Recruitment and Selection Process of BRAC International

Recruitment and Selection Process of BRAC International

BRAC International started its global journey in 2002 in Afghanistan, and since then it expanded its activities in nine other developing countries in Asia and Africa, making it a global leader in providing opportunities for the world’s poor on a non-profit basis. The total workforce of BRAC International is above 8000+ staff which means there is an enormous scale of human resource activity. In every BRAC International country except Philippines there is a separate Country Head of Human Resources & Training and a small HR team that manage the operational activities of these enormous operations, managing their performance and capacity development.

In this particular report, how a HR department of an international non-governmental organization works, how they manage all nine countries HR activities sitting in the head office, how they hire the most suitable candidates and so on are describes from the eye of an intern. The SWOT analysis is done to find out their strong and weak points, and based on those, some recommendations are prepared. Their strongest point is that they have a much enriched HR department with systematic approaches to conduct their activities, and the main drawback they have is that they use insufficient advertisement channels to minimize their cost, but at the same time they are also minimizing the size of potential applicant pool.

Before having any final remarks about this report, it is requested to keep in mind that it was prepared in a very short time’s notice, and because of confidentiality, data could not be collected properly to do the analysis. Yet it might be a good enough report to have an in depth idea about a selection and hiring process of world’s largest NGO with over 40 years of experience of working with humans.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is to gain a real life experience with an organization to relate with the theoretical knowledge I gained in the past four years. As one of my majors was Human Resource Management, I tried to understand the basic and most important process of HR, the recruitment and selection process of BRAC International, and to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall process. In the end I tried to find out some lacking in the process and gave some feasible recommendation to overcome those lacking and make the whole process more proficient.

METHODOLOGY

In order to make this report reliable and meaningful, both primary and secondary research base was used. The sources are –

Primary Data Sources

• Practical working environment
• My observation and informal interview with the officials
• The help of my respective supervisor

Secondary Data Sources

• Official website of BRAC as well as BRAC International
• Different journals and reports found on internet
• Annual reports of BRAC International

DATA COLLECTION METHOD

Data was mainly gathered from former documents, archival records, and mostly from the personal experience and observation. Open ended indirect interview helped a lot in this process. Doing any direct survey was strictly prohibited for any intern no matter how simple and basic the questions were. Also, everything related to Human Resource Department is confidential, so I was not allowed to dig deep into any information. In order to find out the structural loophole and limitations, I had to keep my eyes open while working on behalf of them.

OVERVIEW

BRAC International was officially registered as a “foundation” and its official name is Stichting BRAC International, where the term Stichting refers to a legal entity with limited liability, but no members or share capital, which exists for a specific purpose. It is registered under the laws of The Netherlands, with its seat in The Hague. This foundation was formed on March 16, 2009 with an objective to engage in charitable purposes and social welfare activities in any country of the world strictly on non-profit basis, and to do all such other things as are incidental or conductive to the attainment of the aforementioned objective. Its RSIN (Rechtspersonen en Samenwerkingsverbanden Informatienummer) number is 820561320.

All of BRAC International’s activities are carried out through two entities. The development programmes include health, education, agriculture, livelihoods, targeting the ultrapoor, human rights and legal services programmes. The microfinance programmes include social enterprises, investment companies and regulated finance companies. Social programme supporting enterprises currently include seed production, feed mill, training centers, tissue culture lab etc.

BRAC International started its journey globally in 2002 through extending its operation in Afghanistan. Since then operations spread across Asia, Africa and Americas and as of now it has operations in 11 countries with an annual budget of $ 109.56 million. Currently, BRAC International has programmes in Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Philippines, and Myanmar) and Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda).

