Working for IFRC: Insider tips on landing a job

As one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies employs around 2,500 staffers within its secretariat alone. With a workforce so large, the organization, which supports the humanitarian activities of 192 national societies, is increasingly moving toward the method of pooled recruitment. This involves a large-scale recruitment campaign, which aims to fill multiple vacancies with the same title to meet IFRC’s long-term needs. This approach, said Dunja Kovac, IFRC’s manager of global mobility, human resources in emergencies, and national society engagement, is exposing gaps in the agency’s workforce. “As we're moving into pooled recruitment and all of the work and analysis that we're doing to see what kind of workforce we will need in the future, we've realized we're really struggling when it comes to support services,” said Kovac, adding that IFRC has recruiters in all the region it operates and delegation offices with several others focused on recruiting for global roles. “We don't have strong pools of support service staff, including finance, including digital transformation or IT, including HR, as well as logistics,” she shared. Looking ahead, Kovac explained how IFRC plans to remedy this by “upskilling and upscaling pools” with an emphasis on support services. At the same time, it will continue to focus on sourcing general management and emergency response managers. Once a candidate is accepted into the pool, they wait to see if they’ll be assigned to a particular vacancy, at which point a contract is issued. “Currently, we are managing our head of delegation employee population using this method,” Kovac said. Sitting down with Devex, she explained what skills IFRC will be looking for as it shifts its hiring approach, what makes an application stand out, and the skills that are most sought after. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Are there specific skills that are in demand right now at IFRC? We say exactly what we're looking for, and that is what we do our long-listing based on. When we list the skills, the competencies, the experience, the type of role that we would have liked to see someone … who's applying for this job [do], that's what we use to do the long listing. We do it manually in the sense that we don't use artificial intelligence. Unlike many other organizations, we really do take the time because we feel that that’s what helps us to identify those gems — people with very high potential — rather than just looking at [whether] someone has five years of experience in management or not. I guess like all organizations, we're moving very much into digital transformation so that is a skill that you’ll probably see across a lot of different roles that we advertise. One other thing in terms of skills is we tend to recruit a lot of specialist profiles because of the type of organization that we are and the type of work that we do. … When it comes to development work, working with national societies, disaster response, we have a specific set of skills that we look for, but we always list them out. What makes an application really stand out? For me, it's the conciseness. It's short applications; it's not 10- or 15-page CVs. It's really the highlights and it’s applications that are tailored to the role and to us. For example, cover letters where you see someone talking about their interest in the Red Cross. If they've ever been a volunteer — not just within the Red Cross, but in any organization — if they write about that in their cover letter, that really stands out. We have, unfortunately, too many generic cover letters where you see candidates copying and pasting, sometimes not even changing the name of the organization and that really doesn't look very good. Over the last year, what roles have been a priority for you? We had a big campaign where we were trying to replenish our head of delegation talent pipeline so we're moving much more into pooled recruitment and this is one of the different ways that we're working as the IFRC now. … We're trying to replenish that entry-level management role from the outside but also within the Red Cross Red Crescent movement so we are looking for general management skills. How do you value those more technical skills versus transferable skills? Part of the projects that we're working on is to make career paths easier because it's very clear that we have a lot of technical roles, but some of the feedback that we get from our staff … is that they don't necessarily see a career path that helps them move maybe into more general management or vice versa. Part of the work that we’ve been doing with that is [creating] development programs — for example, for heads of emergency operations, which is not a role per se — that both our staff internally, but also externally, can apply to [in order to] help build their skills if they want to move more into the general management and emergency operations management style. Are there any other types of experiences that are particularly valuable for an applicant to have? We do value a lot of international experience. It's very interesting because how people perceive and define international experience is very different. We've recently also looked at the difference, when we're long listing, [of] international experience versus working in a multicultural environment. They're not necessarily the same thing. So we do try to look for both; where someone can really nicely articulate that they are comfortable and have worked in a very diverse environment. That's something that we value above many other skills and competencies. Are there specific skills you would advise people to have in order to be eligible for those roles? I would really suggest financial management, human resource management; all of the skills around support services, [and] managing a diverse team. We're moving away from management and more into leadership. Those are the skills that we value now, but I think they will become even more relevant in the future. Would you have advice for people who are looking to transition from another career into working with IFRC? Volunteering is the starting base. That’s really the best way to make that change from wherever they're coming from. … The moment we see that as we're long listing or we see that in a profile, that's something that stands out. So I think that's the best way to show the interest and the motivation to move into our organization and generally the Red Cross movement. Would that be the same advice for junior professionals that are straight out of education? Exactly the same. For example, we recruit quite a few interns a year. I think any time you look at our careers website, there will be a few internships posted in different areas. What we ask when it comes to the internship is that the university degree is in line with what the internship is advertising in terms of skills. Ready to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by the recruiters who matter most? Update your Devex profile and start connecting with top global development recruiters now.