 Hello and welcome. My name is Miklius Gaspar and I'm in charge of digital communications at the IAA. We are live from Vienna, our headquarters, and this is the seventh session in our series of lives where we explain what it is like to work at the IAA and how the recruitment process works. We'll also answer some of the questions that we have received from candidates. We can also answer some of your questions. Just put them in the comments box and we'll get back to it at the end of the session. Today's topic is about improving your application to the IAA. We'll give you tips and the two colleagues who we have here working us through this are Mary Montieth from the Department of Safeguards and Pierre Mario Bonomi from the Department of Management. Marie is coordinating the recruitment and other administrative matters at the largest department of the IAA and Pierre Mario helps hiring managers all over the house in the recruitment processes. So I've seen many candidates pass and fail and they tell us to do something else. So to begin with Pierre Mario, how do I decide if a position is worth applying to? That I fit and I will stand the chance. Thank you very much, Miklius, and welcome everyone to this session. So I think the first critical point is to make sure you read thoroughly the job description or the vacancy notice that you see on our recruitment system, which is Taleo. And then when you go through each of the different section, you need to make sure that you understand fully the content and the scope of the job. Then when you're done that, you're confident that you understand what is being required and what is the position and the opportunity is all about. Then the next step will be to compare that with your own CV. A good thing could be just to print out the two or put it next to each other and see how much of your experience your qualification match the needed requirements from the vacancy notice. And if that is a good match, then there will be then definitely a good sign that you should go for it. When you see too many times that you're not confident that your experience, your qualification or your knowledge acquired throughout your work experience or studies are not enough, then probably that's not a good opportunity is when you feel like you're too much trying your luck, okay? So there will be definitely the steps that you need to ensure that you are that you are taking in order to go for a position. Thank you. Murray, anything to add from your perspective? Sorry, thank you. I guess I'd just add what comes to mind is a Wayne Gretzky quote, which is that you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. So if you don't apply for the position, then you don't stand a chance of actually getting the position. And that's something for you to think about. If you're, you know, if you've looked at the requirements and you think that maybe you meet it, but you're not absolutely sure, I still think it's worth taking the risk and applying. And I also think that, you know, it's it's possible to apply for more than one position at a time here at the IAEA. There's not just one vacancy, one application at a time. So there's nothing to stop you for applying for more than one position. It's not a good idea to apply for everything that comes up. You should target it to your skills and experience, but it's a good idea to broaden your range of applications. Okay. So how do I target PM Mario? You mentioned the many requirements and I have to see how good of a fit I am. Typically you have mandatory requirements and disciples. So do I have to meet all the mandatory and, you know, how many of the disciples in order to be probably a good candidate? Yeah, thanks for being clear. So absolutely. So what is the critical part in the first step of reviewing the vacancy notice is going straight into the requirements because definitely the requirements as the, you know, words signifies are not non-negotiable, right? So if you don't have a certain number of experience, and just for the sake of an example, if we're talking about the P3 position, then we require at least five years of experience, relevant experience, of course. So if you don't have those five years, then your application will be discarded. It will not be reviewed just on the basis of that. So the requirements are a must and needs to be met in full. When it comes to the asset or, you know, the desirable other skills, then as the word says, you know, if you have it good, if you don't have it, you will still be considered as part of the pool of candidates that meet the minimum criteria. So perhaps to sum up what you have both said, as your recommendation is that as long as you meet all the mandatory requirements, apply, because as Marie said, if you don't apply, you still have no chance. Is that right? Yep, I would say that's exactly right. I think it's always good to take the risk and to go for it. OK, thank you. So when a recruiter like yourself, Marie, looks at the application, what are you looking for? If I was to just drill down to one basic point, I think that I'm looking for evidence that a person has the potential to do the job. And so everything that a person fills out in their application form, you need to be thinking about the person who's looking at that application form. And what they're looking for when they're reading your application form is the evidence that you meet the requirements of the position that they've advertised. So when you have the right education background, you have the right sort of experience and you have the right sort of personal profile for the work. And so the more that you do to emphasize that clearly in your application form, the more likely you are to be successful in your application form, target it exactly to what the the vacancy notice is looking for. Tell the truth, obviously, but you're looking to draw on what your skills and experience are, what your education is and show how that fits against the requirements for the job that's being advertised. Yeah, Mario, anything to add? Yeah, an additional, I mean, from my viewpoint, as an HR professional, I want to make sure that, you know, candidates only see their own application, right? So one application against each of