Ref. IL-E-00005

Those who work for the ICRC must have great personal and professional qualities. ICRC staff work in complex situations that are often out of the ordinary and sometimes dangerous. They must be efficient, humane, display great integrity and maturity, demonstrate their motivation for humanitarian action and have a solid potential for personal development.

Availability and flexibility

Professional experience and complete training at the outset are sine qua non conditions for employment at the ICRC. Experience of life and the ability to cope with difficulties will also help staff meet the challenges of humanitarian work.

ICRC staff are willing to go anywhere at any time and are flexible. They respond to priorities that may shift from one minute to the next. They are able to handle the unexpected. They have the capacity to adapt quickly to new constraints.

Team work

Expatriates are accustomed to uncertainty. They cope with sudden changes in their professional lives that have repercussions on their private and social lives. They must be in a position to leave for any place at any time, as the situation requires. Field missions comprise risks. Everyone must limit those risks as much as possible, by scrupulously following ICRC security rules.

Other qualities required for employment at the ICRC include knowing how to work as part of a team, a fondness for contact with people from all walks of life and any background, and the ability to make decisions and act independently, to manage individual stress and tense situations.

While at the ICRC, staff members acquire skills that will stand them in good stead throughout their professional lives.