How to Work for the UN: Every Entry Route Explained (YPP, JPO, Internships)

To work for the UN Secretariat you usually apply to a job opening, or to one of a few programmes, on the official UN Careers site (careers.un.org). The main exceptions: JPO posts, which most candidates apply for through a donor country's programme; UN Volunteers, a separate UN entity with its own platform; the most senior posts, which follow separate appointment procedures; and work through a company or organization that holds a UN contract. For most routes your application is then screened, assessed and followed by an interview. Which route is open to you depends on your degree, your years of relevant work experience, your nationality and, for some programmes, your age. Students and recent graduates of any nationality can apply for internships; graduates who meet the Young Professionals Programme (YPP) nationality, age, degree and language requirements can apply for its exam, though being eligible does not guarantee an invitation; nationals of donor countries (and, for a few donors, candidates from developing countries) can apply for Junior Professional Officer (JPO) posts through the donor's programme; and people with experience apply directly for Professional (P), General Service, Field Service or consultancy openings. Independent guide. ProSyllabus is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the United Nations.

This guide compares the main routes on the official minimums, lists the narrower ones, shows what was actually open on UN Careers on 6 November 2026 (our count), walks through how an application is judged, and ends with a quick guide to which route fits you. UN agencies, funds and programmes such as UNDP hire through their own systems; the last sections say where to look.

The minimums below are the official ones from UN Careers and the UN DESA JPO programme. Each job opening can add its own requirements, so read the opening in full before you apply.

A few more routes are narrower. Language professionals (translators, interpreters, editors, verbatim reporters) start with a Competitive Examination for Language Positions (CELP); examinations for placement on the Global Language Register, whose members are eligible for contractual work or temporary appointments, are organized as needed. Temporary appointments fill short-term needs for less than a year; they can be extended beyond a year only for surge needs, field operations or special projects with finite mandates, and may not exceed 24 months in total at any given time. Their holders count as external candidates when they apply for other openings. Roster exercises run through Generic Job Openings: if you pass the assessment you are placed on a roster for four to six years and can be picked for later openings, often without the full process again. The most senior posts (Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, Under- and Assistant Secretaries-General, special envoys) follow separate appointment procedures; UN Careers links to current senior leadership vacancies, and qualified candidates can join the Senior Leadership Talent Pool. Finally, UN Careers says you can work for an institution or company that has a contract with the UN through a procurement process (UN Careers: Career Options).

We counted every live opening on UN Careers on 6 November 2026. The useful finding for graduates: in our count, Professional openings were mostly mid-level. Only 14 of the 168 Professional and higher openings were at P-2, and one of those 14 was the YPP exam itself; P-3 and P-4 had 56 each. Internships (82) and consultancies (124) together outnumbered all Professional openings.

What it means in practice: with no work experience, consider an internship if you are a student or recent graduate, the YPP exam if you meet its nationality, degree, age and language requirements, or UNV Community volunteering in your own community. With at least two years of relevant experience and the required degree, you can consider P-2 openings, and a JPO post if you qualify under a donor's programme (including donors that sponsor developing-country candidates) and you have a master's and two years (or a bachelor's and four) after your first degree; General Service experience requirements vary by opening and level, but in our 6 November count only 14 openings were at P-2, so our advice is to review the current P-2 openings and set a job alert for new ones.

The steps below are the ones UN Careers describes for job openings (How to apply). The YPP and JPO programmes use their own steps, covered further down.

For steps 5 and 6, see our written assessment guide and our competency-based interview guide.

The YPP is the UN Secretariat's entrance examination for graduates. UN Careers lists it as the way in for recent graduates with limited or no work experience, and its table of Professional levels says no experience is required for P-2 if you come through the YPP. You need to be a national of a country invited that year (countries that are un- or under-represented in the UN), hold a relevant bachelor's or 3-year degree, be 32 or younger in the year of the exam and be fluent in English or French. Those who succeed in the exam process go on a roster, valid for three years, which does not guarantee a job offer. Candidates selected from it are offered a two-year fixed-term contract at P-1 (bachelor's and no work experience) or P-2 (bachelor's and two years of work experience, or a master's and no work experience), and may be granted a continuing contract after two years, subject to satisfactory performance. Successful candidates must be willing to be placed at any UN duty station or field operation, and serve at least two years in their first position before being considered for another (UN Careers: YPP).