those positions you applied for. From our side, we see lots of them, right? So you need to always consider the fact that we need to review and usually I think it's 200 minimum applications we get on average for each and every single vacancy notice at the agency. So we need to make sure that, you know, your application is to the point, concise, and when we go into it, we get, you know, a good idea rather quickly if you're a good profile or not and why you are a good profile or an excellent profile for that matter for the position you applied for. Okay, so perhaps one way to sum up that again is you have to make sure that you stand out. You're truthful, at the same time you stand out and you can convince a hiring manager that you fulfill the requirements of that role. I mean, just to add from my experience, you know, I'm also a hiring manager from time to time. People oftentimes focus on how getting this job would have them in their careers and, you know, why that's nice, you need to put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter. What it is that we get out of hiring you, not what you get out of being hired. So what are the steps involved in putting together an application form? What should you do before you submit? Pierre, Mario, can you advise us on that? Yeah, absolutely. So I mentioned a couple of them before, right? Making sure that you carefully look at the vacancy notice, which is structured in a way that already should give you a very good idea, not only of the requirements, the task, you know, the qualification required, but also the context. You know, the first part of every vacancy notice is called organizational setting. It will give you an idea of where you're gonna end up working if you are eventually hired for that position. But that's not enough, okay? I think you need to do, each one of us need to do a step forward, okay? So definitely, as I said before, look at the vacancy notice read thoroughly and try to understand in full and compare that with your CV and your experience to make sure that you are a good fit and try to be, of course, objective as much as possible. But then, as I said, it's not enough. I think it's good that you go as well on our website, the IEA, trying to understand what is happening at the IEA, generally speaking, you know, what are our challenges, what are our priorities, and especially in that particular department, the vision that you are applying to, okay? Also, another good thing is to just look in Google, try to look for news articles about the IEA, what's happening, because most of the time you want to have people that really are not only a good fit, but are also interested and do, you know, go a step further in trying to understand how they can go beyond the number to help the organization moving forward. Thank you. Mari. I think Pierre Marier summarized that very well. I mean, I would emphasize one of his points in particular, which is this, looking into the position before you complete your application form. So the more you can show an understanding of the job that you've applied for, the better your application form reads. There are, for the Department of Safeguards, we have an awful lot of information posted on the IEA website. We also have videos posted on the IAEA videos. There is an awful lot of information there about what jobs are available, what those jobs involve. There are interviews with people who are actually doing those positions, and if you're looking at this information, it will give you a much better understanding of the job and therefore a much better chance of completing a really solid application form and hopefully getting to interview and having an excellent interview. Thank you. Next, I'd like to ask you about the motivation letter, right? So an application form typically consists of a CV form. You have to fill out lots of, answer lots of questions, and then a motivation letter that you write. So what are your tips for motivation letters that will stand out starting with the length? Mari. I think as I've said to you before, this is my favorite question. The motivation letter is really one of the most important aspects of the personal history form, and that's because it's the applicant's chance, your chance to market yourself directly against the position. Yes, the name motivation letter can sort of almost be a little bit misleading for people sometimes, because obviously we want to hear about what's motivating you to apply for the position. We want to know what your interest is and why, but we also want to see that you've understood the requirements of the job, and we want to see you highlight for us what you think your key experience is and what your key skills are that will best apply to this position. So really this is your chance to take everything about yourself, everything about your skills and expertise and put it, summarize it into one sort of brief document that tells us why you should be considered for this position. And I think that it's really a great, it doesn't need to be long, so when it comes to the motivation letter it's not about the length of it, it's really about how clear it is, how targeted it is, and I think that this is one area where candidates can sometimes fall down in the application process, and there are some common mistakes that we see, and that's for example, people who write a motivation letter and then use that for all of their applications, and I would really encourage you if you're writing a motivation letter to adjust it each time you apply for a different position and target it to the position that you're applying for. I'd also encourage you to not write too much, so keep it clear and focused, imagine that recruiter who, as Pierre Mario said, is reading 200 applications and keep it to the most important information that you want a person to see. That's great, very thorough. Pierre Mario, anything to add? I don't think I have much to add on this passionate response from Marie, but what I want to build on is actually one of the points that she made about not copying and paste, so this today session is called about improving your application, but I think let's also stop a second and talk about making sure you tick all the boxes, I mean really