To keep potential candidates informed of the recruitment process of the IAEA and help them prepare, the IAEA has made available the recordings of all the employment webinars held in 2020. This includes a total of five webinars in English and the closing webinar of 2020 held in the six official United Nations languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). The recordings are available here.
In December, the IAEA organized a pioneering multilingual webinar called 'Working at the IAEA', which describes the typical profiles that the Agency is searching for.
“For us, it is of utmost importance to find the right fit for each position: a person who excels at doing the job, and that respects the core UN values of integrity, professionalism, and respect for diversity,” explained Christine Sim, Head of Recruitment at the IAEA. “We produced these webinars to reach as many prospective candidates as possible from countries in all geographic regions.”
The first part of the multilingual webinar offers a very complete description of the different academic backgrounds that are required in different types of jobs at the IAEA. The degrees required range from humanities to nuclear physics, administration, international relations, IT and languages.
In addition to the diversity of academic backgrounds, the IAEA also fosters gender equality and is looking to attract a higher number of women candidates, a topic that is also addressed in the webinar. Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has committed to achieving gender parity — 50 per cent women and 50 per cent men — in professional staff positions by 2025. Therefore, the IAEA has adopted a set of Special Measures for the Achievement of Gender Parity, to appoint more women in senior positions, and has established the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship programme to support the pipeline of young women in STEM subjects.
The webinar also describes the educational levels required for various post levels, from high school to PHD, and different lengths of experience, from 1 years to 15. The IAEA accepts candidates with previous relevant experience in the private or public sector, and with degrees from any accredited university, Sim said. “Previous experience in the UN system is not a requirement for the vast majority of the positions.”
The webinar concludes with a Q&A session, where candidates asked current IAEA staff members questions in their relevant language. “The intent with these Q&As in different languages, as well as of all our outreach material (videos, brochures, newsletters, webinars), is to tackle any myth and clarify any misunderstanding about the recruitment process of the IAEA,” Sim said.
