PASHA Bank announces new employment opportunities

In his interview Bank CEO, Mr. Farid Akhundov talks about current recruitment of new employees, specialists' selection methods and relationships among the employees.

- Mr. Akhundov, during 5 years of activity in the market PASHA Bank became one of leading players in the bank sector of both Azerbaijan and the entire region. What is the key component of this success from your point of view?

- I was always convinced that major advantage of our Bank is professionalism and teamwork of our staff. Already in 2007 we set up a task - to create a team that would ensure competitiveness both in the local and global markets. I am quite proud to mention that we were able to achieve most of our goals, to find such specialists and to establish such a professional environment in our Bank where everyone could carry out their tasks with maximum efficiency. At present, after 5 years of operation, we fully understand that we would not be able to provide high quality services to our customers otherwise.

I must note that our Bank continuously changes: implementation of our Strategy of development for 2012-2014 envisages, among other things, regional expansion and expansion of activity within the country. Therefore, at the moment we are working on the optimization of banking processes and recruiting new talented staff.

New areas of Bank development, including activities in the security market, expansion of the services rendered to the customers representing small and medium business, as well as strengthening of the HR potential of IT-infrastructure, Management Information System (MIS), risk management, development and management of bank software for the optimization and improvement of the services to internal and external customers are governing motives in recruitment of new personnel.

- Some people believe that one can find a job in the company representing financial sector of the country only through "good connections" ...

- This is not the case in our Bank. Our HR policy has not changed during the entire period of activity in the market of Azerbaijan - our approach to the employment of new personnel is fair and transparent. We tested our professional personnel recruitment methods (including online recruitment), even in our first foreign branch, i.e. PASHA Bank Georgia, which will be opened for customers in the nearest future.

Earlier in my interviews I told that we do not allow discrimination based on race, age, religion, sex or disability. Conditions are same for everyone - both young specialists and experienced bankers. As for the process of candidates' selection, it has three stages. After filling the application form in our site the candidates are invited for online-test, which takes place at specified time. During this test candidate can be anywhere in the world. Successful candidates will be invited to the new test requiring personal presence. After passing this stage, examinees will be informed about the venue and time of the interview.

It should be highlighted that working experience in a bank or a diploma in economics or finance are not necessary to be employed by our Bank. The competencies important for us are the foreign language and computer skills, as well as the enthusiasm and eagerness of potential employees to learn and develop. This scale of knowledge and experience enable us to build an absolutely new corporate culture.

- How does PASHA Bank support professional and personal development of its personnel?

Personnel management strategy of our Bank is based on principles that are committed to satisfy the requirements which come from new directions of activity and scope of work by reallocating internal human resources, combining functions that develop employee responsibilities, encouraging motivated staff to work on key strategic tasks. Awareness of employees' expectations and their strength, as well as understanding what motivates the staff to make decisions help to provide appropriate working conditions for them. All these create favorable environment in our Bank and provide our team with the confidence in future.

Special policy developed in human resources development that enables each of us to improve professional capabilities and gain experience both by participating in the in-house trainings delivered by experienced Bank officers or visiting specialists and by attending courses for improvement of qualification and educational trainings carried out abroad in countries such as UK, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, UAE, Italy, Russia, Singapore, etc.

We also support our employees who desire to receive postgraduate education in the overseas universities. This special program was developed and implemented in the Bank a few years ago: within this program our employees can receive loans on simplified terms in order to study for a Master's degree in the prestigious universities abroad.

- You mentioned about equal conditions for the employment of both young and experienced specialists. In reality, what are the chances for university graduates without any work experience to join the team of PASHA Bank?

We can employ young specialists with relevant knowledge for a certain position, and, most significantly, pursuing continuous professional and personal development. With regards to the employment of university graduates, I can say that at present some employees of our Bank successfully combine work and study for a postgraduate degree. I think that, in this case, everything depends on a candidate and their commitment to the optimization and prioritization of the energy and capabilities.

- When will the next recruitment process in PASHA Bank complete?

- You can find detailed information about the vacancies at our official site in the section "Carrier". Recruitment ends on 30 of November this year and those readers who think that they have necessary talent, knowledge and desire to become a member of our team are invited to make an attempt.