A day in the life of...

Maria Dweggah, WHO

The video interview

If you haven’t had the pleasure of this experience, read on. More and more interviews (for professional as well as support staff posts) are being done via video. I presume it is done to save money and to put all candidates at the same disadvantageous level. More likely it is done to avoid any further appeals as the Matthews case where the ILO Tribunal cautioned the Organizations against unfair interview practices, such as bringing some candidates in for in persona interviews while others are interviewed by video.

“While the Tribunal is not to be understood as saying that a video conference is not a perfectly acceptable method of conducting interviews, care must always be taken to ensure that no candidate is given a potentially unfair advantage by that process. Flying one person across the ocean to be interviewed while leaving a competitor from the same area at home is open to the interpretation of unequal treatment.”

The way I see it, if an Organization is going to invest money, time, training in a staff member for the next ten to twenty years, a few dollars more to interview candidates in persona is money well spent.

In the past few years, I have participated in many video conferences as well as video interviews (never as a candidate). It always amazed me that everyone else looked so good on the screen, except me. Even the ones who don’t look good in real life look good on screen. Whereas some may look a few pounds heavier, I lean toward a good twenty or thirty.

So, of course, when the e-mail came to inform me that I was selected to be interviewed I was ecstatic. When I read further down that it would be by video, my high suddenly plummeted. Oh great, now what.

Needless to say, when I got to the designated videoconference room, there was the TV monitor and the panel in the middle of the table with all kinds of buttons, reds and greens. No one was around so I started playing with the apparatus, thinking that maybe I was supposed to initiate the contact. Within a few minutes the technician came and connected me with the panel who was sitting a few hundred meters away. Funny enough I felt at ease. I had a big table to myself. It was hot as hell in the small room and I was too nervous to notice the big fan over my head (which I never turned on).

Tips

When you first enter the videoconference room, never ever assume that the equipment is “off”. So, be careful with what you say or do. Sit at the table, go over your material and wait until the technician arrives. Even if you are being observed, at least show them you are at ease, prepared and ready.

Wear something nice and colourful. Men, the same advice.

Bring pens, pencils, paper, Vacancy Notice, application form, background material, documents and refer to them. As the questions are being asked, copy them down if they are complicated. Take your time to respond.

Eye contact – you don’t have to. That is the great part about it. You don’t have to look at anyone in the face. So that takes care of the whole cultural question – to eye or not to eye.

Stopped in my tracks

With the end of the year frenzy to get all financial paper work in, I went to see the person responsible for our department’s budget issues. She was sitting at her computer when I walked in. I asked if she had a moment and sat down and immediately questioned the amount of available funds for a
project for which I am responsible and complained about the red tape and administrative acrobatics one had to go through these days to get the funds released. My stress level and frustration must have been blaring. She looked straight at me and asked, “How have you been” I stopped and looked her, totally taken aback, suspicious at first, and then truly touched by this simple question “You want to know how I’ve been?”

It was enough to calm me down and bring me back to my senses. It’s been a few days since this exchange, but the scene keeps replaying in my mind.

How easily we take each other for granted, even at work.

The MBA: don’t leave home without it

The following is not meant to show disrespect to those of you who do have an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) or to those of you currently enrolled in an MBA program, perhaps even balancing your busy day between work, family and studies. You should be commended for your initiative and hard work.

This is written to bring to light a growing practice that glorifies the MBA to such an extent that support staff who did leave home without it and who may not have had the possibility to continue their studies, find themselves at a disadvantage when applying for a promotion, both in the Professional as well as the Support Staff category (even when the advanced degree isn’t even required!)

While it is generally accepted that promotion into the Professional realm is limited to those who have a university degree, WHO is a bit more broadminded and tolerant as it does recognize equivalence in experience. However when the MBA starts becoming the determining factor in the selection of G posts, then we have a problem as it creates an unfair competition practice between the have’s and the have’s not. Either the MBA has a place in the G competitions or it doesn’t. And if it does, then folks, go on out and sign up at your local Webster University (if you can afford it) or in the alternative sign up for an on line course with Open University or any other reputable (or disreputable, who is checking?) e-education program. At least during an interview you can say “I am finishing my MBA”. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Impressive, even.

But, a word of caution, if you do get an MBA, there is no guarantee that you will be promoted into the Professional category. Nor is there a guarantee that you will be promoted to a higher G grade. They might think you are over-qualified.

On the move again

A conservative, very conservative estimate would place the number of staff moves at WHO/Geneva to well over 3 000 in the past four years. Some have moved not once, but twice, even up to five times—the moves reflecting the everchanging structure of the department, the team, the cluster, the priority areas, the strategic areas. Staff have changed floors, buildings, geographical locations. They have moved across the corridor, down the corridor, up the corridor, out the corridor, one office down, one office up.

And now we are on the move again. There are, however, advantages to this madness: your office gets a good cleaning; you get a chance to do some major vertical exercises; you can throw out that plant that died 3 years ago but did not have the heart to do so; you end up finding the most incredible things behind your desk—gifts offered that you never really liked and you are trying to give away (embarrassed because you forgot who gave them to you), old shoes, telephone numbers that you thought were lost forever, empty bottles of perfume, the photograph that fell off the wall a few years back. Most importantly, a good number of movers are kept employed.

You might even get a new office mate. Not that anyone will ask for your opinion…