MAIN PROGRAMMES

1. Reducing Poverty and Improving Livelihoods

• Microfinance (capital support for generation of self-employment)
• Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Security Programme (provide services to small
• and marginal farmers to increase productivity)
• Challenging the frontier of poverty reduction -Targeting the ultra-poor (graduating households from extreme poverty to moderate poverty)

2. Breaking the Cycle Of Poverty

• Education Programme, Scholarship Programme
• Health, Nutrition and Population Programme (HNPP), Food Security and Nutrition
• FSN), Essential Health Care (EHC), Malaria Programme, Nutrition Programme
• Poultry and Livestock, Small Enterprise Programme Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Disaster Management, Environment and Climate Change

3. Empowerment of Marginalized and Vulnerable People

• Community Empowerment Programme, Integrated Development Programme,
• Migration Programme
• Human Rights and Legal Aid Services (HRLS), Human Rights and Legal
• Empowerment (HRLE), Capacity Development Programme (CDP)
• Gender Justice and Diversity
• Youth Lead Programme
• Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescent (ELA), Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI), Adolescent Reading Centers (ARCs)

PRIORITIES

Focus on Women – BRAC places special emphasis on the social and financial empowerment of women. The vast majority of its microloans go to women, while a gender justice programme addresses discrimination and exploitation.

Grassroots Empowerment – BRAC’s legal rights, community empowerment and advocacy programmes organize the poor at the grassroots level, with ‘barefoot lawyers’ delivering legal services to the doorsteps of the poor.

Health and Education – BRAC provides healthcare and education to millions. Our 97,000 community health workers offer doorstep deliveries of vital medicines and health services to their neighbors. BRAC also runs the world’s largest private, secular education system, with 38,000 schools worldwide.

Empowering Farmers – Operating in eight countries, BRAC’s agriculture programmes work with the governments to achieve and sustain food security. This is ensured by producing, distributing and marketing quality seeds at fair prices, conducting research to develop better varieties, offering credit support to poor farmers and using environmentally sustainable practices.

Inclusive Financial Services – BRAC attempts to alleviate poverty by providing the services of its community empowerment programme and targeting the ultra-poor programme. BRAC’s cumulative disbursement is of almost 10 billion dollars in microloans annually, augmenting microfinance with additional services like livelihood and financial literacy training. Farmers get access to seasonal loans, high quality seeds and technical assistance.

Self-Sustaining Solutions – BRAC’s enterprises and investments generate a financial surplus that is reinvested in various development programmes subjected to poverty alleviation.

BRAND PROFILE | BRAC

BRAC Bangladesh is the worlds’ largest Non-Governmental Development Organizations. This organization was founded by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed as a short-term relief and rehabilitation project following the liberation war in 1972. To tackle the major complications like poverty and lack of organized effort to reduce the problems of war-scarred economy, BRAC subsequently had to scale-up its pilot projects towards long-term issue of poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor. The center of all BRAC’s activities is poor rural women and children.

Now it has become a development organization dedicated to alleviate poverty by empowering the poor, and helping them to bring about positive changes in their lives by creating opportunities for the poor.

From the beginning in 1972, BRAC has gradually become the largest non-governmental organization. The BRAC family includes –

97,000 community health promoters who are providing essential healthcare worldwide, with maternal, neonatal and child health services covering 24.5 million in Bangladesh alone 1.14 million Children who are currently enrolled in BRAC’s 38,000 primary and pre-primary schools and 9.51 million have graduated. BRAC’s youth empowerment clubs provide life skills training to more than 260,000 teens from disadvantaged backgrounds 5.54 million micro-borrowers with a cumulative loan disbursement of USD 9.73 billion 25 million people who have access to clean toilets thanks to BRAC’s sanitation entrepreneurs

More than 600,000 rural poor women being organized through 11,234 Polli Shomaj and 1,217 Union Shomaj; BRAC’s 376 popular theatre teams – in Bangladesh only – have reached nearly 4.3 million people.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Basically, SWOT analysis is a tool for identifying Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat of an organization. The method of SWOT analysis is to take the information from the environment and separate it into internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external issues (opportunities and threats). Once this is completed, SWOT analysis determines what more they can do to help the organization achieve its ultimate goals and what difficulties they must overcome to reach that goal.

STRENGTHS

Thinking Local, Acting Global – Besides Bangladesh, BRAC spreads antipoverty solutions to 9 other developing countries, which are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Philippines, Myanmar, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Unprecedented Scale and Reach – Today, BRAC reaches an estimated 135 million people with over 100,000 employees worldwide. The have one of the largest pool of manpower.

