 Hello. My name is Nicholas Gaspard and I'm in charge of digital communications at the IAA. We are live from Vienna, our headquarters, and this is the sixth session in a series of lives where we discuss what it is like to work at the IAA and explain how our recruitment process works. We'll also answer some of the questions that many people applying for jobs with us have asked. You too can ask us questions, just drop them in the comment box below. Today's topic is about carriers in IT. What opportunities are available, what way to look for them, and much more. So we have selected a panel of three stellar IT professionals to meet today. First we have Kelly Teal from the US who is heading up our IT infrastructure unit. Then Jan Ribaric, a software engineer from Slovakia. And finally, Lutendo Giraba from Zimbabwe who is an IT security engineer. So welcome to all of you. Kelly, let me ask you first. Can you tell us in a few words what IT is like at the IAA and how it differs from other organizations? Sure. So I started off in the private sector. So I was working at IBM, GE, IBM most recently before I joined here. And I think what's different here is that all the work we're doing is really geared towards supporting the agency mission. So helping take technology and helping the agency meet its mission. You know, using nuclear technology for things like agriculture, for things like medicine. And so it's very different when you are working for an organization that's mission driven. Thank you. So it's mission above profits. Jan, what do you think? What makes the IAA special? What is making special for me is that I also came from the private sector. And there, whatever you do is quite gone from the actual implementation. Whereas here, you can be much closer to the actual implementation of the product that you are helping to develop. Which is very nice. And the second thing, at least in my experience, everything that I was working on was a local impact or a national impact that much here. It's at least a region impact, if not the worldwide impact. So that's what it's different. Thank you. So for Jan, it's global impact. Rutanda, what about you? You actually voted another UN organization before coming here. Yes, that's correct. So prior to coming here, I was with United Nations Population Fund. And how that differs from me joining on my current role here as an IT security engineer. So my role is mainly to identify security threats, vulnerabilities, and trying to implement solutions to protect us from those cyber attacks that we see, such as hacking, malware, ransomware. Because of the mandate that the agency has, it tends to put us on a target of a lot of threat actors and attackers. So because of this, we have to make sure that we're always a step ahead. Because a lot of these attackers do have a lot of resources, are highly skilled. So this makes this place a lot more challenging than my previous roles. Thank you. And thankfully for us all, you're doing a good job. So what made you guys consider applying for a job at the IEA? Jan, why don't you start? I think I actually touched this answer already on my previous answers. For me, the difference was to be able to be really closer to the real implementation and the impact that it's beyond the nation or beyond the local environment or local infrastructure. So these were the main reasons why I considered the IEA in the first place. Thank you. Rutendo? Well, as mentioned before, I was with another UN agency in New York with UNFPA. And this was my first exposure to the UN system and I completely fell in love with it. Especially working in such a culturally diverse environment. Coming across people with such a great passion for humanity. So when I heard my daughter, I wanted to be closer to my family. So a friend of mine actually pointed me at the agency. And as I started researching about the agency, the mandate intrigued me. But what really drew me in was the level of effort agency has been putting towards representing women in STEM. And this is a passion of mine that also grew, particularly exposing girls to the field early on since it's predominantly now. Eventually I came across the role that I'm currently in and it was in line with my career path. That with my passion for cybersecurity and my desire to be closer to home. I mean, it sealed the deal for me. Good. Thank you. So Kelly, what about you? What made you consider the IEA? But also how do you come across our job advertisement? It's a good question. I was working at IBM and I actually was not looking for a job. I was doing a lot of great work for them in the acquisition space. And I was contacted by an IEA recruiter. And the more I looked into what the mission was, the mandate, the kind of global impact you could have, the opportunity to move to Vienna, to live in Europe, all these things really just attracted me. And similar to Rotendo, it was on my career path. I wanted to continue to lead teams and this gave me an opportunity to lead a really diverse team and do work that's really important and has that global impact. So I took the opportunity to apply and here I am. Thank you. So Kelly, both you and Rotendo, you both mentioned career development, career path. So how can the IEA add to your career wherever it will take you further, your life will take you further? For me, as a manager, as a supervisor, you know, when you're leading teams, I think it's so important to be able to lead diverse teams. I mean, in today's world, it was so interconnected. And even though IBM is a multinational company, I really feel that here, I've really been able to grow my skills in managing a diverse team and really getting to understand and become more familiar with different cultures and different working styles and different backgrounds and how people got to where they are today. And so for me, it has been a huge growth opportunity and I know that it will help me in my future roles. Thank you. Well, perhaps one difference is that IBM is international, but it's an American company. So people there are trying to be good Americans. People are trying to be good international. I would say at IBM, you are an IBMer first. And here, much more, you bring your culture with you and your culture contributes to the culture of the IEA. I understand. Rotendo, what about you? How is your job at the IEA helping your career? Well, since I've taken up this role, my scope of responsibilities has expanded. I've also been exposed to a lot more of the security domain in my field. So this has definitely given me, I've acquired new skills. You know, I'm