filling through all the different fields that you have available in your profile in Thaleo. So, so many times we have submission that are incomplete, that can be the motivational letter that is missing pieces, but most importantly, we don't have maybe a clear indication or description of the experience that you had in your life or the study that you completed, and not even in sequential order, so they're all over the place, so we might agree or disagree that the tool we're using is not perfect and could be improved for enough, but at the moment that's what we need to work with, so it's really up to you and it's your duty to make sure that you fill all the fields. That also is valid, as I said, for the motivational letter as for the screening question. Most of those are vacancy notice, we'll have at the end some screening question, which will help the area manager putters to pre-assess those, you know, numerous application that we receive. Now, sometimes we see responses like, please see my CV, right? No, we are reviewing your CV and if we are asking the question that you already are putting your CV, please take the chance there, not necessarily to copy and paste what is already in your CV, but to announce it in a way that we understand how much impact that particular experience, activity you have accomplished in your life, in your working experience, and how it could help the organization as the IEA, you know, moving forward. So that's really what we want to get out of from you when we are putting those screening questions. So make sure at the end before you submit that, you know, go back and check that really everything has been completed, you have not missed anything out because that's really important, you know, when you're missing to put something in your CV, then it's something that we will not see and we cannot take a look at and be able to use in case we want to shortlist you. Thank you. These were all my questions. Our viewers have asked a lot of questions so I'm asking you to be succinct so that we can get through as many of them as possible. Pierre Mario, first question to you. Do I need to upload additional documents on top of the CV and the motivation letter? At the moment, if there's anything that we require you to upload, it's usually very well-defined in the vacancy notice. We're trying to capture everything needed in the Taleo profile. Of course, if you have an additional copy of your CV that you want to attach or anything, please do that. But we will look primarily on the application itself that you submitted. That's why it needs to be completed very carefully and very thoroughly. So to put it another way, I guess the answer is no. Unless it explicitly says in the application process, just complete that form and the motivation letter. Okay, next question. Marie, should I include all my working experiences or only the most relevant ones to the position? I would encourage you to include all of your work experience because for us it's really important to be able to see that history of your working career. Some of them may be less relevant in which case you won't want to spend so much time creating that experience for the application form. But at least so that we can see it and we can see the period of work that you undertook, that's really helpful for us. Well, also because it could look suspicious if there are some years when we don't know what you were doing, right? Yes, but also I think sometimes it explains the trajectory, the career trajectory that that person had. So if it has a particular degree in one area and then it jumps to do a totally different work and you miss to explain how you get to this work after a few years, then we might not be able to connect the dots. So definitely put all your work experience in there. Also, sometimes the work experience that you don't think is relevant can still be interesting to us and we can make links to that work that maybe, you know, you might not be aware of that because of that you don't understand the full nature of the job or something. So actually put it in. I think it's always helpful. Yes, put all of them in, but then in the motivation ladder, only focus on the ones that you consider most relevant for the job. So you get best of both worlds. Okay, Pierre Mario, next one is again sort of mechanical question. After submission, are the applications open for modification so that applicants can improve them further? Absolutely. You need to be careful though that you do all your modification or amendments before the closing date. You will see every vacancy notice will be posted by between one date and usually for weeks, generally speaking, or potentially two weeks more, six up to six weeks. So you can go in, submit your application, go back and change it so many times you want until the vacancy notice closes. When the vacancy notice closes, that's the moment you cannot come back and change anything. Thank you very much. Perhaps related to that, it's nice not to leave it to the last moment for you to apply, because then if you think the next day of an idea to improve it further, it's too late, as Pierre Mario has just said. Okay, next question. It's about internships. Is there an age limit to apply for IA internships? Pierre Mario? No, not really. There's no age limit and you can submit your application as you feel like. Of course, again, we're talking about an internship. Of course, we know that in different countries, there's a certain number of years in trajectory again that somebody needs to take through their studies and the work that might make them go to start working later than maybe others. But of course, if somebody is four years old and they start for an internship, then probably it's not the right opportunity to apply, especially if they already had some years of experience before. Okay, next up. How has the pandemic changed the recruitment process? I don't think it's necessarily changed the recruitment process that much when it comes to the recruitment of professional staff. For general service staff, we used to do an awful lot more interviews in person because general service staff are generally recruited from here in Vienna. But for professional staff, we are used to recruiting