Tax Exemption – One of the biggest strength of any NGO’s is that they are usually taxexempt. BRAC also doesn’t have to give tax on temporary restricted assets (assets that are subject to donor-imposed restrictions).

Experience – Unlike any newly emerged NGO’s, BRAC has enormous experience of working at grass root level both nationally and internationally. The have covered even the remote areas of our country with the view to eliminate exploitation and discrimination against the poor. They are quite capable of handling a large scale of crisis properly.

Strong Human Resource Department – Apart from all above, BRAC has one of the strongest HR department where people work harder than anyone to find the right fit for the right job, to train people to conduct their job properly and to evaluate people properly. There is no political biasness within the organization.

WEAKNESSES

Finding Donor and Fund – The biggest pitfall is that as an NGO, they have to depend greatly on third party funding organizations and individual donations & grants. Though they operate within the legal framework of the country, in most cases they are accountable to the donor agencies rather than Government of Bangladesh. Although BRAC has their backup way of getting funds from the revenue of their own enterprises and investments on bank accounts and fixed deposits, still if they cannot collect their target of donation, they will be at a loss to some extent. Finding good sponsorship is a great challenge.

Weak Remuneration Package – Professionals of this nonprofit organization usually get much less remuneration package than any other MNC’s or financial organizations. BRAC  tends to give them more job satisfaction, motivation, and good environment rather than a good scale of compensation which usually has a negative impression on people who are not charity oriented.

Government Rules and Regulations – Not a single work can be done without government’s supervision and permission. As per the recent laws, the non-government organizations will have to get approval from the NGO Affairs Bureau of Bangladesh to undertake any project and implement it with foreign donations after the passage of a proposed law on foreign grants to ensure transparency, accountability and appropriate use of foreign funds. Also, in the application for registration, an organization must clearly mention the sources of the funds and areas of spending. The registration will be given for ten years, but the government can cancel the registration anytime in case of any violation of the law. This shortens the scope of any sort of NGO including BRAC itself.

OPPORTUNITIES

Support from Donors – BRAC gets support from almost all donor agencies and other sectorial organizations as it has already gained vast reputation as a non-profit, citizen-based group that functions independently of government. BRAC has reputation both nationally and internationally so people can trust them easily.

Up to Date – BRAC is aware of every latest trend and news of this sector and they are willing to work beyond their area. For example, recently BRAC is sending their voluntary team to Nepal earthquake victims to build up cheap yet stable accommodation, and for this they have raised money from taking away one day’s salary from each and every employee. The amount is almost BDT 20 billion.

Popularity – BRAC is the world’s largest non-governmental organization. After being founded in Bangladesh in 1972 and over the course of the evolution, it has established themselves as a pioneer in recognizing and tackling the many different realities of poverty. Now they have a strong reputation worldwide, and have good relationship with multiple foreign countries including USA and UK. This helps them to gain faith easily.

Support from Media – BRAC gets a lot of support from the media and other advocacy organizations because a lot of media personnel supports and also works in the organization. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed himself was selected to be among the top 50 leaders of the world last year.

Diverse Workforce & Diversity Campaign – This organization believes in gender equality and zero discrimination. For example, people all over the country with any religion, race, and gender can apply for a position. They even consider having physically disabled people. After hiring, each and every employee gets to have Gender Sensitization Training (GST) and Gender Awareness and Analysis Course (GAAC) which teaches them to be unbiased towards the employees manually.

THREATS

Vulnerability – any charitable organization is very vulnerable to economic crisis. Regrettably, charity giving is one of the first cash outflows that people cut back then money is tight. Since BRAC partly depends on donations and contributions, in times of economic downfall it becomes hard for them to raise money from potential donors.

Fake NGO’s – Many fake NGO’s like Jaago and others took billions of money from poor people and flew away with it. For this reason the poor people as well as the donors are losing trust on NGO’s.

Emerge of New NGO’s – There are more than two thousand registered NGO’s working in this country and the number of competitors is pretty much high. More NGO’s are emerging in this country and this certainly is a threat to BRAC because more NGO’s means fewer donations per organization. As a result, sustainability problem arises due to lack of funding.