continuously learning either through the projects that I get involved in, you know, through my colleagues, through the trainings that are offered to me. You know, IT is a very fast-paced, it's ever-changing field. So it's very important that I continue on this path of learning and continue to grow. And over here, I've been provided that opportunity to stay current, and that's important. Thank you. Jan? Yeah. For me, I have one more thing on top of what you just said. I was working for Accenture and Microsoft back in Slovakia and they both used to say that we are American companies with the local subsidiaries. Whereas here, it's really like international subsidiaries. It's not like, okay, we are US, like we are UN. And even if you can say, okay, Microsoft, Accenture are multi-cultural, multi-national companies, the people you're working with day-to-day, it's mostly the local people or within the local area. Whereas here, when in the smallest unit, you have people from all around the world, which is different environment from the very beginning. So it's increasing rapidly your intercultural awareness. And the second thing for me, I was working in the services business for all my life. So now I moved a bit on the other side of the table. So I'm not the pure provider, I'm also recipient of the services business. So that for me was the biggest change and the biggest area where I'm able to grow in the IAEA. Good. Thank you. Interesting. So you have all touched upon this idea of impact, impact beyond your day-to-day job. So I'd like you to each tell us what's been a particularly impactful project that you have worked on. Yes. So last year, we recently accomplished our upgrade of what's known as the Security Information and Event Management System, SIM for short. So this tool works essentially by kind of feeding in all of the security events and data that our systems generate. We have a lot of systems. So it helps us, it applies the intelligence and helps us, you know, the security team in M-T-A-T, help identify security threats or incidents that would otherwise go undetected. It's a great tool. However, for me it was more meaningful because it gave me an opportunity to really talk to other units, talk to other departments, figure out and find out how they use IT in their day-to-day life to kind of accomplish their task and their goals. So without projects like these, I would not have been exposed to what my other colleagues in the rest of the agency are doing. I understand. Jan, what about you? What's been a particularly meaningful project? Yeah, so I'm the more lucky one from the panel because as I said, I had a chance or I have a chance usually to be closer to the client and closer to the implementation. And one of the examples I have is not the biggest project I was part of, but from this impact perspective for me, it's the nicest one. And it was one of my earliest projects here in the agency where we helped our colleagues from Food and Agriculture Unit to create a collaboration platform for the member states, mainly from the Latam region, to collect and collaborate on the scientific data about how the mosquitoes should be treated to help eradicate and get it under control of the Zika virus a few years ago. And yeah, so basically we built a solution that helped the member states to collect information and exchange information, which as we believe helped and speed up the process of eradication of the virus. Thank you. That's a great example, having to get rid of the Zika virus from an IT desk. Kelly, you work with lots of people, but also when our phones don't work, it's you who we call. So what's more meaningful of that? Yeah, as Jan said, in some ways he's lucky because he's more directly involved in working with the specific projects that happen here at the agency. But my team supports the underlying infrastructure. So one example is email, right? Your email doesn't work. It's like you don't know what to do anymore. And that email allows not only the agency to communicate within the agency, but it also allows the agency to communicate with its member states to share information. And so when we do things like we recently simplified our email environment, which increased stability and increased, you know, the uptime and all these things, you know, in the background, but it really does support the agency and all the work that it does. So I think, you know, even those things that happen in the background really are important in supporting the work that the agency does. Absolutely. Though we only know that when there's a problem, which doesn't happen often at all. Okay. So the people listening to us are considering applying for a job here. So what are main skills you have found you have that are very important when you come to work at the IAA? Kelly? What I look for when I'm looking to bring someone onto my team is technical skills. Sure, they need to be able to do the job. But beyond that, what I look for is someone who has a continuous learning mindset. So someone that's going to be excited about learning new technologies, you know, as was already mentioned, technology is constantly changing. The technology we're using today is not the technology we were using five years ago and won't be the technology we're using five years from now. And so you need to have people who are excited about learning new technology, who are willing and ready and excited to adapt to the changes that are coming, because the changes are coming. And so, you know, as I said, you have to have the technical ability to do the job. But then I really look for someone who's going to learn and grow while they're here at the agency. Thank you. Jan? I will also begin with the technical credibility and ability to maintain it over the time as well. That's very important. But also you need to have a good set of soft skills and competencies to be able to achieve your goals. You need to be very good communicator. You need to be a team player, at least in the business solution section where I'm from. You need to have a very strong client orientation. You need to lift the client's shoes, as we say, to be able to understand what he's trying to achieve. So these are the main points that we're looking for in our section. Thank you. So what skills do you have that you find most useful? I completely agree with, you know, the rest of my colleagues. You know, as IT professionals, obviously you need to have those IT skills to be able to help you, you know, do your job, your role that you're hired to do. Moreover, I think soft skills can sometimes go undervalued. And