Hiring M&E staff: Guidelines and tools for locating and hiring strong monitoring & evaluation candidates

This guide, authored by Clara Hagens and Guy Sharrock for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the American Red Cross, outlines a step-by-step process for identifying evaluation needs and hiring staff to ensure quality program evaluation takes place.

The guide can also be used by those who are building a career in evaluation. You can use the guide to explore what organisations are looking for in a candidate and to help you develop an application and prepare for an interview. The annexes may be of particular benefit to those looking to build a career, including:

• Listservs for job postings (although some may no longer be active)
• Matrix for shortlisting applicants
• Lists of screening and interview questions
• Matrix for scoring interviews

Excerpt

"Our intention in writing Hiring M&E Staff is to provide readers with a document that helps them locate and hire M&E staff members that fully meet their needs and, ultimately, increase the quality of M&E programming. This module outlines key steps to guide the hiring process from start to finish. The module can be used in several ways, depending on where you are in the hiring process. The module presents multiple annexes to illustrate examples of relevant tools, discussion points, and questions. We encourage you to tailor each tool to your specific context and needs as this will help you to engage fully in the process and to ensure you find a candidate best suited to meet your needs." (Hagens & Sharrack 2008)

Contents

• Step-by-Step Process
  • Introduction 1
  • Step 1: Identify M&E Needs 2
  • Step 2: Create a Job Description 5
  • Step 3: Create a Hiring Committee and Outline the Hiring Process 10
  • Step 4: Advertise for the Position 11
  • Step 5: Sort, Shortlist, and Prescreen Applicants 14
  • Step 6: Interview the Candidates 17
  • Step 7: Hire and Orient New Staff 22
• Tools & resources annexes
  • Annex I.A Sample Level 4 Job Description (e.g. M&E Advisor) 24
  • Annex I.B Sample Level 3 Job Description (e.g. M&E Officer) 28
  • Annex I.C Sample Level 2 Job Description (e.g. M&E Coordinator) 31
  • Annex II Summary Job Table 33
  • Annex III List Servs for Job Posting 35
  • Annex IV Matrix for Short Listing Applications 37
  • Annex V Questions for Prescreening Applicants 40
  • Annex VI Interview Questions for Level 4 and Level 3 41
  • Annex VII Interview Protocol 43
  • Annex VIII Example of Results Framework 44
  • Annex IX IPTT Example 46
  • Annex X Matrix for Scoring Interviews 49
  • Annex XI Questions for References 50