Lack of Coordination – NGOs are working with the government without having any coordination among them. It creates duplication of ideas and activities and wastages of money. Also, “Territorial possessiveness” of an area or project reduces cooperation between agencies, which is seen as threatening or competitive for BRAC.

Poverty is Still Increasing – The most serious accusation against all the large NGOs is that, despite hundreds of NGOs working in Bangladesh and abroad for many years, yet the reduction of poverty is not that much visible. Rather poverty is increasing gradually. Though BRAC is working their level best yet still it is not enough for them to handle everything on their own.

A BASIC RECRUITMENT & SELECTION PROCESS

The main purpose of an effective recruitment and selection process is to hire right people with the right skill sets who can fulfill the best practice and legal requirements of the job. A successful staffing process depends highly on the effectiveness of each and every stage of the recruitment process. This process has gradually been designed and re-designed in order to minimize the chances of failure and thus minimizing the opportunity cost associated with it.

In order to increase the effectiveness and ensure the consistency of recruitment and selection process, a few basic steps is required to follow which is applicable all over the world. These steps are –

1. IDENTIFY VACANCY AND EVALUATE NEED

At first, there should be a need of some vacant position to fulfill. Recruitment process gives the opportunity to align staff skill sets to initiatives and goals, and for departmental & personal development.

2. DEVELOP JOB DESCRIPTION

A Job Description is said to be the core of a successful recruitment process. This is a broad, general, and written statement of a specific job, based on the findings of a job analysis. It generally includes duties, purpose, responsibilities, scope, and working conditions of a job along with the job’s title, and the name or designation of the person to whom the employee reports.

3. DEVELOP RECRUITMENT PLAN

A documented recruitment plan is required for every position and this is generally approved by the organizational unit. A wisely designed recruitment plan shows the strategy for attracting and hiring the best qualified candidate and helps to ensure the applicant pool.

4. SELECT SEARCH COMMITTEE

A selection committee is formed to ensure applicants who are selected for interview and final consideration are evaluated by more than one individual to minimize the potential for personal biasness. Usually the hiring manager will decide the board members who will directly and indirectly interact with the candidates.

5. POST POSITION AND IMPLEMENT RECRUITMENT PLAN

After the competition of job description, the vacancy for that position can be posted to the company website and other headhunting sites wherever it is useful.

6. REVIEW APPLICANTS AND DEVELOP SHORT LIST

After the vacancy of the position is posted, a lot of candidate will show their interest and apply through different media. It is wise to go through each and every resume to find out more potential suitable candidates and then create a shortlist of them. Sometimes, a telephone screening is also done to see if they are able to communicate properly.

7. CONDUCT INTERVIEWS

The preparation of an interview should be taken in advance. Commonly, a panel interview is conducted and the board members inform each other who will ask what questions before the interview. Sometimes a few skill set and ability is evaluated through a written test beforehand.

8. SELECT WHOM TO HIRE

After finishing the interview, the board members along with their chairperson will discuss among themselves about the candidates. The search committee evaluation tool will help greatly in this regard. They have to make sure that the most suitable candidate for the position was chosen based on his/her qualifications and ability to perform the job properly.

9. FINALIZE RECRUITMENT

An important fact is to properly close down each and every recruitment process after the hiring is finished. Employee will be given offer letter so sign and agree to all the terms and conditions of the organization. Every document regarding the recruitment should be updated in a database for future reference.

RECRUITMENT & SELECTION PROCESS OF BRAC INTERNATIONAL

As mentioned earlier, BRAC is currently conducting their activities in 9 other developing countries in Asia and Africa, BRAC International (BI) deals with all the operations that happen outside the country. If any new employee is needed by the foreign countries, they directly contact the Human Resource Department of BRAC International which is situated here in Bangladesh. Like any other reputed and successful organization, BI also follows some selected and crucial steps for recruiting and selecting the best candidate for a vacant position. After doing a three month long internship program in the Human Resource Department of BRAC International, I got a clear view about their hiring process because I was working with the talent management and hiring team. The steps are as follows –

MANPOWER PLANNING & FORECASTING

Manpower Planning, also called as Human Resource Planning, consists of putting right number of people, right kind of people at the right place, right time, doing the right things for which they are suited for the achievement of goals of the organization, while avoiding manpower shortage or surplus. Before starting the recruitment process, the HR department of BRAC International analyzes their current manpower inventory and makes future manpower forecasts.

