 Hello. My name is Miklos Gaspard and I'm in charge of digital communications at the IAEA. I also happen to have COVID so I'm at home and not with the panel as usual. We are live from Vienna, our headquarters, and this is already the eighth session in a series of lives where we discuss what it is like to work at the IAEA and explain how the recruitment process works. We'll also answer some of the questions that candidates have asked us about working with us. You too can ask questions during this live, just drop them in the comments box and we'll be answering some of them at the end of the session. Today's topic is assessing job applicants. We'll explain all the steps and provide tips to help you better prepare. We have selected two great colleagues for you to meet today. First, let me introduce you to Janine Leopold from New Zealand, who is coordinating various administrative matters including recruitment at the Division of Nuclear Security. Then we also have Jorge Alcina from Spain. He is what we call an HR business partner. He advises managers on human resource strategy including recruitment. So they have both seen tons of candidates succeed and also fail. Let me begin with Janine. Could you tell us that after application, how are candidates selected for the assessment stage? Thank you very much for that question. All applications are reviewed by the hiring manager that the position will report to. They evaluate the qualifications, the experience detailed under description of duties in the application form, as well as specific questions at the end of the application. This is all reviewed very carefully. The candidates whose profile meet the requirements and have the most directly relevant experience to the position may be shortlisted for the next steps. Thank you. And what are those steps? What are the different assessment steps that we go through? Jorge, could you please answer that? Sure. Thank you very close. So throughout our recruitment processes, we can have up to four assessment steps. The first one would be the written test, a specific written test in alignment with the requirements of the position. Then could come an asynchronous video interview. After that, panel interviews, which would be interviews run by a panel including the hiring manager and the candidate. And then we could have a psychometric test, which is normally applied for managerial leadership position and other senior positions. So asynchronous video interview, perhaps our listeners might not be familiar with that. Jorge, could you explain what these are, why we do them, and how they can prepare for them? So asynchronous video interviews are basically interviews that candidates do online and are asynchronous because they would record their interview in a video then would be later on watched by the panel interviewing for that position. So in those type of interviews, we're going to focus on assessing the content of the answers that candidates give, communication style, and they can encompass questions that go from more generic motivational questions and why you applied for the job to more specific skills related questions for skills that are important to the position, or even competency-based questions in some occasions where you need to put forward some examples that prove your competency in a certain domain. So how long would these videos take, Jorge, and how should people prepare? I couldn't hear you well, Nikolas. Can you repeat the question? Sure. Sorry about that. So how long do these video interviews usually last, and how should a candidate prepare? So they are fairly short, actually. We can see an average of five questions for each of those asynchronous video interviews that we run. Each question can take up to two to three minutes to answer. So they're fairly short, but it's important to prepare as you would for a normal panel interview, being well the position, the requirements, a little bit of what you bring to that position, where your strengths are, your skills that fit into the role, and I think as well as potentially some examples that you could put forward for the core competencies and the competencies that are assessed in that position. And it's a fairly user-friendly platform that we use. So you can even do some training or sort of testing before you actually do your interview. It's true. Once you start your interview, you need to go all the way and record the full interview, responding to all the questions. So it's good to prepare, have a good setup, lighting, be comfortable, and as well address professionally because it's still a professional interview. Thank you very much. If I may just add, lots of candidates have told us how uncomfortable they are with this method. Don't worry, it's just as uncomfortable for everybody else you are competing against. So it's a very fair assessment method. All right. So sometimes we start with the asynchronous interviews. Sometimes we start with written tests. As Jorge explained, they are both optional. Let's talk about the written test next. So Janine, why do we do this and how do we assess a written test? Thank you very much for that question. We use a written technical assessment to evaluate the candidate's ability in relation to duties that are required in the position that's been advertised. This is usually done after an initial shortlist and provides insight to the hiring manager who may then subsequently propose only the highest ranked candidates to be moved to the next step. An example is, for example, we may require data analysis. There may be some tests in there on analysis of data and extraction of maybe to a report. The people who do this the best will then move forward to the next step. So this is, we get a shorter shortlist. Thank you. Thank you for that. So how long are these tests normally? They can actually vary depending on what we're doing. It can be anything from 45 minutes to three hours. It depends on exactly what we're looking for, how many candidates we have. It's always customized to the position and what we're looking for in a candidate. Thank you. And these tests, as you said, are always technical, right? Not competency-based. These are technical assessments. Yes, that's correct. All right. So after the written test, as Janet explained, some candidates will make it to the interview, the panel interview. That is a compulsory step we have in every recruitment process as Quark has said at the beginning. We will actually dedicate a session to preparations for the panel interviews next month. So now I'd like to move to the following step, which is a psychometric assessment, if I recall correctly what Quark has said at the beginning. So why do we do this? When do we do this? And what are these? Quark, could you give us some details? Sure. Thank you, Miklos. So, yes, this will be the last step. It doesn't apply to every single position. As we were saying at the beginning, it would apply to managerial positions, senior or leadership roles in the organization. But when we do this assessment, it's related to just after the panel interviews. The why? Well, it's an additional layer of information that we would have. It's an independent external provider that would run these assessments, these psychometric assessments. It's HHL, an industry leader in the field. And basically it would look at personality, ability and managerial judgment through a number of tests that are performed online. And it includes as well an interview with an HHL expert that lasts about one hour and a half or so. So that provides additional information that will really focus on the leadership part on the managerial aspect of the position. And the panel will consider as well that information from that independent provider when it comes to taking the decision for the selected candidate. Thank you. So I see in the meantime one of our viewers said in the chat that the recruitment process is too long. We are aware of that. As my colleagues have explained, there are