IOM seeks practical skills in volatile locations

With 127 member states and 440 field offices, the International Organization for Migration has a staff of about 6,700 and a constant need for international and - to a much greater extent - local office applicants. Similar to other international organizations, job application at IOM is highly competitive: Submissions in response to a vacancy announcement may exceed a hundred. But those who are willing to hone their practical, technical skills in some of the world’s hot spots are best positioned to catch the eye of an IOM recruiter. Engineering, medical, and business skills IOM Staffing and Recruitment Officer Maya Umar said the current staffing demand is for engineers. “Right now, we are getting a lot of requests from hiring managers for construction engineers and water and sanitation engineers,” Umar said. “We are involved in crisis situations where we [cooperate with other agencies to] build mobile clinics or schools or temporary shelters.” IOM also hires immigration specialists for more senior positions, and has an ongoing need for project development and program management specialists. Candidates with business and health care skills tend to be particularly competitive. For entry- and mid-level posts, Umar said the organization seeks those with skills and experience in human resources, law, information technology, finance, accounting, radiology, architecture, and laboratory management. Health care and medical skills are particularly valuable to IOM because the agency is heavily involved in caring for migrants facing health and medical problems. “For these type of positions, we always have to advertise for external candidates,” Umar said. Applicants for IOM professional positions must be fluent in English. Proficiency in additional languages may be required depending on the duty station, such as French for those seeking jobs at IOM’s Geneva headquarters. Hardship posts IOM often works with immigrants impacted by natural disasters, war and other humanitarian emergencies. As such, many vacancies are in nations amid or recovering from a crisis. Umar said IOM offices in well-known hot spots such as Colombia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are doing the most hiring. According to IOM North American and Caribbean Project Coordinator Frantz Celestin, countries with the highest incidence of poverty and violence require the largest staff presence. In addition to Colombia, IOM has a major presence in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. “Haiti is always looking for people,” Celestin said. “IOM is heavily involved in disaster relief, disaster prevention, and working with the government on border management.” Global and local recruitment IOM’s global character means there are multiple recruitment channels. Although IOM is headquartered in Switzerland, its Manila office has been in charge of global professional recruitment since 2007. IOM field offices, meanwhile, have more autonomy in hiring local candidates from the offices’ home countries. The most common employment opportunities with IOM, by far, are for “local hires.” In 2008, IOM hired 2,206 applicants for local positions. In contrast, there were 140 international professional and general service vacancy announcements during the same year. These vacancies include both short- and long-term positions. Celestin said vacant local positions are advertised on the local IOM Web site and in other local media outlets like newspapers. Job ads can also be posted on IOM country Web sites. Bahamas native Dominique Martin saw an IOM vacancy in an online version of a Bahamian newspaper while she was living in New Jersey. Seeking to return to her native country, Martin applied for the project assistant position at IOM’s startup office in the Bahamas. Hired by IOM in July, Martin said her experience with accounting, business administration, and working in startup business ventures enhanced her application. She is currently tasked with helping manage the budget for a new program that facilitates the reintegration of Bahamian immigrants returning from the United States. “I had a lot of experience … getting into something when it was in its infancy,” Martin said. “I had a proven ability to handle that sort of situation and to be an asset in that sort of setting.” Hiring timeline varies Given the varied staffing needs of IOM, the hiring process varies depending on the type of vacancy. Long-term positions can take between two to four months to fill, including posting the vacancy announcement. Short-term international hires for positions lasting three to nine months, which are common at IOM, are processed more expeditiously and can take two to four weeks to fill. Short-listed international professional candidates are typically interviewed by phone or video conference. Candidates that advance to the IOM interview can expect a panel interview format. Only rarely are personal interviews arranged for nonlocal job candidates. The recruitment can be even quicker for international emergency hires for two- or three-month employment periods, Umar said. “If we are under pressure … by a hiring manager, we can hire someone from our roster,” she said. “The hiring manager will carry out the interview and select the candidates.” In these cases, IOM may not even post a vacancy announcement before it contacts candidates from its roster. Local field hires are managed through a separate channel and are often handled directly by local managers. The process to fill international positions usually takes four to six weeks. “The time frame is a little different because it’s decentralized, so it’s quicker,” Umar said. “It’s more straightforward.” Celestin agreed with Umar that field managers have more leeway in staffing local offices. “Local managers … know what they are looking for, and IOM allows managers on the ground to make decisions,” he said. “They know their needs better than Geneva or Manila, and it give them the ability to move fast.” The vast majority of candidates for local positions are usually from the country where the IOM local office is doing the hiring. The recruitment process entails that finalists be interviewed in person in their own country. Such was the case of Martin, whose visit to her native Bahamas coincided with the project coordinator’s trip to the Caribbean islands to interview short-listed candidates for the position. Martin’s interview for the project assistant position involved the Washington-based project coordinator and the IOM Bahamas office national officer. “It took almost two weeks from the interview to being offered the job,” she said. Martin initially applied in late June 2009 and started her new job on Aug. 1. Even for such a post in a small office, there were 85 applicants. Internships Undergraduate seniors and graduate students can work with IOM through its university internship program, which offers more than 170 positions at both headquarters and field offices. Mirroring IOM’s global presence, interns are drawn from universities and other academic institutions around the world, including Georgetown University, Osaka University, the German Academic Exchange Service, and Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. Internships, similar to other jobs, emerge from requests by IOM hiring managers, and, in some cases, are not formally announced. The recruitment staff then select the best qualified candidate based on the resumes logged into IOM’s online resume database, according to Umar. “We receive a lot of unsolicited CVs not referring to a particular position vacancy,” Umar said. “If they are good, we ask the candidate to register online, and we build a relationship with them in case there is a [future job or internship] opportunity.” Read more U.N. career advice: - Development Aid Careers in the United Nations System: What You Need to Know - UN Jobs: What You Need to Know - Five Insider Tips for Acing a UN Online Job Application - UN Job Perks: What You Need to Know - UN Salaries: What You Need to Know - UN Occupational Groups: A Primer - UNDP Seeks Experts to Work in Development Hot Spots - The Other UN Career: Working with its Nonprofit Partners - Network Your Way into the UN - Jobs at UN Programs: A Primer - Jobs at UN Specialized Agencies: A Primer - UN to Introduce Online Application Tool for Consultants - UN Association Offers Future Leaders a Chance to Test Their Skills - UN-Habitat Official: Urban Planners Must be ‘More Specialized’ - UNDP Taps Local Talent for Lebanon Projects - A Great Career Stepping Stone: UNDP’s Junior Professionals Program - Joining the United Nations Volunteers Read more career advice articles.