When “Apply More Jobs” Is the Worst Advice for UN & INGO Professionals
- Satomi Beyond Bias
- Jan 22
- 3 min read
I’ve spent over 15 years in the world of Talent Acquisition.
Across the private sector and the United Nations.
I see patterns before people see outcomes.
Right now, the pattern is brutal.
UN and INGO professionals are exhausted.
They’ve applied for dozens—sometimes hundreds—of roles.
And nothing is moving.
Not because they lack skills.
But because the system they are applying into does not understand them.
What Actually Happened When the Contracts Ended
For many I work with, the loss wasn’t just a job.
They lost:
income 💸
professional identity
community
purpose
Bills didn’t pause.
Rent didn’t pause.
Life didn’t pause.
And suddenly, people who never imagined leaving the system are forced to look outside it.
That moment is destabilising.
Especially when your work was mission-driven.
Then the Noise Arrives: Bad Advice, Loudly Shared
This is where it gets dangerous.
When people are vulnerable, advice multiplies.
I hear this daily:
“Just apply to more jobs.”
“Your CV is fine—numbers game.”
“Private sector will figure it out.”
“Use AI to mass-apply and build cover-letter”
This advice is misleading.
And in some cases, harmful.
More applications to the wrong narrative only deepen rejection.
Private sector hiring does not reward intent.
It rewards clarity, translation, and relevance.
The Real Problem: Not a Skills Gap a Translation and Job Search Strategies Gap
Let Me Give You a Concrete Example
There is a well-known humanitarian professional whose work I respect.He is absolutely right about one thing:
Humanitarian professionals do have highly transferable skills.
Where the advice goes wrong is how those skills are translated.
From a quick scan, I see recommendations like:
Proposal Recruiter → HR Business Partner
Grants Manager → Vendor Relations Manager
On paper, this sounds logical.
In the private sector hiring reality, it’s not at all.
Crisis response ≠ commercial accountability.
And when this distinction is blurred, trust erodes fast and candidates pay the price, not the "coach".
The Real Problem
Not a Skills Gap: a Translation and Job Search Strategy Gap
Humanitarian and UN professionals do bring:
complex stakeholder management
budget ownership
risk, compliance, delivery under pressure
leadership without authority
But here’s the uncomfortable truth.
I spent over 10 years in the private sector.
I know how hiring games actually works there.
Recruitment in the UN/NGO system is like speaking French.
The private sector expects Spanish—and in some cases, Mandarin.
The skills are real.
The language is not aligned.
A Hard Warning About “Career Gurus”
Be extremely careful who you take advice from.
Someone may have:
been a hiring manager
hired teams before
worked in adjacent roles
But if they have not:
worked in HR or Talent Acquisition
managed complex recruitment systems
hired both inside and outside the UN/INGO ecosystem
Then they do not fully understand the market they are advising on.
Good intentions are not enough.Outdated or misaligned advice can set people back months.
In this market, that cost is real.
Final Reality Check
You are not failing.
You are not unemployable.
And your experience is not irrelevant.
But outside the system, it will not sell itself.
Career transition is not a volume game.It is not a motivation problem.
It is a signal-design problem.
Clarity beats effort.
Translation beats titles.
And strategy beats speed.
Tell it like it is.
This is how people actually get unstuck.
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