At first the line managers send all their requirements to the program head, and they inform about it to the top management. Then with the help of HR team, they do the ultimate forecasting and calculate the cost related to it.

Two main types of need are determined right in the beginning of their planning, the need for a new position, or replacement of existing position.

Newly Created Position

After conducting a quick analysis of core competencies, the gaps and missing core skills are determined. Based on these, a new position is taken under consideration to create. After that, a job analysis will be conducted to see if this position is actually new to the department, and will it help to fulfill any existing staffing gap.

Replacement

Replacing an employee when their attrition occurs is typically a logical step to take. Before getting approval to advertise for this existing position, they conduct a job analysis in order to modify the current position to what is exactly required at present from the employee. Reviewing the roles and changing any tasks and responsibility the previous person did is conducted in order to ensure proper job analysis.

DEVELOP STAFF REQUISITION & JOB DESCRIPTION

After getting approval to hire a new employee, whether to replace a terminating employee or because of an increase or change in workload, the department supervisor creates or renews a Staff Requisition form and forwards it to the Chief People Officer for approval. The purpose of this form is to establish a valid need for the new position, indicate that funding and space are available, and it also provides a source document for posting the position.

A typical staff requisition form of BRAC International contains the following things –

• Job location
• Designation
• of vacancies
• Staff type (regular/ contractual/ others)
• Source (internal/ external)
• Salary & level
• Time in hand
• Educational & Professional qualifications
• Job experience (years)
• Preferred channel of advertisement
• Replace or New position
• Approval with the signatures of CPO & department head

A Job Description which carries a detail of all essential position functions with required education and experience, is always attached to the staff requisition form. It is used to develop interview questions, interview evaluations & reference check questions. The following things are the basic contents of a JD –

Clear articulation of the responsibilities qualifications, challenges, and key performance indicators to attract the best suited candidates for the position, otherwise employees will be dissatisfied if they are given duties they were not originally hired to perform. This might result into employees leaving the organization

• The value proposition of the role
• Number of supervisors and reporting officials

This JD serves as a documentation to help prevent or defend against any discrimination or complaints by providing written evidence that employment decisions were based on rational business needs. Also, it is used as a benchmark to assist in ensuring internal and external equity.

JOB ADVERTISEMENT

The next step is to create a proper job advertisement for this position via different media to allure the potential candidates. While preparing the advertisement, they make sure to give all the information clearly without any mistake, or else it might cost them a lot of time and money because once an ad is published in different Medias, it cannot be changed. A typical ad includes the following information –

• A brief description of the organization and its activities worldwide
• Proper job title and summarized job description
• Key Responsibilities
• Person Specifications
• Educational Requirements
• Experience Requirements
• Employment type (Contractual or Regular)
• Job Location
• Where and how to apply
• Application deadline

BRAC International usually publishes their advertisement in their own website which is “careers.brac.net” and in addition they have their own CV collecting webmail address, recruitment.bi@brac.net, internal.bi@brac.net, & international.hr@brac.net. They also post their ad in some other headhunting company’s websites like BDjobs and Hotjobs. They hardly publish their ad in the newspaper because the cost amount is huge. They usually give 15 days’ deadline for the candidates to apply after the ad is published.

CV SEARCHING & SCREENING

After publishing the advertisement, BRAC International gets a massive amount of CV’s from interested applicants for their job opening. Within the 15 days, the recruitment team goes through a multiple number of CV screenings. They have separate webmail addresses for internal and external candidates, so the screening task becomes comparatively easy. Within those mail ID’s, they open a different folder for every position and put every incoming CV within the folder according to their name.

