Tag Archives: working

Yes, you CAN get experience for entry level UN positions in your own community

Leave a reply

A frequent lament of people on online groups who want to work for the United Nations is “It’s impossible because there’s no way for me to get the experience needed.”

Bollocks.

I’ve addressed this before in blogs such as

These aforementioned blogs are about how to get expertise that can be applied to UN positions, usually at the P level and above.

But a lot of people want to work at a headquarters or break into UN work at the administrative level. They claim the aforementioned doesn’t apply to them and then, again, say, “It’s impossible for me to get the experience necessary.”

I spent an hour going through G-level positions currently being recruited at some UN agencies. I then made a list of some commonalities in the positions, which I have listed below, stripping out UN-specific references. And as I read through these, it was obvious to me that:

  • If you have been a longish-term leadership volunteer in your community, managing other volunteers, in any project – Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, an NGO that helps refugees, a children’s theater camp, a hospice, a food bank, etc. – you have probably done most of these activities.
  • If you have been a successful Girl Scout leader for more than two years, and been on the board or core organizers of your service unit in that time, you have probably done most of these activities.
  • If you have been a leadership volunteer at a local farmer’s market or artists cooperative for an entire season, you have probably done most of these activities.
  • If you have been on the board of a nonprofit for at least a year, you have probably done most of these activities.

Often it’s how you frame and phrase your responsibilities on your CV and applications as to whether or not you look qualified for a position.

I was part of a hiring committee that hired a guy with extensive hotel management experience for a G level administrative support position: his procurement skills, his experience in dealing with conflict, his organizational skills, his multi-language skills, his client-focused mindset and his experience with international clients were all represented on his CV , explicitly. He was an incredible and perfect fit for the job (he did also have a Master’s degree – I think it was in business).

Job responsibilities that show up on a lot of G-level positions that you can learn through leadership volunteering and through most administrative jobs at nonprofits and local government agencies as well:

  • Schedule internal and external meetings and events, and communicate these dates, or possible dates, to the team/partners.
  • Assist in organizing events, workshops, webinars, launches of publications, seminars, conferences and campaigns.
  • Support the team with planning and implementing of operational activities.
  • Gather relevant and corresponding data (socio-economic, gender, etc.) needed for project development, proposals, reports, presentations, etc.
  • Support activities contributing to the regular communication with project partners to monitor deadlines, commitments made, actions taken, etc.
  • Support in mapping and identifying relevant stakeholders or desired audiences or potential partners.
  • Populate and maintain a database of potential partners, or area NGOs, or area small businesses, or some other needed data set for a project.
  • Review and proofread drafts of reports, drafts of online materials, etc.
  • Closely follow up with other staff, consultants, partner organizations, etc. regarding collaborative projects, data, etc.
  • Review reports developed by others and edit/contribute as needed.
  • Verify the accuracy and validity of research conducted or feedback provided by others.
  • Continuously monitor and collect all data indicators relevant to the project.
  • Provide support in the dissemination and sharing of relevant data and lessons learned.
  • Keep pulse on emerging best practices nationally, regionally, and internationally that relate to the work.
  • Regularly read knowledge networks and communities of practice related to the project/program area.
  • Support program-related knowledge building, management and sharing activities for both external and internal audiences.
  • Assist in preparation of official correspondence to all relevant project partners, HQ, etc.
  • Provide inputs in the development and producing knowledge products, i.e. case studies, success stories, lessons learnt reports, press releases and etc.
  • Contribute to the creation of content for specific stakeholders, including presentation decks, photos videos, programme briefs, webinar/event cards, literature.
  • Monitor online platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc. regarding mentions of the program and activities by partners/stakeholders.
  • Assist the Project Manager/other staff in preparation of the regular progress reports in line with reporting schedules, as well as any other reports requested by management, donor, government, press and/or other stakeholders/audiences.
  • Support other staff in implementing project M&E activities and providing on-going feedback and technical backstopping.
  • Make logistical arrangements for HQ staff visits and external visitors, preparing briefing kits and background materials.