The 2026 cycle is open now: one exam area, Development and Sustainability, for people born on or after 1 January 1994, with applications closing on 30 November 2026 at 23:59 New York time (job opening 285586). We do not repeat the detail here. Our other guides cover each part: the participating countries guide, the exam structure and syllabus guide, the sample questions guide, the written assessment guide and the competency-based interview guide. Pay at P-2 is in our YPP salary guide.

The four questions above are the free sample of our independent UN YPP Exam Practice kit: our own multiple-choice questions, each with the answer explained. They are YPP-style practice, not UN questions, and they do not cover the JPO, internship or job-application routes.

JPOs are young professionals recruited under agreements between the UN and donor countries, which fund the posts. The UN DESA programme recruits and administers JPOs for the UN Secretariat and its entities; on its own figures, as of November 2026 it was supporting 362 JPOs from 28 donor countries, of 37 nationalities, in more than 49 duty stations (UN DESA JPO). The rules that matter:

A UN Secretariat internship is open to students in the final year of a bachelor's programme, master's or PhD students and recent graduates, of any nationality, part-time or full-time, at any time of the year; the minimum is two months full time and the maximum six months. It is unpaid: UN Careers says Member States have decided the Secretariat cannot pay interns at this point, though some UN agencies offer monetary support. An internship does not lead automatically to a job. To apply for a Professional or Field Service job afterwards, UN Careers asks you to let at least six months pass after the internship ends, and to meet the education and experience requirements in the opening; the page sets this wait for Professional and higher or Field Service positions (UN Careers: Career Options). On 6 November 2026, counting each of the 82 live internship openings by its first listed duty station, Geneva had 26, New York 20 and Bangkok 8 (our count).

UN Volunteers is a separate UN entity. Volunteers serve at home or abroad, full-time, part-time or remotely, from age 18 to 80. The Associate category asks for at least one month of experience; the Community category, at national level in your own community, sets no years; contracted volunteers receive a monthly living allowance, travel for international assignments, insurance and leave, while online volunteers (up to 20 hours a week, 1 to 12 weeks) receive no allowance or other financial compensation or benefits, and an electronic certificate on successful completion (UNV).

If you already have experience, you apply directly to openings. Check the experience, education and other requirements in each opening; the table gives the official minimums for Professional and higher levels.

General Service staff are usually recruited locally and are not expected to move between duty stations; you may need to pass the GGST, which shortlisted applicants take at the duty station they applied to (UN Careers: GGST), and moving from General Service to the Professional category is possible only through a special competitive examination, subject to conditions. Secretariat staff in the General Service and related categories, and Field Service staff at FS-5 and below, can also sit the YPP examination for recruitment into the Professional category. Field Service staff support field missions and are expected to be highly mobile. Consultants are engaged in an advisory or consultative capacity for results-oriented work; the fee is agreed before the contract, and the UN covers travel costs when travel is needed (UN Careers: Career Options).

Most of the staff routes above are for the UN Secretariat; UN Volunteers is a separate UN entity, and some JPO and early-career schemes are run by individual UN agencies. The wider UN System includes dozens of agencies, funds and programmes, and UN Careers says each of them has its own recruitment policies and platforms, with links to their early-career programmes on its UN System early careers page. Check the agency's own careers site for its internships, graduate schemes and JPO posts.

The UN Talent Pipeline is a capacity-building programme (training, recruitment updates and mentoring) for professionals from Member States that are unrepresented or underrepresented in the Secretariat and covered by its purposeful partnership framework. The entry-level pathway asks for a master's and at least two years of relevant experience, or a bachelor's and at least four; the mid-career pathway a master's and five years, or a bachelor's and seven; plus a relevant educational background and at least intermediate English: UN Language Framework Level II in reading, writing, listening and speaking. It does not guarantee a job, and UN Careers says details of how to apply will be announced early in 2027 (UN Talent Pipeline).

Find the line that describes you, then check the official requirements for that route above and in the opening or programme page. This is our summary of the official minimums, not an eligibility decision.