So you want to get into the UN…

It’s funny how many people have asked me about this issue — what does it take to get into the UN? “It’s been my dream job for so many years, but I can’t get in.” “How do I do what you do?”

Let’s start from the beginning and apologies because this will be a long read.

People are motivated for different reasons in joining the UN. The brand, the cause, the lifestyle, the money, the stability, the international work, the crazy locations and the list goes on.

While there are some tough realities (that I will write about in later posts), let’s assume you are determined to enter into a UN organization (with NGOs following suit quite similarly).

DISCLAIMER: Please note that I am not an HR professional and the below is the gathering of experience through research and discussions of over 20 years in the system.

Let me organize this post so you can skim through sections that are relevant for you.

1. Contract types.
2. How a vacancy is created and filled.
3. Who has decision making authority.
4. What are the official entry methods.
5. Going through the process.
6. Timing.
7. Contract Negotiation.
8. The hacks.

Let’s jump in. My mini “how do you get in” guide. I will expand on further sections into the future.

1. Contract Types

The United Nations has a large variety of contract types but they can be segmented into largely three categories:

A. Short-Term

Typically short-term contracts are those that fall under 12 months. The United Nations typically prefers not to give contracts of duration longer than 12 months because there is an understanding (and also somewhat backed up by labor law) that states that any job requiring 12 months or more of work should be considered a long-term job. As a result, the individual on that position may be allowed to ask the organization to provide them with certain benefits.

Various UN organizations provide different solutions for the short-term and I have specifically left out the contractor type roles listed later. These can be fixed-term-like posts that include benefits (some have provided short-term, fixed-term and other designations) that mirror part or all of the Fixed-term contract benefits.

There are also variations to these that some of the larger organizations have created since some of them have the autonomy to veer from standard practices and establish their own norms. They don’t deviate too much but it has been known to happen.

A note on short-term contracts: These contracts (which include internships) can sometimes have forced lock-out periods — meaning that after your period of employment, you may be asked to stay outside of the organization for a period of 6–12 months before qualifying for any new position. The expectation is that you leave and come back at a later date (if you so choose).

B. Long-Term

The Long-Term contracts here are typically called the Fixed Term contracts. I won’t speak about the Continuing or Indefinite contracts which are terms that essentially give people additional rights on top of Fixed Term contracts. They’re important to know if you have had a long tenure with a UN organization — but are rarely handed out.

These are the most sought after contracts because of their benefits and stability. Usually Fixed-Term means exactly that — 1–4 years with the possibility of renewal. The reason for their implicit stability is that the standard practice inside a UN organization is typically to keep you either in the job, the contract or rotate you (ad infinitum) till you retire.

There are exceptions to these renewals — especially when times are bad like they are now in the UN where funding is drying up. The organizations then look to start trimming their personnel count — but these are usually the last contracts to be touched because of the expense behind cutting them.

Fixed-Term contracts come with a host of benefits including:

• Home Leave — The right for the job-holder and their family to return home (passport country) every 2 years (though this term can change).
• Housing Allowance — depending on your rental fee, you may qualify for a partial coverage of your rental charge through a sort of subsidy program.
• Schooling allowance — where children of the employed individual have up to 80% of their tuition covered from Grade school all the way to the completion of their first degree. This allowance is a game-changer for many since most will want to place their children in private schools (for a variety of reasons) and the costs of these schools are prohibitive in most circumstances (we’re talking up to and sometimes beyond 20–30K USD a year).
• Pension — where the organization will deduct from payroll but also contribute additionally to a pension fund. The Pension Fund is considered one of the best in the world with payments into perpetuity (aka death including for your spouse).
• Moving allowances — Whenever you relocate for your job, the organization will pay for the removal and set up of your personal items (ie. furniture and household goods) in the new location. You are also entitled to 30–60 days of DSA and additional payments of DSA for your family members.
• Medical Insurance — currently under CIGNA (but its re-procured every several years), the organization provides an incredibly high level of medical coverage for you and your family.
• Tax-Free income — the income and benefits received by the UN organization are considered tax free. There is a little exception for the countries that tax you no matter what (ahem… USA), but the organization makes allowances to reimburse you for your tax bill so you net out at ~0 taxes.

