Working for NORCAP: Insider tips on landing a role

While part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, NORCAP operates in quite a different way from its parent organization. Established in 1991 to provide support to the UN Refugee Agency, NORCAP is now one of the largest providers of standby expertise and, through a roster, deploys personnel across the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding sectors. Last year, NORCAP recruited over 200 new experts, said Peder Apall-Olsen, head of recruitment and development unit at NORCAP. And with 300 individuals deployed at any one time, the range of opportunities means that the roster is a great way for professionals to work with different U.N. agencies and gain “varied and international exposure,” he said. NORCAP deploys people to some of the toughest humanitarian situations in the world, so candidates must pass a thorough interview process that includes a personality test, job simulation, and presentation. The organization primarily hires Norwegian nationals and experts from low- and middle-income countries. “We know that the people that don't succeed primarily fail because of their interpersonal skills rather than their technical skills.” --— Peder Apall-Olsen, head of recruitment and development unit, NORCAP Apall-Olsen tells Devex what technical expertise and soft skills can help candidates make it onto NORCAP's roster. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What technical skills are in demand? We are growing our expertise within areas such as climate and energy, cash, education, and GBV [gender-based violence] — these are four areas that we are working strategically to grow and have been doing so for a few years now. We also recruit quite a lot within information management, gender protection, PSEA [protection from sexual exploitation and abuse], and CEA [communication, engagement and accountability]. Then we also do quite a bit on democratization, peacekeeping, human rights, rule of law. A big piece of what we do is within the humanitarian field [but] also within peacekeeping and touching upon development so we are working across the nexus where we cover everything. We also have quite a lot [of focus] on localization and developing specific programs within that. What level of experience do you look for? It’s primarily the range between UN P3 to P5 [since] NORCAP is a pool of experts, not a training ground. A big challenge for us and something that we are looking into [is] how can we develop the type of experts that we need ... when it comes to more junior experts — how will they get the exposure, [and] the experience they need if we don't offer it when we are among the largest players. But [the reason for such requirements] is also related to the type of requests that we receive ... they come through when there are positions that the U.N. are not able to quickly fill themselves and since many of the entry-level positions are easier [for the U.N.] to find … we offer [support] for the more difficult ones to fill. What advice do you have for local professionals looking to kickstart their international career? U.N. experience is important. The U.N. themselves often expect people to have [this] experience so that they understand the system, understand what role they are going to be working in for UNHCR [for example], have an understanding of [other] sectors or clusters. So try to get [U.N. experience] if you want to work with NORCAP … whether it's for UNV or national staff, that is positive. We also support other organizations such as OSCE and the African Union. Most of the time we don't deploy people to their country of origin. Say you're a Nigerian, we would rarely deploy you to Nigeria. Then make sure you develop a skill … try to focus your career on something and don't work two years with WASH, four years with shelter, and then one year with GBV. Become an expert within one area [as] that enhances your opportunities for international work later on. It’s also important to figure out how … to engage with expat staff, how to proactively seek out those opportunities, and build relationships that can [help you with] recommendations. Be proactive while working for the organization nationally is something I would strongly recommend. “We are not looking for creative people when it comes to writing CVs — we want these to be fairly structured.” --— Where are there opportunities for professionals from other sectors? It’s becoming more and more possible to say ... as things are developing, for example, cash in markets, [that this] would be an area for people from a financial [background]. Without international experience of any sort … or some sort of volunteer work, it becomes difficult for us [though]. We deploy experts that are very often in some sort of coordination role so [if the candidate] doesn’t have any understanding of how the system works, how to achieve results, [it would] be difficult. I think in the future ... we will also see more people or we will open the doors more for people with non-humanitarian type of background as we focus on climate and energy within those areas. What soft skills do you look for? We have a very thorough assessment center to make sure that we have people with the right interpersonal skills. We know that the people that don't succeed primarily fail because of their interpersonal skills rather than their technical skills. We want people with good networking skills, relationship skills, being open to new experiences, having a certain degree of cross-cultural sensitivity so that they understand the context they're being deployed to … or how they need to behave in order to work effectively in that context. Having a high level of resiliency is also important. We deploy people to the toughest contexts and often it's not because of the things that you see in your job … that [affect staff], it's all those external things. Whether it's being far away from friends and family, if it's a volatile situation, suddenly there's a war, not having access to the internet ... all of these things on top of each other. So how do you cope with all of that is essential for us to [uncover] throughout the recruitment process. [It’s also about] how you apply the technical skills using your interpersonal skills. When we deploy, there's always an element of capacity building — we don't send an expert for six or 12 months to do a job and make that office dependent on us. We want to deploy experts that build capacity so that when we leave, there are others that can pick up and carry on that work. In order to do that, you also need these interpersonal skills that I mentioned so that you are able to make sustainable the work you're doing What’s the biggest CV mistake you see? The obvious mistakes are a copy-paste of your last job description or just a lot of bullet points about what you were supposed to do. [That] doesn't tell me anything about what you actually did. You can write a strong CV once and then you won't have to adjust it so much to each position that you apply for but if you're able to write quite concisely what your main areas of responsibilities were, what you achieved, and how you achieved that, that's what we are looking for. If you are applying for a role within GBV and you don't mention the word GBV anywhere in your CV, it's unlikely that you will be selected even though you have the right skill set. If you don't use those [key] words, then you won't come across as credible in terms of that area. [Recruiters don’t spend much time looking at each CV] and often it's the last two or three roles that will keep a candidate in that “maybe pile” so the titles that you had are also important and tell us that this person has been working within the area that we are looking for. We are not looking for creative people when it comes to writing CVs — we want these to be fairly structured. We use an online tool so it's important that [candidates] fill in their complete CV in the online tool … if you don't fill out or upload the information [there], it's unlikely you will be considered. Update, Feb. 9, 2021: This article has been updated to clarify that Peder Apall-Olsen is head of recruitment and development unit at NORCAP.