Consultancy – LTA for Interview Coordination and Report Writing Services, OHR/BMS

Background

Recruitment and hiring of staff is the single most important human resource management activity.  Each recruitment process and decision represents a major investment of organizational resources, constitutes a long-term asset and is a direct reflection on the organization’s reputation.  Each appointment affects the performance of offices and defines UNDP’S credibility with stakeholders. 

Competency based interviewing is one of the ways UNDP assesses staff to fill vacancies across UNDP. This procedure is designed to ensure a competitive selection process for our rotational vacancies by establishing uniform selection procedures across the organization. All recruitment and selection processes in UNDP are defined by five principles – competition, fairness, professional rigor and objectivity, transparency and accountability.

Since the Office of Human Resources (OHR) handles a high volume of recruitments and conducts a series of interviews, the HR representative requires extra support with the interview coordination and report writing.

UNDP intends to enter into a Long-Term Agreement (LTA) with 10 to 15 Individual Consultants providing the best value for the money to UNDP for the requested services. An LTA is a written agreement between the selected Consultant and UNDP that is established for specific services at prescribed prices or pricing provisions for up to three years, against which specific orders can be placed at any time during the defined period and with no legal obligation to order any minimum or maximum quantity.

UNDP will award LTAs to more than one Consultant according to the scope of services detailed below. UNDP intends the resulting LTAs to be used for its headquarters office in New York, USA as well as various offices around the world, for a period of up to three years.

UNDP would conduct a secondary competition among the Consultants holding an LTA, which is a much more simplified procedure that focuses on factors such as availability of the Consultant at the time of the requirement, the financial offer, etc.

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ANALYTICAL WORK 

The Consultant would be responsible for the following key deliverables:

• Support the chair of the panel in running the interview process effectively.
• Facilitate and manage audio/video virtual calls to ensure the smooth running of the interview panel. Ensure panel members and candidates are connected properly, trouble shoot problems during interview, communicate with candidates if delay etc.
• Takes objective and clear notes identifying strengths and weakness of candidates as measured against articulated competencies.
• In consultation with the OHR recruitment focal point, drafts the interview report in a concise and fluent manner.
• Prepares the interview report on a standard template at the end of each interview session, and then circulates it to panel members for review and comments.
• Coordinate edits/changes to the interview report; submits final report to OHR representative.
• Other related duties as assigned.

Expected outputs and deliverables:

• Successful facilitation of interview panels, including capturing of deliberations and decisions made by panel members
• Timely completion of Interview Reports and facilitation of input and clearances from panel members.
• Timely monthly reports of specific work done and days/hours worked. 

Competencies

• Plans, prioritizes, coordinates and delivers tasks on time;
• Remains impartial and fully confidential at all times;
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Demonstrates openness to change and adaptability;
• Responds positively to feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in Human Resource Management, Public Administration, or related field is required.

Experience and knowledge:

• At least 2 years of international experience in recruitment, including Interview Coordination and Report Writing is required.
• Experience in meeting coordination and usage of virtual conference platforms is required.
• Full working knowledge of Microsoft Office Package is required.
• Excellent listening skills and the ability to accurately capture the deliberations during the interview (Technical Assessment).
• Experience with online recruitment interview tools is highly desirable.
• Experience working with UN System or other international organizations is desirable.
• High integrity. The assignment will involve high-level interactions with senior management and the handling of sensitive issues, both of which make it important for the recruitment of a mature, individual who have extensive experience handling sensitive information (required).

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Fluency in another UN language is highly desirable.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity and inclusion in all its forms.  Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.  

It is to be noted that this assignment is ‘home-based’ and the candidates will work remotely from any location provided that they have the necessary connection/home-office arrangements that will allow them to deliver on the expected outputs. 

 

Application Procedure

The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):

• A cover letter with a brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment; 
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references; and
• One-pager profile description on applicant’s success story and briefly explaining the track record of work experience in the areas highlighted in this TOR.

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.

• The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive daily professional fee (8 hours of work).
• The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; (excluding mission travel); living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract. 
• This consultancy is a home-based assignment, therefore, there is no envisaged travel cost to join duty station/repatriation travel.  
• In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
• If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

The Financial Proposal is to be submitted as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below.  Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring.  When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (70 points):

• Additional years of experience in the area of recruitment, including Interview Coordination and Report Writing. 1 point per additional year up to a maximum of 10 points. Weight = 10%. 
• Relevance of experience in meeting coordination and usage of virtual conference platforms; Max. 15pts; Weight=15%.
• Experience with online recruitment interview tools (e.g. VidCruiter); Max. 5pts; Weight=5%.
• One-pager profile description on applicant’s success story and track record of experience in the areas highlighted in this TOR. Max. 10pts; Weight = 10%.
• Written Technical Assessment. Max. 15pts; Weight=15%.
• Interview. Max. 15pts; Weight=15%.

Having reviewed applications received, UNDP will invite the top 10-20 shortlisted candidates for interview. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (49 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: 

• p = y (µ/z), where
• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Framework Agreement

UNDP plans to enter into the Long-Term Agreement (LTA) with the TOP ranked successful Individual Contractors to assure resources availability at the required time fame and/or increased demand for services requested. The service of who will be used on an intermittent and repetitive basis when needed and based on the fixed unit price.  Other prospective applicants that are not contracted, at the UNDP’s discretion, may be placed in the roster of consultants to be used based on an on-call basis for similar services.

Please note that the LTA does not form a financial obligation or commitment from UNDP at the time the LTA contract is signed, and that such an agreement is non-exclusive. When a specific need arises, the successful Individual Contractor/s will be approached and be provided with a specific TOR and deliverables (and time frame) but still within the scope of the responsibilities stated in the LTA. The successful Individual Contractor(s) is expected to provide Confirmation of Interest on the specific services required at the agreed LTA Daily Rate Consultancy Fee. Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is committed.

This LTA has a cumulative ceiling amount that may accrue to the individual contractor during the life of the LTA, but said amount shall remain as an upper limit, and must not and cannot be interpreted nor understood as neither a financial commitment nor guarantee of business volume.

Contract Award

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will work in close consultation with the HR Business Partner or their designated authority.  The deliverables will be closely monitored to ensure timeline and strategy plan remain on schedule. 

The consultant must disclose any perceived or actual conflict of interest on any panel they are assigned with.

This global LTA will be used by various UNDP Country Offices and as such, the consultants will be required to work on different time zones.

Payment modality

• Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked/the agreed contract unit rate and upon confirmation from UNDP on the satisfactory delivery of expected result by the Consultant according to the agreed deliverables/outputs.
• The work week will be based on 40 hours, i.e. on an 8-hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs

Annex 2 - IC Contract Template

Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex 4 – RLA Template

Any request for clarification must be sent by email to cpu.bids@undp.org 

The UNDP Central Procurement Unit will respond by email and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants. 

Please refer to UNDP procurement notices (https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=71566) for further updates.