The above are some of the most important and sort after benefits.

C. Consultants (including contractors and vendors)

Consultancy contracts are given to people to fulfill either short-term duties or at times long-term duties. The organization and hiring team can opt for this contract because it’s lower cost. While it’s not supposed to be the case, it’s a standard practice in the UN to assign consultants to permanent roles. This can happen for a number of reasons ranging from saving money to the impredictability of the need for the role or at times funding.

Consultancy contracts are a great entry point into the UN. They can be as short as a few days — but once you’re in, you have a foot in the door and you need to pry it open to new opportunities. More on this in future posts.

Consultancy contracts can be considered local (hence just the fee that is paid) and international. International consultancies means that the organization may support you to obtain the visa, they should be paying for your flight (but I’ve had organizations break this practice and ask me to fly in myself), they can pay a living allowance ranging from a fixed monthly fee for longer-term contracts to Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) for shorter contracts (typically less than 60 days).

Some also have medical insurance as a small deduction with a pretty decent coverage. More recently, many UN Organizations have signed up to provide Maternity/Paternity leave, but it’s not always guaranteed by all UN orgs. As well, there are many UN organizations that terrorize employees with terms attached to these benefits (poor practice, but the reality nonetheless).

Outside of consultancy contracts, there are also ways of getting hired in as a contractor. The difference is that instead of going through the HR-machine, you get in through the Procurement-machine. (I will discuss this in a separate post.)

Contractors are very interesting contracts because they have a pretty large scope sometimes and the opportunity here is a completely different one that is more entrepreneurial, more lucrative (at times) and require a totally different mindset.

All consultancy contracts are considered external to the organization and so you will not be deemed an employee (it’s an important factor when you think of pecking order).

Taxation is a bit of a prickly issue. I have seen consultants taxed in the US and in Switzerland. However, depending on some types of consulting contracts and in some countries, the contracts can be taxed in other jurisdictions. Do not count on hearsay anymore regarding taxes but consult a tax attorney/accountant to find out.

2. How a vacancy is created and filled.

Now that we covered contract types, let’s talk about vacancies. There is a specific process that organizations go through in order to create and fill jobs. Most of them follow a similar pattern, but of course, some can be different.

Here are the steps that are typically followed to create and fill positions:

A. The hiring unit has to identify a need. It all (typically) starts here. It can happen at any time of the year, but generally, the hiring unit needs to highlight the need for a specific deliverable that the existing team/resources cannot accomplish.

The reality is that many times, the hiring unit doesn’t have a clear idea of what they need, just that they know they need something. So, they can engage someone (like a consultant) as a thinking partner. But they can also be very aware that what they need is outside of the competency areas they are currently focused in. I have also seen some managers use foresight to say that strategically, they need to have something in place today so that they can have a specific output in a few years from now.

However it comes about, the hiring unit and manager needs to identify a need/gap and that it’s urgent enough to warrant fixing it.

B. The hiring unit has to identify and quantify the cost and find the funds available. The next question a hiring manager has to be able to answer is “do we have the money for this”? It’s a crucial question because the funding determines not only whether they can move forward or not, but also what caliber of candidate they can afford.

The available funding can come directly from the unit, from a different unit in the division, by fundraising anew, or sometimes piecing together scraps of funding from different projects. It can also happen that the hiring unit liquidates another existing position in order to fund the vacancy.

An important factor that needs to be highlighted is that the hiring unit needs to have the funding for the entire duration of the consultancy period up front. That includes travel, visa, living allowances etc. Consultancies are the cheapest and fastest way for a hiring manager to get a beating heart through the door. That’s also because some hiring managers will offer very short contracts to someone to get them in the door and will “figure it out” as they go. It’s a precarious position to be in as a consultant if this is your vacancy, because your leash may be as long as 30 days — and you will not be confirmed for longer periods of time.