people online and that really hasn't changed, to be honest. So it's a process that we're familiar with and it's worked well throughout the pandemic. Just to add, general service in Arlingo means administrative and support roles. Okay, next question. TALEO is rather complicated. Pierre Mario, is there any other way to apply rather than through TALEO? Well, not really. We have an online system and we connected to the previous point, not to leave it to the last minute, right? So we expect everybody to have access to internet and not necessarily to have their own computer or laptop at all, but to be able to access a computer somewhere. And that's why we usually have an extended four weeks period where people can take their time to apply. No, there's no other way and the idea is that if you feel like you cannot have access to a laptop on a daily basis and you need to go somewhere else, to university for example or place of work or whatever to access the internet, you cannot have it on a regular basis and make sure that you factor in how you complete your application and fill out your application by the deadline. Okay, thank you. The next question is from somebody who has just graduated in radiation physics. And that question is, how do you expect me to have international experience when I have just graduated with international experience? I can take this. So I think what were an international environment and of course we want to have people that have already that experience, but that depending on the role, so in this case we're talking about somebody just graduated so you probably apply for a junior role where usually we tend to apply a degree of flexibility. And that international experience can palesibly be taken by other extra international environment. Thank you. Thank you. Do I need to have European citizenship to apply to the IAA? No, you do not. It's quite straightforward. You said be brief, so there you go. Thank you. So a related question. Are there preferences placed on nationalities for various posts? No, no, no. In the agency as you know the director general respond to our member state, right? Our member state are guiding us and telling us what we need to do and how we need to do things. So one of the requirements we have, there's two things that the agency is focusing on mostly very recently. One is the gender parity so we're making sure that we are factoring that in our recruitment efforts and in second is geographical distribution. So we're trying every single time to reach out as far as possible around the world to reach ourselves with different type of nationality and culture. So we want to make this clear. We're not discriminating against anybody. So we're not necessarily in the selection process targeting one gender versus the other or one nationality versus the other. The effort is upfront when we do the outreach like these today's webinars, another live session we're doing. We want to make sure that we reach a far so people are actually here from us doing and they apply to our role in our opportunities. Okay, the more questions we answer, the more questions come in. So we have time only for a few more. Do trainings and workshop certificates count in your education? I would say that yes, they can count. Again, when you're putting in training and workshop certificates think about how relevant they are to the position. So obviously the requirements for the position will very specifically be looking for a specific degree requirement. If you've got other education certificates that you think are particularly relevant to the role then use them, but avoid listing everything you've ever done as an education certificate because it may not be helpful to the application. That's right and actually it can further damage it because it can dilute information that we're really looking for. So which kindergarten you went to is perhaps not so relevant. Okay, the next question is about these asynchronous video interviews that we sometimes do as the first step of the selection process. Our viewer is asking how do you consider it relevant and appropriate to have an idea about a candidate slowly based on a video recording? I can take that. So it's part of the recruiting process. It's not that we're basing necessarily everything on that particular interview. It's part of the recruiting process and we want to make sure that again we're taking an additional step when as needed in reviewing the experiences and hear directly from you how your experiences you add are relevant to the job. So as I said before remember put yourself in our shoes. We have lots of applications every time and sometimes for us we feel it's too risky to just go straight and select very few to do an interview when we see there's a very good pool. But that pool we want to still narrow it down because for some people we're not sure if they really are a good fit or a perfect fit to the position. This will allow us to give a bit more information to us that we cannot necessarily read on the CV because it's a dry document from directly from you in a way that is digestible and is for us doable in a short period of time. I would encourage you to see this as actually an opportunity because in-person interviews tend to be longer and therefore we invite fewer people. If you've been given the opportunity to actually participate in one of the online automated interviews then we've actually been able to offer more people an opportunity to be considered and it's really an opportunity for you to be seen. Okay well thank you very much. That's all we've had time for. If I didn't ask one of your questions that's probably because it's been answered in one of our earlier sessions which you can find the links to in the comment section underneath in the comment section here. We also have a survey where we're asking you what other topics you would like us to discuss. Again, you can find the links in the comment session. You can find more information about us on IA.org slash employment and the main message of this session is really any nationalities can apply any genders can apply. Just read the questions, read the vacancy notice and make sure you put forward a truthful CV and motivation very much and see you next month.