At first all the CV’s are collected, and then they go through all of them to find the right candidates. Not necessarily everyone with the given qualification applies there, and a lot of people with unrequired educational and experience sends their CV based on their luck. The recruitment team carefully screens out the only people who have the right experience on related field and educational qualifications. They give equal opportunities to the internal and external candidate, so they consider everyone.

For the top positions, they also rely on the headhunters, because the requirements of the top positions are very high because they need a lot of relevant experience in the particular field. These high levels of experience are not always easy to get only from advertisements or BDjobs.

CREATE SHORTLIST & START COMMUNICATION

When the initial screening ends, the main shortlisting of the candidates starts by the board members of relevant field. A standard amount of CV’s are sent to them and they decide whom they should shortlist for the position, and who to call for written test and interview.

Before calling for the written test or interview, they conduct a preliminary interview over the telephone according to their policy. BRAC International specially works for outside Bangladesh, so the HR team also looks for candidates who are comfortable to talk in English. A candidate with a good English communication skill is always given priority. Candidates with poor verbal communication skills are crossed out of the shortlist because they usually cannot contribute much in the interview board, as per the interviewers experience says.

In the telephone call, they also seek some valuable information regarding their experience on current organization, current salary, their expected salary for the position, notice period, and their passport status etc. If all the information fulfills the requirements, then they are called for a written test and followed by an interview. The time and venue of the interview is always informed to them beforehand. For the top level positions, the written test part is omitted because they have enough experience which ultimately qualifies them enough.

ARRANGE INTERVIEW

After the candidates confirm that they will be available for the interview session, the preparation for taking the interview starts. They always conduct face to face or panel interview for this purpose. The board members of the interview differ according to the position. Usually  one member from the HR team and others from different relevant department becomes the board member.

Long List

The interview is the most important part of a selection process. This is a scope for the employer and potential employee to directly talk to each other and find out vital information from them both. In this regard, a long list is prepared for each of the candidates to make the interview session easier. In that long list, a brief history of the candidate like name, date of birth, educational institutions, professional qualifications and employment history with their designation is given. In case of internal candidates, their PIN number, joining date of BRAC, appraisal &grievance information are also written in that long list. Long lists are very important because this is the first official document where all the remarks and behavioral traits of the candidates are being recorded. For internal and external candidates, there are two separate kind of long list as the internal employees have more information than the externals. Besides, the information collected via telephone is also given in the long list.

Written Test

In case any written test is held, the question papers are prepared beforehand. Questions are always relevant to the position they will be working for. Their basic theoretical knowledge is being tested over there.

Panel Interview

On the date of the interview, they prepare some questionnaires for the candidates. For example, asking them about their previous experience with the related field can be asked and how much theoretical knowledge he/she has can be examined through the proper questions. An interview session with one individual generally takes 20 – 30 minutes and each board member tries their best to find out the potentiality of that candidate. They follow the 80-20 rule, that is, the board members do the 20% of the talking and the rest 80% talks come from the candidates.

They note down every important details in the long list for future usage.

Virtual Interview

Sometimes, a virtual interview is conducted if the candidate happens to stay very far away from the venue, preferably in another country or any remote area. It reduces time and cost associated with interviewing these out of area candidates. They use Skype conference video calling for this purpose.

Aftermath

After finishing all the interviews, the board members talk to each other to come to a decision, and send their thoughts and opinions to the director with all the relevant interview notes. Then he or anyone who is in charge takes the decision about whom to call for a second interview.

Second Interview

Sometimes, when more than one very eligible candidate is found then they are called for a second round of interview. This plays a very important part in the selection process because the most suitable and interested person is selected from them here. Also, sometimes these eligible candidates have country preference so if one is being selected for one country, then they can offer any other vacant position in another country to the rest of the candidates. This happens mainly because to save time and cost of another interview and most of the time, eligible and interested candidates are hard to find. Only the actual interested people are selected from this second round of interview.

Update Interview Status Database

This is another crucial part of this step. There is a database where the information of all the candidates who gives interview is kept properly along with the remarks and comments of the interviewer. The name of candidates, board members, position, 1st & 2nd round interview date are also kept in the database. This mostly helps the HR team to keep track of all the people and their interview record and the decision of the panel members.

