IRC recruiter shares insider tips for job seekers

As one of the biggest humanitarian organizations globally, the International Rescue Committee is never not actively in recruitment, said Rena Kokalari, senior director of people and culture at IRC. The “north star” for its recruitment process, she shared, is the organization’s annual emergency watchlist. IRC, which was created in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, has more than 22,000 staff members responding to crises across 40 countries. Each year, it produces a list of 20 countries at greatest risk of new humanitarian emergencies. “For the past 10 years, it has had 85% to 95% accuracy in terms of predicting places of continuing deterioration and conflict,” Kokalari said. She explained that this feeds into the team’s recruitment strategy by identifying “where we are going to need to be next.” The 2024 watchlist named Ethiopia, Mali, Sudan, Myanmar, and the occupied Palestinian territory. At the same time, there’s a continuous need to fill positions at the headquarters based in the United States, in addition to various programmatic positions in other contexts. “We fill thousands of positions a year,” she said. Sitting down with Devex, Kokalari shared more on the roles currently in demand at IRC, the soft skills any successful candidate needs to have, and advice for navigating the organization’s hiring process. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What kind of roles does IRC typically hire for? If I think about the different types of positions, we have programmatic roles in our United States programs; resettlement, asylum, and integration. … I would say caseworkers are [also] quite big on the U.S. side. Then we have hundreds of roles across over 40 countries around the world. These span a couple of different types of positions. We have sector-focused positions, so that could be nurses, doctors, lawyers, protection experts, and caseworkers of every kind. We also have lots of regional positions. IRC does a lot of development work as well as emergency response work. The skill sets and the breadth of the different positions available across different countries at any one time are quite diverse. We’ve also got headquarters positions and those mostly span operational strategy, research and innovation, finance, human resources; all of the different enabling departments and teams that support our programs team. What positions will be a priority for IRC in the coming year? We have a lot of anticipated growth in the pipeline … Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, and Sierra Leone are places of focus in the future for recovery and development projects [as well as] Gaza. … The current humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia will also be a big focus. In terms of the types of positions [we are hiring for], that includes protection, gender-based violence, violence prevention, health — including maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health, immunization, vaccination — and education. Girls education, as a feminist organization, is a huge focus for us. Early childhood education, and then economic governance are also core areas [and] we are seeing more focus on climate practice. This will continue as armed conflict and climate change is increasingly converging in the same places at the same time. Within those different roles are there specific desirable skills? Something unique that has evolved at IRC that I’ve observed over the last decade is that we went from a place where we were almost myopically focused on very deep technical expertise. IRC is known around the world for its deep technical expertise so that makes a lot of sense. But I think we have really evolved, especially under David Miliband’s leadership in the past 10 years, to an organization that has centered on our recruitment process, culture fit, and soft skills that are necessary for a job. One of the things that we developed many years ago, and we actually engaged hundreds of staff in developing it, is what we call IRC’s success model. This is essentially a distillation of the core things, whether you are a caseworker or a vice president, necessary for any position. The four things that we honed in on are receptivity, resourcefulness, resilience, and results orientation. Receptivity is incredibly important when it comes to open communication and deep collaboration, which is necessary in any humanitarian environment or development context. When we talk about being resourceful … what we mean are people who are problem solvers; and by resilient we mean people who can pivot with poise in the face of dynamic environments. Results-oriented is something that we just never lose sight of because we are here, ultimately, to deliver high-quality programs for our clients. What makes an application stand out for you? It depends on the application, but I would say if you’re looking to break into the INGO sector, and really for anybody, it’s important to underscore, especially in a cover letter, your drive. What is your connection to our mission? Why is it important to you to work at IRC? Make that potentially personal connection and [explain] why the mission drives you. The second thing I would say is we do often see applications that don’t include a cover letter. Your CV only tells one small part of the story. When I do an interview, the first questions I ask are ‘What’s not on your CV that’s important?’ and ‘What would you like to highlight that you think might contribute to your success in this role?’ Taking that spirit into the job search at IRC is a good idea. What would your advice be for navigating the IRC hiring process? I would say a combination of persistence and patience, which seems contradictory. I think and hope we’re doing a good job of putting job descriptions out there that are enabling people of all backgrounds to apply and [we are] thinking about creating job descriptions that themselves [don’t require] having years of experience or educational requirements that are so stringent that they close doors for people. … Research shows us that people from underrepresented groups tend to not apply for a job unless they have 100% of the requirements. We really encourage individuals who think that they could thrive in a role to put their application forward. Also, all human beings come to an interview nervous because getting a job has such a material impact on your livelihood [and] on your future. You could say yes to a job and end up being there, like me, for over a decade. It has a huge impact and it feels like it has a lot of weight. The thing I’d love to say to the candidates is that you’re talking to another human being on the other side. Anything you can do to keep that centered so that you can really share and show your true authentic self will be something that will distinguish you and also help you to demonstrate what you can bring to a position. Update, April 17, 2024: This article has been updated to clarify Rena Kokalari’s title.