Quit complaining that “the fix is in” and you can’t get a UN position unless you “know someone on the inside.” I’ve worked for the UN three times, at three different UNDP offices, in three different countries, and I knew NO ONE in those offices that hired me. I’ve been on several UN hiring committees and only one time in all those times was I pressured to hire someone who someone on the hiring committee knew – a practice common in the private sector! (I refused to change my score regarding her interview and qualifications, but she did still get hired somehow). Every other time, we hired the person obviously most qualified.

Get busy taking a hard look at all you have done to date and think about how to better frame it. And if you lack needed skills for the jobs you want, get busy with volunteering or working locally to get them!

Also see:

Children in the USA should learn a 2nd language – but it shouldn’t have to be Spanish

2 Replies

Most of the time, I agree with Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. But I think his recent column Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen. (First learn Spanish. Then study Chinese) misses the mark hugely. His proclaiming that “Every child in the United States should learn Spanish” gets people’s hackles up, and anything that comes after a statement like that isn’t going to be taken well, even if the reasons for recommending Spanish as a second language are good ones.

I chose to study Spanish in high school. For me, ultimately, it has turned out not to be the best choice for a second language, either personally or professional. I work internationally, and I know now that French would have served me far, far better. But back in the 1980s, my mother kept telling me, “They only speak French in France.” And I was just a small town girl from Kentucky – what did I know? I believed her. When I moved to Germany, I resumed studies in Spanish when found that my employer, the UN, offered free classes in such, forgoing not only French, but German as well (I thought I would be in Germany for only a year or two). And it was only after a couple of years I realized just how much I had handicapped myself by my second language choice, both personally and professionally. Most of my colleagues at the UN in Germany spoke French, most Africans I met (and continue to meet) speak French before English, and most international workers I have worked with outside of Germany speak French as a second language. Had I learned French, I would probably still be living in Europe; I certainly would have a full time job with an international development agency by now.

I ended up living in Germany for eight years, marrying my husband, a German. When a few years later my husband and I traveled throughout Eastern Europe, almost everyone spoke German – it’s by far the most popular second language among anyone working in the tourism industry in most of Europe. Germans seem to be everywhere in the world, and I would have had endless opportunities to speak German over the years outside of Germany — but Spanish, not so much. German would have not only served me well living in Germany, it would have served me well in my travels.

Even Arabic would have been a better second language choice for me than Spanish. Persian Farsi or Dari would have been a better second language choice for me than Spanish.

Spanish has not been a worthless investment at all, and I don’t at all want to imply that I’m saying it’s not a good second language choice for someone in the USA. Knowing Spanish (well, at least a bit) has brought me some benefits: I had a wonderful time in Spanish classes at the UN, as well as my intensive classes in Avila, Spain. My Mexican neighbors here in Oregon seem to appreciate my attempts to communicate. In Romania, on a rare evening when we stayed somewhere that didn’t have anyone that spoke German, I was able to secure a room in a guest house where the owner spoke some Spanish. There was one Afghan-American guy in my office in Kabul who spoke Spanish, and it was fun to say something to him and watch my colleagues stare at us in confusion. My German mother-in-law speaks some Spanish, and it’s fun to speak it with her and leave my husband out of the conversation. And I have many friends from Spain who really appreciate my language skills.

Again, I don’t at all want to imply that I’m saying Spanish is not a good second language choice. I’m sure it’s going to serve me professionally at some point in the future, and that’s why I’m going to continue to cultivate my skills in such. But a lot of factors go into a parent’s selection of their child’s second language, everything from their ethnic or cultural heritage to the neighborhood where they live to their career hopes. Spanish is, indeed, the best choice as a second language for most native English-speaking American children. But it is not automatically the best choice for ALL children.

What’s more important than Kristof’s idea of requiring every American to choose Spanish as a second language: I could totally get behind requiring that every American child both master English and learn a second language, whatever that second language is. Americans are getting their butts kicked in the global marketplace by other countries, where even the working class speaks at least two languages. In the USA, the tragedy isn’t that rich parents are choosing Chinese as their child’s second language; it’s that learning any second language is reserved almost exclusively for only rich school districts and private schools.

And I’ll end with this: my German husband is on a business trip right now. He’s in China.