lots of steps to go through. We want to make sure it's fair and we tend to have many candidates for these jobs. So bear with us, sometimes it takes a while. But after it's completed, what happens next? What happens after all the assessments have been finished? How and when is the decision made? Okay. Sure. So yes, it's a very lengthy process. We have a good number of steps in the assessment. And then at the very end, after that psychometric assessment or the final interview, depending on the position, there is a recommendation for selection that the panel makes. That recommendation for selection goes through a number of internal approvals. And depending on the level of the position that we're recruiting for, it can actually go up to the director general. And only after that decision is taken that approval is obtained, we are able to communicate to all candidates participating in the selection process. Many thanks. These are all the questions I have prepared for you. In the meantime though, our audience has asked a few questions. So let me start. If an applicant possesses all the job requirements, does it guarantee passing the pre-screening stage? Thank you for that question. If they meet all of the requirements, they will be compared against the other applicants. And the ones with the most directly relevant experience will normally move forward to the next step. So it really depends. It could depend on the numbers of years of experience. It depends on the skill that we're looking for. So it's not a guarantee, but it gives a much higher chance if they meet all of the requirements in the job description. Okay. Thank you for that. So another question actually several people have asked is if we could tell them how long typically these various steps take. And I know these vary, but perhaps we can give a range. So from we start assessing them as the applications come in, historically I can tell you that we get sometimes 40% of applications on the last day that it closes. So then we start looking at them. It depends also on the hiring manager and their availability. We have priorities and we do have a timeframe we try to stick to. But if, for example, the hiring manager is on duty travel, of course it can have delays. So we do do them as we do process as quickly as we can. We also go through levels of endorsement and reviews because we have a very rigorous recruitment process. It can take anything, depending on the number of applications also, I'm seeing between 80 and 300 applications for every position, for example. And we look, because we're looking at everything, we really take our time to assess everybody's application. We're reading the motivation later. We're reading all of your experience and assessing this against the fit. So of course this takes time as we do our due diligence. The whole recruitment process, we try to conclude within six to eight months from the position closing. But we do try and speed it up where possible, but it also depends on when the position is becoming vacant and how quickly we need. We try to have no gaps in the agency. Thank you. Thank you for that. We have a couple of questions about written assessments. So first, how are these assessed? Do we have a word, Marks? How does it work? The hiring manager who is making the test and looking for what they want, they will have a scoring system per question. We have multiple reviewers. They are done anonymously. We do not know which candidate has done this. The hiring manager will put the test together, and then it's conducted by human resources. They give it back to us anonymously. It gets reviewed by two independent panelists. And after we've done that, we get the scores, and then we get the next shortlist. I hope that helps answer that question. Sure. Thank you. If I may just to build on that, just to confirm that indeed all these written tests are tailor made for each position. And that may vary a lot from very specific technical questions with true false answers or predetermined answers to building a business case for which you actually have a deadline and that you need to produce or a certain document or strategy. So it's really tailor made, and obviously the way of assessing that will be as well tailor made for each position. Thank you. One of our viewers asked to give examples of positions where typically a written test would be required. So we have had them for some general service positions where we want to know how activities are prioritised, for example. It could be questions on travel management. Then for professional positions, it could be relating to budgets and extracting information from reports. It could be compiling Excel. Those types of positions, maybe Hohai wants to add to that. Yeah, it could be as well potentially communications positions where you need to either respond to certain questions that sort of assess your knowledge or potentially create something. But it could be as well for more engineering or scientific type of background positions where very specific questions are asked about certain technology or science domain. So perhaps based on what you've said, could it be one good way of summarising this, that it would be an example of the kind of tasks one would have to perform during the job. And that's then a good way for candidates to prepare. Look at the job description, what would be the kind of tasks you would be asked to do, and it would be some sample of that that would be on the written test. Is that a fair summary? Yes, that's absolutely a fair summary. Everything relates to the job description, whether it's the video interview, the test, and then also the panel interviews. Everything is tied to the job description. So the candidate concentrating on that is the best way to prepare. Thank you. Thank you. The next question relates to the asynchronous videos in video interviews. So what happens if there are technical difficulties during the session, like my Wi-Fi or internet goes down? Yeah, so our provider, the provider for the platform we use to run these asynchronous video interviews, has technical support that is very responsive. Again, the platform is very user-friendly, and you get a lot of guidance and instructions to run your interviews. If you come across technical problems, you can always contact them. If for whatever reason, you don't manage to run your interviews, you can as well contact our recruitment team and they will be able to help. Thank you. The next question is related to what happens before all these assessment starts. Somebody has asked, what happens if they don't meet all the requirements exactly that are in the job description? For instance, they have a different type of degree or a few years of experience. Would they still be considered? Is it worth applying? Everything is being looked at and would depend on the number of candidates. If there are more qualified candidates that do meet all the requirements, then they're unlikely to be recommended for further evaluation. I would add there one important point. That is, in every job description that you will see, there will be requirements that are musts, that are really requirements, and then other items that may be desired or nice to have. The requirements need to be met in order to be shortlisted for the position in order to move on to the next step. Thank you very much, Jen and Jorge. These were the questions that the audience has asked. So that is the end of our session. Thank you everybody from around the world for joining us. As I said, this is our eighth session. If you missed any of the previous ones, look for the links in the comment section and also on our website on the recruitment page of the IA website. Please also participate in our anonymous three-minute survey that will help us to develop other interesting live videos like this one for you. You can again find the link in the comment section. So thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter and see you next month. Bye-bye.