Two United Nations officials with long careers at the world body and based in New York recently offered tips on how to get a job at the UN. Speaking at a  careers forum held at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in October, in presentation with PassBlue, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general, and John Ericson, chief of the outreach unit in the Office of Human Resources Management, gave candid advice on how to seek and find a job at the UN.
The forum was videotaped by the Ralph Bunche Institute. It begins with an introduction, followed by Ericson’s speech on the most recent general and specific information on ways to finding a job at the UN, including listings, language competitive exams, the Young Professionals Program (YPP; recruitment exam, Dec. 4, 2014), Junior Professional Officers program (JPO), UN Volunteers (UNV; for people 25 and older) and the UN Internship Program.
Dujarric, who has held numerous spokesman positions in the UN, most recently was the director of news and media for the UN’s Department of Public Information. He discussed what he looks for in job candidates, such as the ability to get along with co-workers in a multinational office environment. A question and answer period concluded the event.
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, she has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland and The Hague). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years, editing and writing for most sections of the paper, including the Magazine, Book Review and Op-Ed. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and near Boulder, Colo., graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and then working in New York at The Times. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