For Fixed Term positions, it’s important to understand that the cost of the position becomes exponentially higher, but that the hiring unit doesn’t have to front up all the money. They need to be able to fund at least a few months of payroll (which includes all of the costs embedded for that contract) and prove that there are longer-term funding sources for that position.

C. The hiring unit along with HR have to create a set of Terms of Reference (TORs) and publish these online. They must also create questions relevant to an initial filtering of candidates and have a rough idea of how they want the recruitment process to go.

This is the moment the Terms of Reference or Job Description is drawn up. In this job description, it should detail what is required. When you’re reading these documents, learn to read between the lines of what the hiring manager is trying to say. Sometimes, they are saying things such as — we are underresourced, so you will have to work a lot (i.e. We have set aggressive targets to achieve these essential goals”).

The hiring manager will also determine a certain set of filtering questions that will be asked during the time of application. Make no mistake that when you apply to these positions, you will be filtered out by the ATS, or these filtering questions, or by the sheer volume of applications placing you in the middle/bottom. A popular position means more applications which means less time per application which means — if you don’t clearly stand out, you will be left behind.

There are certain things you can do in these instances, but we will cover this in another article.

D. HR will take over for the initial part of vetting which includes receiving and the first-pass of CVs.

Once the hiring unit has given their terms of reference, HR will “calibrate” the TORs to make sure it fits the level of the position. This will also help to determine the level of consultancy or fixed term the position will be in.

Dead giveaways for the level are “years of experience” and the “tone” of the TOR to denote the seniority. HR isn’t very sophisticated here and will go back to some age-old tricks to calibrate the level. Keep in mind that HR’s job is to find the lowest cost candidate for the job, not the most qualified. This point will come back up during the negotiations.

After the calibration occurs, the TOR is listed on the organization’s HR site and many times in many of the common UN-portals (i.e. Devex, ImpactPool, UNjobs etc.). The vacancy will be left open for a period of time (depending on urgency and type of position) and then close it.

You will have to enter the application through any variant of your CV, P-11, online form, Word doc, Cover Letter, writing sample, filtering questions etc.

After the deadline, HR will go through the list of CVs that have already passed the ATS-checker (a basic AI that checks that your CV has the right keywords according to the job description). Then the database of responses will be ranked by those that positively answered the filtering questions.

Any application that doesn’t have a 100% positive response on the filtering questions will be at the bottom of the list — and at times, filtered out completely. Following which, HR will filter the CVs based on what they believe would be a good fit for the position.

As mentioned above, candidates that are also considered overqualified could get cut out of this stage by HR. Overqualified = expensive, which is not in the goals of HR. HR will then provide a filtered list of CVs to the hiring manager.

E. The hiring manager will filter CVs and request a first interview and/or a test.

These filtered CVs will make their way to the hiring manager. The hiring manager, in their own time, will go through the CVs. Remember that most hiring managers aren’t professionals in hiring. So, they will look at what stands out to them.

This means that their process will be heavily flawed and skewed to those that have “name brands” (i.e. Harvard, Stanford etc.), organizational links (people that have worked for the same org or even the same team in the past), and other factors that stand out in the hiring manager’s heads.

This subset of CV’s that were selected (that can number up to ~10) will go through the first round of vetting. The higher the number, the more likely there will be some form of test/case study/practical example to be worked through.

The format of these differs greatly from people that email you with a word doc and something to work on and a deadline to sophisticated softwares that look at whether your eyes are losing focus on the screen and as a result, may be cheating and then kicked off the system.

In case you have an interview the first time around, it could be the final one. Some organizations will outline their entire process for interviewing but others will figure it out as they go based on their candidate pool. But great news if you get into the interview right away. You’ve significantly increased your chances!

F. The hiring manager may request a second interview.

Following the first pass, you may also be requested for a second interview. I won’t spend much time speaking about interviews because there are a whole host of resources available about UN interviews and there are many things that can and should be done to excel in these situations.

H. An offer is sent over.

Assuming you have passed all the tests/interviews, you will then be contacted with regards to an offer. This offer will outline what is included and what is not included.