Again, for example, if a candidate is being selected and they are offered to do the job, but the candidate denies the offer because they got a better opportunity elsewhere, in that case to save the valuable time and cost, they can always go through the database to find the second eligible person and offer them the job. This is one of the main uses of the interview status database.

Sometimes, there are candidates who are not suitable for this organization, because maybe they were violent, or they said inappropriate things in the interview, or maybe they are being called several times for the interview and they never comes in time, or in case they were terminated from the previous workplace because of some crime, their information are also put in the database under BLACLISTED remark.

Apart from this database, there is another different database for the internal candidates. This mainly includes how many internal CV’s they have received for the vacant position with their current designation, their PIN number and he date they applied for that position.

Reference Check

Reference check is held after finding the final candidate for that position, and before giving him/her the offer letter. The main objective of a reference check is to gather information about the applicant from a former employer that could help in critically thinking before taking any decisions. A failure to check references can have some major legal consequences. A mistake in hiring will cost time, money and energy. If any employee is found out to be harmful from any of the referees, the organization has the right to cancel the hiring process of that particular person.

An email or a phone reference check is used in most of the cases.

GIVING OFFER LETTER & CONDUCT NEGOTIATION

The finalized candidate is given an offer letter where the duties and the responsibilities of that position are reviewed clearly. Most importantly, the whole compensation package is clearly discussed and negotiated if necessary. If possible, they also discuss the great learning and development opportunities that might fulfill the candidate’s professional goals.

Of course, the chance of countering the offer by the employee is possible. In that case, the HR team always discusses and keeps record of the reason behind the rejection. The rejection is not always about the compensation, and they need to look beyond the surface to find out what is holding them back. If the offer is declined due to salary, the department may reconsider and give them another chance showing that this is the accurate market price for this position including  other benefits. Counter offers are always sent to the HR coordinator and the managing body for further assessment.

JOINING OF THE CANDIDATE AND TERMINATION OF RECRUITMENT PROCESS

After going through all the procedures comes the final step of recruitment, the joining of the candidate. For joining, the HR team has to go through some formal procedure. They usually send their other employee to their present and permanent address for further verification. All the selected candidates must undergo a medical test from a selected position and the report must be satisfactory. After checking everything, they collect the signed offer letter and start to prepare the main contract letter which they call “Appointment Letter”. Here, all the detailed information like, name, new designation, duration of contract, salary details, orientation period and other terms & condition of employment are written. This is signed by bot the CPO or Director in charge, and the employee him/herself.

On the date of joining, some important documents are asked from the employee for final checkup. This includes all their academic and professional certificates, documents of previous job experience, resignation letter, national ID card and passport. They have to give a photocopy of each of these things.

On the date of joining, BRAC International gives them some forms to fill up manually, and then they check every detail to match with their CV and other documents. They create a staff file for each of the employees, and the papers that remains in the staff personal file are –

• Appointment letter
• Deployment
• Joining Form/ Deployment for newly joined employee
• General code of conducts form
• Job Description
• Personal information form
• Nominee form
• References check information
• Offer letter
• Written test (if any)
• CV with a recent passport sized photo
• Photocopy of all Academic certificates
• Photocopy of all Experience certificates (To whom it may concern, release letter etc.)
• Photocopy of National ID card
• Photocopy of Passport

Finally they give every employee a new PIN number for their identification, and thus the recruitment and selection process of BRAC International ends. They scan every document and keep in the employee database in case the papers are lost or being destroyed for some reason.

Every new employee gets a warm welcome from the whole BRAC International team and everyone helps him/her to adjust with the environment as soon as possible. All the employees get an orientation session to get an in-depth idea about this organization’s mission, vision, values etc.

RECOMMENDATIONS

All these analysis clearly states that BRAC International follows the standardized recruitment process with a little customization of their own in order to go with the company’s values. The HR department is doing a tremendous job in selecting perfect recruitment source and method to attract most suitable applicant pool, and choosing the best candidates among them, and the result is quite visible – BRAC is the leading NGO of all. So to giving any particular suggestion only after working as an intern for 3 months is a tough job undoubtedly. Still I managed to found some simple solutions to the gaps they currently have in the process.

