The Story behind UCC
WATCH UCC's webinar series with special guests, Nobel Peace Prize Winner & UN system experts Simply Download UCC’s "Cover Letter", “Effective Networking” or “Career Change” webinar
The story behind
‘UCC - United Career Coalition’
UCC was created with a sole purpose to help others increase their access to advice for applications, recruitment & selection processes, competency based interviews and learn more about an international career incl. at the UN system while giving existing and past United Nations Staff the chance to coach & mentor others with their careers in International Relations & Development.
UCC enables opportunities to network and connect with UN insiders & experts and shares advice & insights from those that have applied, interviewed and secured UN system roles.
Listen to Stephanie being interviewed about UCC and ‘How to land a job at the UN, even in a pandemic’
About the founder
Stephanie’s diplomatic resume has over 10 years of experience working for inter-governmental, bilateral and non-governmental partners across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia delivering a range of projects with budgets ranging from EUR 10k to EUR 56m having been part of a Nobel Prize winning UN organisation.
She has worked for a specialised UN organisation in the Headquarters as well as the former Director General of the IAEA and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Stephanie has travelled around the globe, having met senior UN officials such as Kofi Annan and statesman, presidents and government officials from Latin America, Africa to Asia. Having seen first hand the great work the UN does and the opportunity it presents as a career for those wanting to make a difference, her goal is to help as many people as possible to experience what it feels like to be part of the UNITED NATIONS family!
The podcast is also available on Apple Podcast “UN-Scripted” or through the Pass Blue website.
Who can help you with your UN system application?
Our founder knows all to well having been a UN staff member for almost a decade, working among others for a Nobel Peace Prize awarded UN organisation, having experienced how cumbersome and lengthy the UN application, recruitment and selection process can be and often learned the hard way that getting shortlisted for an UN interview and/or an invite for a UN competency based panel interview is not a guarantee for actually getting the desired role. She knows very well how hard it is to get your foot into the door of the UN.
Applying for UN system jobs
The “UN” is not one big employer; there are various intergovernmental organisations, regional banks and specialised agencies to the UN, funds and programmes such as UNAIDS, OECD, WFP, IAEA, UNODC, CTBTO, OPCW, UNICEF, UNDP, UNEP, IMF, the World Bank Group or FAO etc.
How to join those organisations means understating their values, culture, strategies and goals of each individual agency.
Finding the ‘right’ UN system organisation that matches your profile, skills and competencies, can lead to a fulfilling career where you get the chance to leave an important impact on the world. It means working with people from all over the world, getting to know different cultures and strengthening your multicultural team working skills while working on a good cause for human mankind and our planet.
Having applied for probably one of the most technical UN organisations out there, our UCC Founder suddenly found herself working for the UN, in a Professional Role with zero technical and/or scientific experience!
Having worked for the UN system for almost a decade, Stephanie and her team of UN insiders at UCC aims to address the lack of information and knowledge about how to enter these organisations and offers FREE blog articles, webinars and other services to enable EVERYONE interested in an international career to access insights and advice about the different application, recruitment and selection processes as well as to help you get your UN system related questions answered.
Over the past years, the UCC team has supported numerous friends and UN staff colleagues in their UN system interview preparations, conducting mock interviews and reviewing their UN system application documents. UCCs professionals are specialised in revising various application documents, such as CVs, resumés, motivation, cover letters, personal history forms and many more as well as to advise on format, design, language and keywords to use.
Our founder identified the same patterns of ‘mistakes’ and observed that most people, who desire to get a job at the UN system, make the same faults that she did over and over again.
After carrying out some research she quickly realised that there is not much professional in-depth advice and help out there so she created the UCC for career advice for international and UN system jobs and reached out to her professional network to help share their insider tips & secrets and here we are now, many applications and many interviews later her idea to help others who are where she once was became a reality.
What People Are Saying
“Communication was excellent. I truly appreciate the assistance and guidance on making a career at the UN. I highly recommend their services!”
—Nesse (US)
“Very professional
&
knowledgable.”
— Sam (USA).
““Wonderful experience. Good value for the money. I would come back for further advice.”
— Akowali (Russia)
““My cv and cover letter looks competitive and consistent finally! I learned a lot through this.”
— Susanna (Austria)
Why can we help you with your application?
We all have busy social, private and work lives so let’s use that little remaining free time efficiently. Time is the most valuable commodity we have!
Most people look at their bank accounts and assess how much money they have to spend and to give away. But they don’t look at their time the same way and end up wasting this incredibly valuable resource especially on their applications and job search. In fact, time is much more valuable than money because you can use your time to make money, but you can’t use money to purchase more time!
Learning from former UN system Staff
When you look at someone who has accomplished a lot, you can be pretty sure that he or she has spent considerable amounts of time mastering their required skills, filling hours upon hours with hard work. We at the UCC were all one of those people, focused and driven to make a career with the United Nations system and at the same time getting frustrated with the lengthy, time-consuming, and complex UN system application process. We all felt like we were not efficient and wasted so much time on job hunting. Gaining a job at the UN, as you most likely know, isn’t like most professions and requires some thought around how to build your experience and skills to your desired role.
Use your time to apply wisely
We offer to share our experience, lessons learned, research findings, common mistakes we identified and insider tips to make the best of your valuable time.
Sometimes the goals you are pursuing require expert guidance and exceptions to the rules, because some aims cannot be achieved conventionally. We are familiar with the UN systems and will provide advice on how you can further improve your application documents using UN job specific skills, competencies and keywords. We will provide suggestions for you to best tailor your CV and motivation letter to the specific UN system job description.
How will we help you?
In short, our aim is to help you better understand the UN systems application and United Nations systems recruitment process, save time and submit an outstanding application that has a real equal and fair chance to succeed regardless of existing connections and/or a network.
Personally we are of the opinion that once-in-a-lifetime opportunities aren’t really that rare if you approach, plan and structure them properly.
We want to help you slipstream your international relations career!
Chat with us
Schedule a call to receive interview guidance from someone who has been where you are looking for a UN system career.