You have the right to negotiate this offer (which I fully encourage you to do). And this may have it’s own back and forth process, but eventually, you may settle on a set of factors that make you both happy.

I. Reference checks may happen.

This step may happen before the offer is sent or even after. Nonetheless, more and more, reference checks are becoming part of the hiring process, even for consultancies (which used to be offered on the spot).

Have your references ready to respond and their details ready to go.

J. You begin. Congratulations!

3. Who has decision making authority.

Ok, let’s get a few hierarchies out of the way. The hiring manager for positions isn’t necessarily the authority of that position. Knowing this factor is important because there are levers to be pulled before, during and after the hiring process that may be important.

Generally speaking, there are three levels of power:

a. The Director of the division

b. The hiring manager

c. The team members and associated teams that the position will be interacting with

The reason these three lays are important is to understand the concentric circle nature of hiring managers that can be influenced in different ways.

When you think that the hiring manager is the only person who needs to be convinced, you may, in many instances, be wrong. As a result, it’s important for you to suss out these dynamics as early as possible.

When you know the power dynamics around the hiring manager, you also learn to play the hiring game differently.

There are other layers I didn’t draw out above because in the end, it’s an illustrative example that the focus shouldn’t be 100% hiring manager, but it should be majority (anything above 50%) with up to 50% spread out across other players that you will interact with along the way.

I will go into more depth into this in a separate article.

4. What are the official entry methods.

Alright, we are nearing the end of the official part.

Let’s talk about the official entry methods, because of course, we want to eventually focus on the hacks or the “unofficial” entry methods.

Officially, the paper application is the main and only way to get into any of these positions. That means, find a vacancy online, go to the HR site of the organization and put through a paper-based application that I outlined the process for above.

The pro-tip for this entry method is to have strong enough ties to the organization such that you are notified by an individual inside the team/org and encouraged to apply for an upcoming position.

Even when using hacks to get into a position, you may still have to go through the official route to tick the boxes from an HR perspective. So, don’t lose the deadlines for the positions you’re interested in.

5. Timing.

Many people ask about the timing for hiring. Realistically:

a. Fixed Term (FTE) positions can take 6 months and even up to 18 months for the whole process. It’s frustratingly long and so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re holding your breath for one of these contracts. Instead, an FTE contract is something you should do with something else on the go.

b. Consultancy positions can be significantly faster. When you’re applying for an emergency role in the field, you could literally be on the ground in 2–3 days. While other consultancy roles sometimes never get filled — which means you will never hear back from the organization.

6. Contract Negotiation.

I am going to keep this version “light” because there is a lot to be said about Contract Negotiation.

To begin, negotiate. NEVER take a contract simply for what was offered. There is a truth in the UN that I think many people ignore when they first get in. The first contract and starting salary in a particular UN organization is the anchor for all of your next salary increments. Whether it’s for a FTE or a consultancy, that starting salary will almost never be increased by more than 10% in a given year. Even with a one-off 15% increment, that can happen, don’t count of it happening again for quite some time.

So, your starting salary, grade and level are crucial. And once you’ve anchored yourself, every new offer should be negotiated for whatever you can get. When you do this, you will actually see that your progress in earnings much higher and faster over time than if you simply sat down and took what was handed to you.

If salary is an important factor for you, the only alternative is to change organizations frequently — because they won’t have access to your salary slips (though they may ask you for some documentary evidence for your ask).

Nonetheless, new orgs will likely give you a bump that your existing org can’t account for.

But negotiations aren’t only for pay. It can also be many other things. I have seen (incredibly rarely) that someone negotiated their expensive Master’s degree at an elite university being paid for partially by the organization. Additional time off, work from home arrangements, private offices and other benefits can be negotiated. If you are negotiating, be very clear about what it is you want from the position and that you’re willing to walk away from this deal. If you aren’t willing to walk away from the offer, then you’re just bluffing — and for that, you need to be a good bluff.

