Afrobarometer candidate guide

Who’s an ideal candidate?

You are comfortable working collaboratively with colleagues and cross-functional teams in a network spread across multiple time zones; you value diversity, equity, and inclusion; you have a strong interest in doing the right thing for our partners and stakeholders; and you share in Afrobarometer’s mission to amplify the views and aspirations of ordinary people through research, analysis, and dissemination.

Desirable

• African citizenship or heritage
• Some knowledge and/or experience of African societies
• A general understanding of external and economic trends affecting the non-profit sector

Personal qualities

• Alignment with AB core values, including non-partisanship, diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Ability to maintain privacy and confidentiality
• Excellent social skills: ability to operate with diplomacy, tact, and empathy; ability to build rapport with leadership and colleagues
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Cooperative, problem-solving, with a positive “can-do” attitude

Why Afrobarometer? Influence!

Afrobarometer is and always will be an organisation driven by the purpose of amplifying the voices of the people. We hire individuals with a broad set of skills ready to actualise and optimise our workflows and give us the ability to represent public opinion accurately and effectively.

Interviewing with Afrobarometer

Preliminary interview

You will first speak with someone from the Human Resources department of Afrobarometer on the phone or some other virtual platform. Phone interviews last about 30-45 minutes.

On-site interviews (in-person/virtual)

On-site interviews are conducted by the HR manager, hiring manager (direct report), and a panel of staff members from diverse functional groups within Afrobarometer. There may be a technical written assessment in conjunction with the interviews.

What to wear to interviews

Afrobarometer has a casual but professional working environment. However, you are expected to treat the interview as a formal event and to dress appropriately.

Preparing for the interview

Interviewers will want to understand your approach to key aspects of the role and how you’ve managed a portfolio of activities/projects relevant to the position in the past. They’ll want to understand how you structure work, motivate cross-functional teams, execute tasks, track and report results, and handle risks and trade-offs as conditions change. Interviewers may be curious about how you handle conflict or competing priorities, build consensus, and navigate team dynamics. They will also seek to learn about your personal values. Everyone who interviews at Afrobarometer has an opportunity to highlight his or her strengths in three areas:

• Leadership: Be prepared to discuss your leadership experience, for example how you have used your communication and decision-making skills to mobilise others. This might be by stepping up to a leadership role or helping a team succeed even when you weren’t officially the leader. Leadership is a critical skill to be successful at Afrobarometer. Most roles at Afrobarometer influence, motivate, and impact without direct authority and manage an extensive network of stakeholders to get work done effectively.
• Role-related knowledge and experience: We are interested in how your individual strengths combine with your experience to drive impact. We don’t just look for how you can contribute today, but how you can grow into different roles – including ones that haven’t even been envisaged yet. We will assess your role-related knowledge and your technical fluency in a skill set or domain. Our interviews will explore all phases of the role. We also ask technical questions related to your field of expertise, either directly or indirectly associated with the position.
• Cultural fit: We are interested in how your values synchronize with those of Afrobarometer. So it is important that you highlight your value framework and relate it to the overall cultural framework of Afrobarometer.