’ll listen carefully to their challenges and proactively tap into your extensive network to help them overcome obstacles. You’ll oversee and guide ongoing activities and ensure that administrative tasks are handled smoothly.

Your success is a self-reliant client who, after successfully integrating into society, can begin a suitable educational program, volunteer in the community, or find a job to shape their future in Amsterdam.
This position offers opportunities for professional growth and deeper engagement in working with asylum seekers and family migrants. Seize this opportunity to expand your knowledge of laws and regulations and the social services sector!

Here's what you do on an average day

We’d love to give you a glimpse of what your typical workday as a customer service representative might look like:

• You start the day with an intake interview with a Syrian newcomer who is eager to put his skills to use in the Dutch job market. You discuss his previous work experience as a technician, the integration program, and make clear agreements with each other.
• During a follow-up meeting with an Afghan mother, you discuss her progress with the Dutch language and her search for suitable childcare for her young children. You reassure her by discussing the childcare options available in the neighborhood and referring her to her contact person at the Dutch Council for Refugees.
• An ambitious Eritrean newcomer is determined to work full-time to provide financial support to her family, who still live in Eritrea. However, she is struggling to balance her responsibilities related to the integration program with her desire to support her family abroad. Being the creative person you are, you work together to explore options.
• Next, you have an appointment with a client who is illiterate and is struggling to keep up with the integration program due to her limited reading and writing skills. You recognize her determination to learn and grow, despite her challenges with language skills. You sign her up for the comprehensive intake assessment, where her ability to learn will be evaluated, confident in her ability to follow a training program.
• You take the time to listen empathetically to a refugee who is struggling with deep emotional wounds following her traumatic journey to the Netherlands. You refer her to the appropriate professionals who can help her process her experiences and cope with the ongoing fears and nightmares she is experiencing.
• Tomorrow is a work-from-home day, during which you will take the time to catch up on all administrative tasks. This includes preparing detailed progress reports for each integration student, with a focus on specific milestones and individual achievements.

This is where you get started

We strive to be a great employer that ensures all our colleagues feel seen and valued. We embrace the differences among our colleagues; these differences lead to better results for both our organization and our city. We aim to build a workforce that reflects Amsterdam’s diverse population. So, whoever you are, you’re more than welcome here!

The WPI management’s goal is to enable every Amsterdam resident to participate in society, each according to their own abilities. This is also the objective of the Integration & Language Department, where we focus on a specific target group: status holders.

Within the Integration & Language Department, you will be working in a dynamic team of status holders or family migrants. The teams are passionate and committed to each other and to our clients. The department is constantly evolving and developing. That’s why you’ll have the opportunity and freedom to contribute your ideas and help shape the future. This means it’s never boring, and no two days are the same! There are many possibilities in our department, which means your work—already very varied—can become even more interesting.

What you bring

For this position as an Integration & Language Customer Service Representative, you must have:

• At least 2 years of work experience in an executive management role. Please explain this in your cover letter.
• At least 2 years of experience organizing and planning your own work or managing your own caseload. Please explain this in your cover letter.
• Experience with administrative tasks.

You should have the following skills:

• Judgment: Reaches a well-considered and realistic conclusion based on information and analysis of a given situation.
• Customer focus: Responds to customer wishes and needs while collaborating with various (supply chain) partners.
• Results-oriented approach: Setting specific goals as a starting point for one’s own behavior and sticking to them until the goal is achieved.
• Relationship Management: Builds, maintains, and leverages personal relationships with customers and other contacts.
• Empathy: Able to put oneself in another person’s shoes. Adjusts one’s own behavior to others’ feelings and is sensitive.
• Flexible attitude: Mental resilience, the ability to put things into perspective, let go, and move on after a difficult situation.

What we offer you

As an Integration & Language Client Advisor, you will join our team for 32–36 hours per week and can expect the following terms of employment.

• A gross monthly salary ranging from €3,167 to €4,537 (pay grade 9) based on a 36-hour workweek. The exact salary will be determined based on your education, knowledge, and experience.
• A one-year employment contract, with the possibility of a permanent contract thereafter, if you do not currently have an employment contract with the City of Amsterdam, or if you have only a temporary one.
• If you already have a permanent employment contract with the City of Amsterdam, you will retain it and be transferred.
• Opportunities for professional development and training. Our in-house training center, the Amsterdam School, offers a variety of training programs, professional development tracks, and on-the-job coaching to help you continue to challenge yourself.
• An individual flexible budget (IKB) equal to 17.05% of your salary, which you can use for things like additional pension contributions or extra days off.
• A pension plan with ABP, the pension fund for the public sector and education.
• A travel allowance of €0.10 per kilometer, up to a 45-kilometer one-way commute, for the number of days you work in the office, and/or a work-from-home allowance of €3 net per workday that you work from home.
• A monthly contribution toward health insurance.
• Hybrid work: In this role, you can work partly from home and partly in the office. We provide the necessary equipment to help you set up a safe and healthy workspace at home.
• A cell phone and a laptop.
• An (electric) rental bike that lets you travel between work locations in a sustainable and healthy way.

Interested in learning more about our employment terms and conditions? Check out the Municipality of Amsterdam Personnel Regulations (PGA).

Apply for this job

• If this job opening interests you, please submit your application by November 12, 2023, via the application form on our website.
• We would like to receive your cover letter, in which you explain—in no more than one A4 page—your experience in a hands-on management role and in organizing and planning your own work or managing your own caseload. Please also explain why your skills are a good fit for this position. Your cover letter will be taken into consideration during the selection process.
• The selection process begins immediately after the application deadline and consists of a CV/cover letter review and an interview round. If the initial interview goes well, you will be invited to an assessment. The assessment consists of a personality test, an interview, and a role-play exercise. The selection committee consists of a team manager, a client advisor, and a recruiter.
• If your resume meets the job requirements, we would be happy to invite you for an interview.
• The interviews will take place in week 47 or 48 at our office located at Jan van Galenstraat 323 in Amsterdam.
• This job opening is being advertised internally and externally at the same time. Employees of the City of Amsterdam will be given priority in the hiring process.
• We require a recent Certificate of Good Conduct (VOG) from every colleague who joins our team.

We do not appreciate unsolicited solicitation from recruitment agencies, and such actions may result in exclusion from our other recruitment initiatives. We also consider the unsolicited submission of resumes by agencies to our employees to be solicitation. We will not review these resumes.

Recruitment agencies are asked to refrain from contacting us regarding this job opening.