7. The hacks.

And now we are here. Perhaps the real reason to go through this long “guide” of sorts. You know the process that everyone has to go through, or perhaps you learned a few new tidbits, but you really want to know how to hack the system.

Let me start by saying — the hacks are to be used with caution. Overplay your hand and you can get burned (though almost everything is salvageable in the UN).

I have used all of the below hacks successfully but they took a long time to master. I have been in the consultancy game for 2 decades, so think through the different tentacles of the decisions you make because the UN is not good with unofficial process.

A. Develop a pipeline of opportunities

Recruitment shouldn’t be thought of as a case-by-case or opportunity-by-opportunity basis. Instead, it should be thought of as Sales. You are running a funnel — whether you have a position now or not. That means, that you should be pouring as many opportunities to the top of your funnel as possible and then you should be actively pushing your prospects down till you get an offer. Once you have an offer, you should decide, but don’t filter anything major out till this point.

So the first thing to do is switch off the incredibly contemplative part of the brain that makes you pour over a TOR extensively to imagine if you’d be a good fit or not. Instead, look at all the job descriptions you scan as either — yes I can do it or no, I can’t do it. If yes, apply. If no, move on. Don’t over think it beyond this.

Volume at the top will help even the poorest of conversion ratios (unless you’re converting at 0%).

B. Network Network Network

I hate to say this, but networking works. It works as well (if not better) in the UN as in the private sector. You need to be casting your net far and wide. If you are in the UN for the long-term, you have to build a network that spans multiple agencies and across the sector you are focused on. The network helps you get into positions, notified about what’s coming up, information on what’s happening in the sector and best of all, a way to create referrals.

If you’re not networking, you’re falling trap to one of the greatest entry methods into the UN. Typically, networking will get you into consultancies, but depending on who you are networking with, that may very quickly lead to an FTE.

C. Have a position created for you

When you’re speaking to many people, especially hiring managers, you have a unique opportunity to highlight 3 things:

• A huge gap — in your conversations with hiring managers, you should be speaking to them to suss out what is a gap in their existing set of responsibilities. The moment a hiring manager says they haven’t had the chance to get to something, press them for why not? Ask them for the language for what the effect of leaving this issue exposed is. Give them the opportunity to tell you how bad this gap is — or use your experience in the sector to highlight why leaving that gap is so critical.
• Establish Urgency — Once a need has been highlighted, you need to press into the urgency button. “Not doing this means that you’re holding up A, B, and C.” “Not taking care of this issue means that your donors are disappointed with …”. You language for the hiring manager to start getting that burning sensation on the back of their neck for why they just didn’t get it done.
• Place yourself as the incumbent — Once you have established gap and urgency, now the wedge is drawn in. At this stage, place yourself as the PERFECT person to resolve it. You will do it fast, “cheap” and as per their needs. Replicate vocabulary of the hiring manager for what a perfect completion would look like and leverage your unique background for closing this gap.

D. Go in through the field

An excellent entry point (which is not very family friendly) is to go in through the field. The needs in the deep field (emergency operations and in their non-capital locations) have the more dire needs, the most funds and fastest opportunities. The needs are sometimes so dire that they will literally take people off the road to fix the issue. The job may not be perfect, but “in is better than perfect”. Leverage field-based opportunities as a way to get a foot in the door.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of out-of-the-box thinking when launching your UN career. Following the main track is the slowest route in and often times the one that places you at the greatest handicap. Short circuit this route by putting the chips in your favor. Be placed. Be called upon. Be in demand. Be hand-picked.

Some junior level folks will say that this advice isn’t fitting for them. To them, I say that I did this from my second consultancy onwards. I networked the heck out of the agency I was with and since then, I haven’t looked back.

I hope the hacks were helpful. As I think of more, I will amend this document. If you have hacks of your own, let me know and I’d be happy to change and update the document. The point is that I’m here — not as an expert giving away my secrets, but as a student telling you what I’ve learned so far. I have failed so many times in the above processes (some in really horrible ways). But in all circumstances, I regret solely relying on the official processes.

Leave me a comment below to tell me what areas you want me to expand on next.

Thank you for reading!