UN Job List: FAQ for HR colleagues

How does my organisation benefit from the UN Job List?
The UN Job Lists serves tens of thousands of pages every week to tousands of interested candidates all over the world. The UN Job List e-mail alert reaches several thousand subscribers every week and the UN Job List provides easy to handle search and sophisticated RSS feeds that help qualified applicants to find your vacancy.
Especially smaller organisations considerably benefit from the UN Job List as the accessibility to job advertisements increase significantly. Also, if you are looking for a specialist that you normally not recruit frequently the UN Job List helps you finding that specialist.

How does the UN Job List work?
The UN Job Lists visits your organisation’s vacancy page daily and checks your advertisements. There is nothing you (or anybody else) have to do to update the UN Job List.

I just posted a vacancy. Why is it not on UN Job List yet?
It should be there within 24 hours. If it is not please let me know and I will follow up.

My organisation is not listed on the UN Job List yet. What can I do?

This situation is very rare. In any case, please let me know and I will add your organisation if you are member of the UN family.

There is a vacancy listed on UN Job List that I would like to take off. How do I do that?
Just let me know which one and I will make sure it is gone. Please also take it off your vacancy page at the same time.

I like the UN Job List, what can I do to help?
Just let me know if there are issues – that is a lot of help already. Also, please don’t change your page layout or structure often – that is more work to keep the robots running. If you consider redesigning your page there are some very simple things you can do to make it easier for the UN Job List (like a good table structure, a nice XML feed, no manual system etc.) just ask me I’ll let you know. And lastly – let your colleagues know about UN Job List.

What is the cost?
It’s free. There are NO costs for the organisations that are listed on the UN Job List and there are NO costs for the users using it. It is entirely free.

Why do you do this? What is in it for you?
It is a fun project and I think I can help providing this service. The story on how it started is that I have a very good friend that searched a job in the UN once and helping that friend, I became frustrated with the job searching options that exist so far. So I started programming this site.
At the same time professionally, I’m not satisfied with the return rate and the qualification that some vacancies yield. Also, most of the exceptionally good candidates don’t want to spend month’s worth of effort on a job search, they rather get their job done. So I thought that a more efficient matching of vacancies and applicants is helping both sides.

Please leave a comment if you have any further questions below. The comments are moderated so you can contact me without having a comment published. Just let me know where to reach you and I will get back to you.

41 responses

  1. hello. what is an L3 international contract?. what is the difference with a P3 international contract?
    thanks
    Carlos Cortes
    Bissau

  2. Very impressive website.

    Please can explain what an L4 level is, or where I can look up the different levels/grades.

    Thanks
    Kym

  3. I agree with your assessment of the difficult UN job search process. Thank you for making it a little easier.

    _Wade

  4. Please I shall be very grateful if you can explain to me the UN contract categories, that is, the P1 to 4. What do they represent? What qualifications are needed for the various categories/grades?

  5. Does your site pick up UN job announcements on general job search sites? ie devex.com, global health.com. Recommend any such external sites to post?

    Thank you,
    Andrew

  6. Dear Andrew,

    the site picks up only the directly advertised jobs on the UN sites themselves. The reason is that I want to avoid duplicates by all means (that is also the reason you won’t find the PAHO here, their jobs are also advertised by WHO and thus I only list the WHO vacancies. This is similarly to UNV and UNDP etc).

    Does this answer your question?

  7. what is an L3 international contract?. what is the difference with a P3 international contract?
    thanks

  8. hey,
    let me know what the codes represent and their qualifications.otherwise your work is impressive.be blessed.

    yours winnie

  9. Dear Sebastian
    Quite impressive the work and your efforts to bring some light in this impossible mess of HR and categories/steps/grades… non ending!
    However, there is still the shadow of the DPKO conditions and status. Could you clarify me what kind of conditions have the staff of DPKO? are they equal to volunteers of UNV? and what are exactly the common rules for the volunteers?
    Thank you so much,
    Zazou

  10. Hi Zazou,

    sorry, I’m not quite sure about that myself (keep in mind this is a hobby and I’m not in any official function hosting this website). But please do let me know if you find out, so that we can share the knowledge with others, too. Thanks!

    Sebastian

  11. Bonjour/Good morning Sebastian,

    merci beaucoup d´avoir créer ce site pour nous aider á trouver un emploi dans le systeme des nations unis. Travailler dans cette organisation ou dans l´une de ses agences a toujours été mon rêve professionnel. Mais la voie pour y arriver n´est du tout de la sinécure. J´espére que ce site sera une bonne alternative pour y arriver.

