Storing talent to help fight poverty and suffering faster

Each part of the organisation has very different recruitment
needs. Recruiting for International humanitarian vacancies
in response to an emergency requires very quick access to
suitably qualified and screened experts. The retail chain
needs to co-ordinate recruitment across a network that is
low on use of technology. In all parts of the organisation,
including marketing and fundraising, Oxfam needs to best
capture the many unsolicited applications that arrive each
week. Finance and IT, unlike other parts of the rganisation,
have problems attracting top-quality professionals to the
lower-paid voluntary sector.

On top of all of these challenges, Oxfam is keen to reduce
costs and ensure that recruitment takes as little money
away from the provision of humanitarian aid as possible,
while meeting its strong commitment to diversity and
equal opportunities.

To help with all these issues, Oxfam introduced Global
Successor, the web-based e-recruitment solution from i-GRasp, in July 2002.

Global Successor manages all job appli-cations,
taking jobseekers through a simple process online.
The progress of each application can then be easily moni-tored by line managers and recruitment experts. Perhaps
best of all for Oxfam, all unsuccessful applications can be
easily stored in a ëtalent bankí ñ for consulting when another vacancy arises. Applicants can also regularly update their skills within the ëbankí via the Internet.
Humanitarian Impact Catherine Layton, HR Policy Executive at Oxfam, says that the ëtalent banksí have had a major impact, especially for those recruiting in response to emergencies.

By creating generic job vacancies ñ for example ëRegister me for Water and Sanitation Engineering Jobsí ñ a bank of talent was quickly created to replace the informal spreadsheets used before.

When global events led to a sudden extra need recently for
such experts in Southern Africa, Jan Trefusis, HR
Administrator in the Humanitarian department used Global
Successor to advertise new jobs straight away on the Oxfam
website, and in doing so, to automatically inform people in
the ëtalent banksí through email. This meant the amount of
ëheadhuntingí necessary to fill the roles was dramatically
reduced. Global Successor also allowed Trefusis to quickly
transfer key information between Oxfam offices.

Outside of the Humanitarian department, the ëtalent banksí
are also filling up well, and over 12 positions have been
filled through Global Successor in a matter of weeks.
Catherine Layton is pleased that Oxfam can now do
something with the average of around 50 speculative
applications received each week. ìwe used to have to put
people off and ask them to keep checking our websiteî, she
admits. She is also looking forward to seeing a reduction in
the costs of advertising positions.

New challenges for i-GRasp

To adapt Global Successor for Oxfam created technological
issues that i-GRasp had not seen before. Rachel Keighley,
Client Services Director at i-GRasp, explains that unlike their other major clients, Oxfam had to use old as well as new technology. ìCompanies weíve worked with before are keen
to eliminate paper-based applications, but Oxfam needs to
recruit people working in areas where there is no Internetî,
she explains. They also needed to develop a successful site
that covered the different languages and recruitment
cultures operating in different countries.

To solve this problem, i-GRasp used a simple but effective
innovation. Any paper-based application is faxed to a dedi-cated telephone number ñ the application is then automati-cally scanned and can then be manipulated in the same way
as any other application. As the solution generates letters as well as emails, two-way communication is easy.

The Oxfam site also needed to reflect the different lan-guages and recruiting cultures that exist in the countries
that Oxfam recruits for. The site therefore operates in four
languages ñ English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Finally, Oxfam is very aware that any visitor to their website may be able to help the charity in a number of different ways ñ if not as a future recruit, they may be willing to support the charity financially or as a volunteer or by campaigning. It is therefore essential that a jobseekerís experience reflects the ethics and culture of Oxfam ñ and that it displays professionalism equal or beyond any commercial organisation.

Thewebsite is therefore highly interactive. An ëInterview
Zoneí allows those invited for interview to find out more
about Oxfam ñ practical information (for example where is
the interview taking place) as well as background informa-tion on the charity and its activities.