[The logos of just some of the specialised agencies of the UN. If your aim is to become an international civil servant, you should visit all of their websites, and lots more besides]
Since I started at the UN Staff Mobility Programme in April, I have been asked this question a number of times. I don't profess to know enough about networking or CV writing to write about those things, but what I certainly am familiar with from my time here is how to find vacancies in the UN System. And finding them all ain't easy.
What is colloquially known as "the UN" is more properly called the United Nations System, a network of international organisations such as UNICEF, the World Food Programme, etc. One of these member organisations is itself called the United Nations, and it is this confusion with naming which causes problems when looking for jobs.
The United Nations (the organisation, not the system) and each specialised agency (as all the other organisations in the UN System are called) are highly autonomous from one another. For example, they will all likely have their own legal departments. They also all have their own human resources departments, and conduct their own recruitment. This means that if you would like to be a "UN lawyer" (or accountant, security guard, whomever), you have to apply at a huge number of different places to have the best possible chance.
Two links are essential for finding vacancy announcements in the UN System. The "Galaxy" staffing system for jobs at the United Nations (again only the organisation, not the system), and the "Job Opportunities" page of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), which in turn links to the jobs pages of 39 specialised UN agencies and related organisations.
That's 40 different places to look, enough to test anyone's dedication to a UN career! However if you take the time to go through these links, you will have seen all of the currently advertised UN vacancies. Well... not exactly all: although the ICSC has linked to all of the specialised UN agencies, it didn't get all the jobs pages of entities formed as a joint venture between the different organisations, for example those of the United Nations Chief Executives Board for Coordination or the International Centre for Science and High Technology (it may be that vacancies on these sites are replicated at one or all of their parent organisations' sites, but I am not sure - if you are really aiming for all jobs and not just 99%, I suggest looking at these too).
If the above super-systematic method of regularly trawling through the websites of every agency in the UN doesn't appeal to you, you can have someone else do it for you: unjoblist.org is powered by a "screen scraping" robot which pulls down jobs as they appear on UN sites, and unjobs.org is run by the more traditional method of humans looking and manually posting jobs. Both sites list thousands of vacancies, but the fact that they are not run by the UN and the processes behind them cannot guarantee comprehensiveness means that using them instead of doing it yourself you sacrifice accuracy for time.
A prime segment of UN job hopefuls are our clients at the UN Staff Mobility Programme. As expatriates following their UN spouses or partners around the world, their job choices are often limited to working for international organisations due to immigration issues. Now you know what they do about finding a UN job - good luck!
Well my name is Ihthysham, 21 years old, working for a NGO as a Prtoject Coordinator on minorities rights funded by MRG. I have been working with them since November 2009 and looking forward to join with un .pls reply me.
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