    Amicalement,

    Hi Sebastian,

    thanks very much for making this website available to us who are willing to work with the UN or one of its agencies. Working with that organisation has always been my professional dream. But getting through the doors is definitely not a simple and easy deal. Hope your site will help make that dream come true.

    Best regards,

    Michel

  12. hi sebastian, i am frequently using this page and it has been very helpfull in reducing my time searching suitable vacancies.

    A BIG THANK YOU!

    Sebastian

  13. Hi,

    I would like to apply for a job with the U.N., but i like to know “what does P-5, P-3, D-1 etc under the Grade/Level Column in the U.N. Job Vacancies advert means?”

    Thanks.

    Philip Onihana

  14. Hi Sebastian,

    Just found your website. It is so impressive, you are really awesome! May I ask a question regarding my recent application to UN? Hope to get your comments based on your knowledge and experiences shown on this website.

    I have been listed as “long-listed” for a couple of weeks on their website. Based on your experiences, you think that they are short-listing other applicants and they just wait for right applicant signs the employment contract and then change my status to “reject”, or I will be still possibly short listed and get further opportunity?

    Thanks!
    Nancy

    • Congrats on being “long listed” that’s a good first step! What really happens now is hard to estimate. The long list may be very long and it may take quite a few weeks to get to a short list. BUT on the other hand, yes, it could be that you have not been short-listed. In that case yes the status will likely stay as it is until the process is completed. In any case – good luck!

  15. Sebastian

    Can you please advise if you would list jobs for private companies? I have seen my competitors ads on your site but cannot work out how to put our ads up on your site.

    Regards

    Denise

    • Hi Denise,

      most likely you confuse my site with another site. There are never(!) any ads on my site. Also, sorry to say I won’t list any job postings other than from the UN or UN affiliated organisations. Sorry for that. If you want to advertise a UN job, please just leave me a comment and I will write an email to you.

  16. Dear Sebastian,

    Really Great page. Thx. Do you know if it is true that General Service contracted staff has to sign a formular stating that they may not applicable for positions in Professional Status (P-1, P-2 etc. grades) for up to 5 years? I know that this has really happened. But is this standart procedure or is there any regulation allowing such a limitation? Do you have info on this?

    Many Thanks

    • I have not heard of that yet. However, I know that some organisations require you to be in a post for a given time before you can move to the next post. The reason for that is that you don’t want to re-train, re-recruit, re-mobilize too many times for the same job to maintain some organisational knowledge/memory.

  17. I just chanced upon your work and I am very impressed, you are being of wonderful service, well done! Please do you know where I may find past questions for U.N exam? I have an impending exam and simply want to know what to expect.

  18. Dear Sebastian:

    I truly appreciate the way you assist people through this website. your efforts are really priceless.
    I wanted to ask you two thing
    1. Most of the UN application forms contain this question “Do you have any relative in UN”?? what is the scope and weightage of this question??
    2. I have 5 years of professional experience. I have been applying for UNs jobs for last 3 years, but i didnt make it even for an interview. i have start doubting the recruiting system of UN

    • If you have a relative working in the UN, you can’t work in the UN (there are some few exceptions to this, most notable, spouse employment is definitely ok).
      Just having (relevant) experience is typically not enough to be invited to a job interview.

  19. Dear Sebastian!
    Thank you very much for the real helping people.
    If you can help me with some small advise.
    While filling the application in UN INSPIRA website, in the page of Work experience I was faced with the need to fill in the column: “For which UN entity did you last work for?”
    In fact, I worked in 2007- 2009 on the secondment position in UNPOL in Sudan and this work relates to the DPKO entity.
    But there is no DPKO entity as a proposed option, although there are dozens of other UN entities.
    Please give me advise how to be in this situation, and maybe this entity is called now somehow different?
    Thank you in advance for your reply.
    Vladimir.

  20. Sir,
    First of all I would like to greet you as you are continuously rendering assistance to those who aspired to be the part of the UNO. I would like to get clarification from you about “the time factor in getting selection from the pool of Rosters”.
    Regards,
    Ravisankar.Machavaram..
    India.

  21. Sir,
    First of all I would like to greet you as you are continuously rendering assistance to those who aspired to be part of the UNO. I would like to get clarification from you about “the time factor in getting selection from the Pool of Rosters & number of candidates as Rosters” please.
    Regards,
    Ravisankar.Machavaram..
    India.

  22. Morning Sebastian,
    In the middle of 2016 I was placed on a UN roster for a P4 position; how realistic is it to actually obtain a position with the UN from here? I ask because a number of positions have come up over the last nine months, all of which I have applied for, with nothing further being heard.
    Thanks

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