Background

The World Health Organization’s (WHO), Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) in Manila, the Philippines is one of the six regional offices of WHO and represents WHO in the Asia Pacific. We work hand-in-hand with governments, health authorities, partners and other stakeholders to provide support, collaboration, and guidance needed to bring better health to the more than 1.8 billion people living in 37 countries and areas of the Western Pacific Region.

WPRO has more than 600 staff members working at the regional office in Manila and in 15 country offices. Our workforce is made up of different categories of staff, i.e. (1) Professional and higher categories; (2) National Professional Officers; and (3) General Service staff. Examples of work under the first category are medical doctors, public health specialists, scientists, epidemiologists, experts in the fields of health statistics, economics, emergency relief as well as those in the administrative, financial and information systems. National Professional Officers are normally locally recruited, nationals of the country in which they are serving and perform functions at the professional level. The qualifications for National Professional Officers are the same as for the Professional category and require as a minimum a first-level university degree. Locally-recruited General Service” staff provides administrative, secretarial and clerical support as well as specialized technical functions such as information systems and communication technology, public information and external relations, conference management, security and building maintenance, and safety and security. The work carried out by these staff supports the functioning of the Organization and is typically procedural, operational or technical in nature.

As part of our efforts to expand our reach to and attract the best talents available in the local market, we are engaging the services of a professional search consultant to assist us in our recruitment and selection process. The categories of staff we are targeting for recruitment are the National Professional Officer and General Service staff as described above.

Purpose/Specific Objective of the Activity
The consultant/contractor will provide expert guidance and input in our selection process, typically in order to come up with a shortlist of high-calibre candidates for the position we are looking to fill.

Description of activities and methodology to be applied
The consultant/contractor should be able to provide services in the following support areas:

1. Advertisement:  A vacancy notice is published on the WHO recruitment site for a minimum of 2 weeks and is disseminated by WHO as widely as possible, including external advertisement in local newspapers. The contractor may be requested to advertise the position in their website and/or other appropriate media and direct the candidates to the actual vacancy posted in the WHO’s e-recruitment portal. Internal WHO candidates are also required to apply online.
2. Outreach: The contractor may be requested to assist in expanding the pool of interested, qualified candidates who apply to the position by carrying out comprehensive outreach efforts locally in order to secure applications from the best talent available.
3. Screening:  Under our process, a first screening of candidates identified through our recruitment portal is usually conducted by the hiring manage. Candidates are screened on the basis of their self-assessed replies to a set of screening questions. The contractor may be requested to provide CVs of candidates (from those who applied online to WHO e-recruitment portal, including candidates referred by the contractor) who meet the minimum essential requirements of the position and assess their qualifications, experience and skills in accordance with the essential and desirable requirements of the position. This may include pre-interviewing potential candidates.
4. Reference check and education qualifications check: For external candidates, competency-based reference checking and other methods if determined appropriate, will be applied. The contractor may also be required to check and validate educational qualifications indicated by the candidates in their CVs.  This would include verification that the qualification was from an accredited university/educational institution and that the candidate has been granted the qualification from that accredited university/institution as per the World Higher Education Database (WHED).  For internal WHO candidates, performance appraisal reports are consulted as basis of the reference checking.

WPRO may decide to use only a sub-set of the above instead of the whole package.

Expertise required

• Qualified, duly accredited and professional service provider (institutions/companies) that has extensive experience in providing quality service in the above support areas, specifically for purposes of recruitment and selection of highly qualified National Professional Officer and General Service staff.
• The service provider should have staff who are professionally accredited or licensed or trained to carry the above activities.

Contractual/Financial aspects

• A long term agreement (LTA) will be drawn up with the service provider for a period of 3 years, which may be terminated by either party with appropriate notice period.
• The price quote should be per support areas described above.
• The service provider will bill WHO after satisfactory completion of the service and acceptance by WHO.

Interested institutions/companies should submit the following documents to the Supply Officer at [email protected] by 15 December 2017.  Please use Tender Notice No. 66050 as subject for all submissions.

• Company profile
• Client References
• Financial Proposal