SafeStart: Operations Manager (Remote, Nigeria or South Africa)
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About you
Email address
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example@example.com
First name
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Surname(s)
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Mobile number
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Country of residence for this role
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Nigeria
South Africa
Other
City or town
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Do you have your own car you could use for work travel?
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Yes
No
Internet connection where you normally work
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High speed (fibre, Starlink or 5G)
Medium speed (stable 4G, video calls work reliably)
Lower speed or unreliable (audio calls work better)
No reliable connectivity
Backup power for outages
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Yes, enough for a full working day (solar, inverter or generator)
Yes, but only for a few hours
No backup power
Fully remote work experience with little day-to-day supervision
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None
Less than 1 year
1 to 2 years
3+ years
Legal permission to work in the country you would be based in
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Yes
No
Start date availability and explanation
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Current or most recent employer name
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Role title there
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Role responsibilities in no more than 3 bullet points
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CV upload
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Your experience
Highest completed education level
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Secondary school certificate
Technical or vocational diploma (e.g. ND, HND)
Bachelor's degree (e.g. BA, BSc, BCom)
Postgraduate diploma or Honours
Master's degree (e.g. MA, MSc, MPH, MBA)
Doctorate (e.g. PhD)
Professional qualification (e.g. CA, ACCA, ICAN)
Fields studied
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Accounting or Finance
Business or Management
Economics
Law
Statistics, Mathematics or Data Science
Computer Science or Engineering
Public Health or Epidemiology
Development Studies, Political Science or other social sciences
Natural sciences
Arts or Humanities
Other
If other, please specify field(s) studied
University or college attended
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Years of full-time work experience
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0
1 to 2
3 to 4
5 to 7
8+
Languages you can work in at a professional level
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English
Hausa
Yoruba
Igbo
Pidgin
Fulfulde
Afrikaans
isiZulu
isiXhosa
French
Other
If other, please specify language(s)
Years working in operations, finance or grants management
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Less than 2
2 to 3
4 to 6
7+
Organisation types where this work was done
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NGO or nonprofit
Social enterprise
Donor-funded programme
Private company
Government
Other
If other, please specify organisation type
Hands-on experience
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Rows
None
Less than 6 months
6 to 12 months
1 to 3 years
3+ years
Xero
Other accounting software (QuickBooks, Sage, etc.)
Excel (reconciliations, budgets, forecasts)
Microsoft 365 / SharePoint administration
Inventory or stock management
Payroll or employer-of-record platforms
Automation tools (Power Automate, Zapier, n8n)
How often you did the following in previous roles
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Rows
Never
Occasionally
Monthly
Weekly
Daily
Coding transactions and bank reconciliations
Month-end close
Budget-versus-actuals reports and cash forecasts
Financial sections of donor reports
Running procurement with quotes and contracts
Stock reconciliations
Staff contracts, onboarding and personnel files
Statutory filings or registrations
Booking travel for others
Managing someone else's diary
Operations contexts handled
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Payments or procurement in Nigeria
Nigerian statutory or compliance requirements
US nonprofit finance or donor compliance
Operations across several countries
None of these
Multiple-choice questions
Pick the best answer for each question. You don't need to look anything up.
At month-end, Xero shows a NGN 250,000 payment with no bill or receipt. What do you do?
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Record it as a payment and add the supporting document later
Record it as an unreconciled bank expense
Put it in suspense until a receipt is found
Ignore it until next month
The Q1 per diem budget was USD 6,000. Actual spend was USD 7,800. What's the variance?
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Budget is overspent
Budget is underspent
No variance
Cannot be determined
A USD 60,000 grant arrives on day one. You spend USD 6,000 a month for months 1 to 6, then USD 4,000 a month after that. With no other income, what's the balance at the end of month 9?
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Opening grant balance less cumulative actual spend to date
Opening grant balance less month 9 budget only
Opening grant balance plus month 9 receipts only
Month 9 budget less month 9 spend
Opening stock is 5,000 bottles. You receive 3,000 and issue 6,200 to agents. The physical count is 1,500. What's the position?
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Reconcile records, investigate differences and adjust where approved
Use the physical count only
Use the opening stock only
Ignore the difference if it is small
The cheapest compliant quote for a purchase comes from a supplier owned by a staff member's brother. What do you do?