Succession Planning

For the recruitment of top level executives, BI always go for the executive search firms like Prediction L.A. which is very expensive method. Most of the times these firms will not care about the motive and values of BRAC International and they will be more interested to just give them a candidate rather than carefully finding a suitable person for the organization. In this case a perfect person for this position will be hard to find. In this regard they can always introduce “Succession Planning”. An internal staff will always be more dedicated and more knowledgeable about the organization so he/she can catch up quicker than any external candidate. Moreover, if a succession planning happens regularly then the internal candidates will get hopes and will work harder to get on the top, thus their motivational level will get higher.

Attractive Salary Scheme

One of the reasons their turnover rate is a bit high is their poor salary scheme. Even though BRAC has one of the finest working environments, and the employees are quite satisfied about it, but when I talked to the staffs informally, all of them agreed that their salary and benefit is much less compared to the other similar organizations. Even though the females can still manage to stay, but the turnover rate of the male staff is pretty high. So I think they should make their salary and bonus structure more attractive to avoid high turnover which will lead to less recruitment and selection cost.

Hire from Different Countries

What I have seen in the past three months is that recruitment for African countries and Afghanistan has become a big hassle and very less people are interested to go to those countries. In those cases, they can directly recruit interested people from those countries by giving advertisement on their own media/channel. People of medical, health, agriculture, & fundraising background are hard to find, so they can hire directly from those countries.

Publish Advertisement in More Channels

They should publish their Job Advertisement in more channels of both home country and abroad. In my analysis I have already mentioned that the sources they use are not enough to attract a large pool of suitable applicant. Sometimes their website, webmail address and BDjobs CV bank is not enough to hire people with exact qualifications. They can prepare a search committee and see which of these sources has been able to drag the most appropriate candidates, and what more sources they can use in future. In addition to that, they should do something extra  to inform the internal candidates about the vacancy. A notice board approach is quite easy and feasible in this regard. They hardly go for newspaper advertisements, and budget on this channel should be increased because newspaper is the largest source through which they can reach people at a short time.

Participate in Job Fairs

BRAC International can take participation in Career and Job Fairs held by many external communities. Thus people will know more about BRAC and its activities towards the welfare of the world, and those might attract more candidates who are willing to work for the betterment of the country. They can also do their executive search campaign in many renowned universities which will not only attract fresh graduates but also they will get to know more about BRAC’s activities and can be interested for future employment. BRAC already has a strong brand power and they can use it in this regard.

Feedback After Interview

Lastly what I found out would be helpful for the candidates who faced interview is that whoever were not up to the mark for those positions, has the right to know what are their lacking’s and why they were not selected, that are the areas that they need to work on for their own good. The candidates take out their valuable times to come for the interview and they need to know why they could not go to the next stage. This will specially help the internal candidates, because they might get dissatisfied and disheartened after being rejected, and this might hamper their current work performance. A proper feedback session will help them get motivated again.

BRAC International is a successful organization in this country and across the world and it happened mainly because the HR team recruited the best possible candidates among the large applicant pool, so they know better than anyone else what will lead them to success because they have long experience. Yet these are some ideas I have that they can consider to improve their recruitment process.

CONCLUSION

It is said that the strong oaks today are the nuts that held their ground. Same applies for BRAC & BRAC International as well. Starting its activities in a small village called Sullah at 1972; BRAC now has reached more than 11 countries worldwide with a broad vision to change people’s lives and without workforces of strongest will and determination, it was not possible. The Human Resource Department of BRAC International has ensured a qualified inflow of staffs making their global programmes a success, so of course they have a very effective way of working. It was sure an honor to work with such an effective and hardworking team where I could learn new areas of work and interest. After getting involved in the processes and the people here, I got the chance to learn lots of practical things which the theoretical knowledge couldn’t cover over the last four years. BRAC International will go a long way ahead if they continue following their excellent recruitment and selection methods and take fruitful initiatives to develop their process.