Have you ever felt that applying to the UN is like sending an application into the dark? 

Applying for a job at the UN is a cumbersome exercise and after spending hours filling out the tedious P11/PHP, the least one could expect is a one-liner regret message from the UN when the job is filled.

The UN culture of not sending out regret letters to applicants is a culture I truly dislike.

In this article, I do not attempt to in any way defend this behavior, instead, I will give you some application tips to make sure that your next application at least will be read by a recruiter. Because that is not a guarantee either.

Four tips to make sure your application is read by a UN recruiter

The truth is, if you submit an application to the UN that checks all the minimum requirement boxes, a recruiter will for sure read your application. That does not mean that you will be contacted, nor receive a regret letter, but at least your candidacy was read and reviewed.

One major mistake that I have seen in many applications I have read, is that applicants don’t do their homework before applying. Many unsuccessful applicants don’t even read the job description carefully.

I know for a fact, from my own experience, that there is an over-representation of applicants that don’t meet the minimum three requirements (Years of experience, Language, and Education) for almost all UN vacancies that are published.

Many applicants apply without taking the time to understand what they are applying for.

In this article, I provide four tips. They might seem like common sense, but they are extremely important and you’ll be surprised how many that misses these basic points.