The Open Society Institute – Assistance Foundation (OSI-AF) today released a report summarizing its evaluation of BP Azerbaijan’s 2005 annual recruitment process. The evaluation started in October 2004 concurrent with the launch of BP’s annual recruitment campaign in Azerbaijan, at the initiative of BP, who invited the OSI-AF to observe and evaluate its 2005 annual recruitment programme.
During this period the OSI-AF observed all stages of BP’s annual recruitment programme. Overall the evaluation process was based on a comprehensive look at the hiring procedure, which included the OSI-AF participation in and monitoring the recruitment process from the initial pre-screening of applications to interview sessions. OSI representatives also reviewed samples of all related internal and external documentation, including accepted and rejected applications.
As a result of the evaluation the OSI-AF produced a written report at the end of cycle in March 2005. The report was then presented to BP for a review. The conclusions of the evaluation were also reviewed in a workshop session on the 27th of July this year by representatives of all parties concerned. The aim of this review was to use the report to generate discussion as to how BP’s annual recruitment process might be improved.
“Overall, the report is positive and reflects that BP Azerbaijan’s 2005 annual recruitment programme abides by the company’s internal standards and the process of selection of candidates is conducted in a transparent and fair way”, commented Galib Efendiyev, OSI- AF’s Programme Coordinator. “In addition to evaluating the process positively, we have also made a number of constructive suggestions that BP has agreed to implement in subsequent rounds of annual recruitment.
These include:
Zarina Zeynalova, BP Human Resources Manager, said: “In Azerbaijan, as elsewhere across BP, we have sought to ensure that our recruitment process is transparent, fair, and accessible. To this end we aimed to receive credible and independent external feedback as to how our actual hiring practices compare to pre-determined criteria as established in BP’s advertisements and communications materials. We are pleased that the OSI-AF was able to observe and provide valuable recommendations to make our recruitment process more effective.”
The OSI-AF is expected to conduct a second review of BP’s recruitment process in Azerbaijan and this will cover the 2006 cycle.
Rovshan Bagirov in the OSI Press Office, tel:
+994 12 4986933 or 994 12 441272
Tamam Bayatly at BP’s Press Office in Baku, telephone: 994 (0) 12 599 4557
Notes to Editors:
The 2005 report, together with the workshop summary table summarising the OSI-AF’s findings and BP’s responses and commitments is available on-line at http://www.osi-az.org/
Transparency Azerbaijan (TA) also participated in the evaluation. A summary of TA’s findings is available on-line at http://www.transparency-az.org/. For additional information, contact Rena Safaraliyeva, TA Executive Director in Azerbaijan, at (99412) 418 11 09.