Trying to break into the UN system from an NGO/humanitarian background – am I aiming at the right level?
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking here for a while and reading some of the posts about how difficult it actually is to get into the UN system, and I thought I'd just ask for some advice about my own situation.
I'm in my early 30s, originally trained as a doctor, and I'm currently in the UK finishing an Masters in Public Health. I don't really see myself going back into clinical medicine full time, and for the last few years my career has moved much more towards public/global health and humanitarian work.
Before coming to the UK, I spent around 5 years working in a major refugee response in South Asia (Cox's Bazar). I started out as a medical docto/facility manager, then moved into programme management and eventually managed and led fairly large donor-funded health programmes. Many of the programmed I led were directly funded by UNFPA/UNHCR/IOM
A lot of my work was around refugee health, primary healthcare, maternal and reproductive health, family planning, emergency obstetric care etc. As I moved into management I was also dealing much more with budgets, teams, donor reporting, monitoring, government counterparts, UN agencies, NGOs, community leaders and all the usual chaos that comes with running programmes in a humanitarian setting.
So while I've worked with the UN quite a bit, and some of the programmes I led were funded/supported by UN agencies, I've never actually worked for the UN.
This is where I'm getting a little confused about what I should realistically be applying for.
I've started looking seriously at UN jobs recently. For some P-3 vacancies, especially ones in humanitarian health/SRHR/programme management, I technically seem to meet most of the stated requirements. I've applied to a few. But then I read threads here where people with 10+ years of experience are still trying to get P-3 positions, or people have spent years doing consultancies/UNV/P-2 roles before getting there, and I'm wondering if I'm being completely unrealistic lol.
At the same time, I'm not exactly coming straight out of university either. I've run programmes, managed teams and budgets, worked in a pretty difficult humanitarian environment, dealt with government/UN/donor stakeholders etc. So I'm struggling to understand where that experience actually places me in the UN world.
Would you be applying for P-3s with this background? Or should I really be concentrating on P-2, UNV, consultancies, national positions etc. just to get my foot in the door?
I'm also wondering how UN recruiters actually view experience from national NGOs. Does someone with my level of eperience with programme management in a major humanitarian response carry much weight if you haven't worked inside the UN/INGO system itself?
And I guess the bigger question is what I should do over the next couple of years. I'm applying for public health jobs in the UK as well, and there are some interesting opportunities in local government/NHS/public health research. Part of me thinks getting solid UK public health experience alongside the humanitarian background and MPH would make me a stronger candidate later. Another part wonders whether stepping away from humanitarian work would actually make it harder to get back into that world.
I'm not particularly obsessed with getting a P-3 immediately or anything. I mostly don't want to waste the next 2–3 years making the wrong career moves because I don't understand how recruitment in this system actually works.
Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who came into the UN from an NGO/humanitarian/public health background, or anyone who's been involved in hiring.
What would you realistically be targeting if you were in my position? And if you did manage to make the NGO → UN jump, what actually got you through the door?