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Accept it if it meets procurement rules and the conflict is declared
Reject it automatically because of the family link
Choose it only if it is the cheapest and keep the relationship secret
Use it without documenting the relationship
Which setup is the weakest financial control?
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One person approves, pays and reconciles transactions
Segregation of duties
Supporting documents for payments
Independent review of reports
A field officer claims per diem for 5 nights. The trip report shows 3. What do you do?
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Approve only if the dates, location and duration match the trip report
Approve any claim submitted by an employee
Approve if the amount is below a set limit, regardless of the trip report
Approve if the employee is senior
A supplier invoice is NGN 1,800,000. The exchange rate is NGN 1,500 to USD 1. What's the invoice in USD?
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USD 1,200
USD 1,800
USD 2,300
USD 3,000
A donor grant is restricted to chlorine procurement. Payroll is due next week and unrestricted cash is short. Can you use the grant for payroll?
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Use grant funds only for the approved chlorine procurement and cover payroll from other unrestricted funds
Use the grant for payroll and buy chlorine later
Move the grant to payroll because it is urgent
Split the grant across both costs without approval
In October, a donor call is set for 15:00 Lagos time (WAT). What time is that in Cape Town (SAST) and Chicago (daylight time, UTC-5)?
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SAST is 1 hour ahead of WAT; Chicago is 6 hours behind WAT in standard time
SAST is 2 hours behind WAT; Chicago is 1 hour ahead of WAT
SAST and WAT are the same time; Chicago is 7 hours behind WAT
SAST is 3 hours ahead of WAT; Chicago is 4 hours behind WAT
Working style
How much do you agree with each statement? There are no trick questions.
Agreement scale
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Rows
1
2
3
4
5
If a payment is urgent, it's fine to skip the approval step and get sign-off afterwards.
I'd rather build a simple system everyone uses than a perfect one only I understand.
I'm comfortable telling a co-founder that their request goes against our own policy.
I keep all my tasks in a tracker, even when maintaining it takes time.
Which of these would most negatively affect your satisfaction in a job?
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Frequent overnight travel away from home
Working with difficult partners or clients
Working overtime
Repetitive tasks with little variety
Not enough face time with colleagues
Little structure or unclear direction
In your own words
Please write these answers yourself, without AI tools. Short and specific beats long and general.
In a sentence or two, what does SafeStart do?
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What's one thing about our model you'd question or want to test? (Max 100 words)
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Tell us about a process or system you set up from scratch. What wasn't working before, what did you build, which tools did you use, and what changed? Which role on your CV is this from? (Max 150 words)
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It's the 28th. Field per diems are due on the 1st but the transfer to Nigeria is delayed. A supplier is chasing an overdue invoice. A co-founder asks you to book urgent flights to Abuja for next Tuesday. How do you prioritise, and what do you tell each person? (Max 150 words)
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A few final questions
Do you have any family, business, or financial ties to Kano State government officials or to likely SafeStart suppliers or partners?
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No
Yes
If yes, please briefly describe the tie
In which currency are you giving your salary expectation?
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Please Select
NGN (Naira)
ZAR (Rand)
USD
What is your expected monthly gross salary? (numbers only)
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Gross means before tax and other deductions, and should include all benefits and allowances. We'll look at your expectation in the context of your location and experience.
Expected monthly gross salary: top of your range (numbers only)
How did you hear about this role?
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Shared by a friend or family member
SafeStart LinkedIn
SafeStart website
Direct outreach from someone at SafeStart
Charity Entrepreneurship / AIM network
Effective Altruism job board or Slack
Probably Good
Christians for Impact
Recruitment agency
DevNetJobs
ReliefWeb
MyJobMag
Jobberman
Other job site
WhatsApp group
Other
Referrer name
How long did the application take you?
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Less than 10 minutes
10 to 20 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
30 to 45 minutes
More than 45 minutes
I confirm I didn't use AI to answer any of the questions on this form
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I confirm I didn't use AI to answer any of the questions on this form
Comments or feedback on the role or form
Data consent
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I consent to SafeStart storing and processing the information in this application for recruitment purposes. I can ask for it to be deleted at any time by emailing hello@safe-start.org.
Sharing with partner organisations
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