it's very important to have the skills, like Yan already touched on, you know, communication, you know, being a team player, collaboration. Because essentially IT doesn't exist in isolation, there's always going to be a strong human factor there. You know, we interact with it. We have to discuss with our colleagues about IT. So being an effective communicator will really get you far. At the same time, you know, solutions, problem-solving doesn't happen in a vacuum. No one person knows the answers to everything. So you have to be able to, you know, be a team player, learn to work with your others so that you can come to a solution. Thank you. So technical skills and soft skills is what you have all said. I've been asking you the questions so far. We've received a few from our audience. So let me show this at you. So Kelly, you are a hiring manager. So how do you feel about the recruitment process of the IEA? And also both as a hiring manager, but also what was it like for you as a candidate? One of the things that I really liked about the hiring process here is the ability to do the asynchronous interview. I think that's so important because it allows us to really reach candidates globally without, you know, in that first round, particularly without having to try to figure out how we're going to coordinate across time zones. And that's both as a candidate and as a hiring manager. As a candidate, you know, living in the United States, it's quite a difference in time zone and it allowed me to do that interview in a time period that was good for me now when I was, you know, having just woken up or tired at the end of the day. And similarly as a hiring manager, then I, you know, I can get people to respond and I can view it in my time zone while they've done it in their time zone. And it really allows us to have that global reach when we're doing recruiting. Okay. Thank you. Jan, what was the recruitment process like when you were hired? Well, it was lengthy. It was difficult, but it was fair. And that's what I like about the hiring process overall in the agency. That's no matter who you are or from where you are, it's fair to everyone. Thank you. Ruth, can you do anything that you still remember? No, I agree. It is a long process, but it is fair and there's a lot of transparency involved in it. You know, sometimes life does happen, which was my case before I came. So it was really great that everybody like from HR to my manager were very understanding and were also accommodating for me in terms of trying to figure out when I could start. So I appreciate all of that. Thank you. Somebody asked how long recruitment process that the IA can take. So it can take a long time. We've all said that. And partly that's because we have a lot of candidates. And as Jan mentioned, we are running fair processes. So that takes a while. So I would say between six months and a year from when a vacancy notice closes to when we actually select the final candidate. And we don't spend that time sitting around, but actually we do these many rounds. The asynchronous video interviews that Kelly mentioned, there are also sometimes written tests or practical exams. Then at the end, there is a panel interview. And then all these things go through review processes and eventually a decision is made. So hang in there. Certainly for me, my first UN job was not with the IA, but I completely forgot about my application by the time I got called that I got the job. So this has happened. Next question. Does the IA offer opportunities for young professionals in IT? Kelly? Yes. So there are opportunities. You need to look at what the postings are. In the posting, it's very clear how much experience is needed, the kind of experience that we're looking for. There are different levels of positions that are posted. So it is important to go and read through. Sometimes the information you're looking for that's specific to that job is fairly far down. So you do really got to scroll down through the job posting to see. But there is information in there about what experience is required. And some of those are where we are looking for less experience to give young people opportunity. Thank you. Jan, I'll ask you the next question since you work in business solutions. So what programming language are we required to know when applying the IA? Well, especially in my section, we are heavily Microsoft oriented section. So I would go with the Microsoft portfolio of the languages, as well as most of our infrastructures running on the Microsoft platform. So that would be my bet. But we also have a colleague that working heavily in Python with the data related languages, as well as our ERP system runs on Oracle. So that might be also a good fit. But in any case, this would be specified in the job description when we advertise, right? So everything you need to know is there in the job description, except for the competencies. We discussed this or how to prepare for competencies. We discussed this in a previous session to prepare for interview. It's very important to understand how competency based interviewing works. And you can watch one of our sessions from a few months ago when we talk about that. Thank you. Any last messages to people listening to us? Rotendo. I would say onto what was just mentioned, do subscribe to the webinars. They really did help me when I was applying for this position, because it really goes into detail on how to conduct a proper competency based interview. It really goes into how to properly submit your application. So these are really skills that even beyond will always help me as I progress in my career. Thank you very much for that advice, famous last words. We've come to the end of our session, a few things to note. So just a bit of context. We have about 20 positions a year in IT that we advertise, and there are four positions right now that are open for applications. Let me read them out to you. I wouldn't be able to memorize these. So IT systems in engineer, associate IT project officer, ERP functional lead, travel and events management, and IT security operations engineer. So you'll find these on our website, and we're accepting applications for these four positions. We've now done six of these sessions, so we'd like to know what you think, and what are the other topics you'd like to hear about later. So you'll find a link to anonymous survey in the comment section. So thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to our recruitment newsletter and find more information on ia.org slash employment. See you next month. Bye.