By
Henrik Rydén
If they could motivate and prepare these women to apply for International Professional (IP) roles, OCHA saw an opportunity;
to accelerate the reach of their diversity goals and
to do it with talents they already knew.
OCHA knew that Impactpool had offered coaching programs to other organisations and wanted to explore the possibility of Impactpool designing one for them.
To become a coach on Impactpool, candidates must have both coaching certification and relevant professional sector experience. OCHA’s objective was to create a coaching program for women in national professional roles who aspire to apply for international positions. To deliver this initiative, Impactpool assembled an experienced project team.”
OCHA wanted two batches, one spring batch of 100 staff and one fall batch of 100 staff. The objective of the program was to help the participants to better understand:
how to move from a national staff to an international staff (G-to-P or GS-to-P),
how to identify their own transferable skills and career advancement opportunities,
How to navigate careers in a UN context with different contract types and quotas,
how to create individual Job search strategies and apply for the jobs with the best chances,
How to write an effective CV and,
How to manage a UN assessment (Competency-Based Interview)
Coaching program design
Both the budget and expectations from OCHA were clear. For staff working in a humanitarian crisis, offering the flexibility of self-learning options is important as daily plans and schedules can change rapidly. Hence, the Impactpool team wanted to design a program that allowed the participants to take different avenues to obtain knowledge and designed a program with three different learning elements.
Live-recorded virtual Workshops
Individual coaching
Self-studies
To ensure that participating OCHA staff were interested and motivated to go through the program, all staff had to apply, and OCHA selected 100 participants for each batch.
Live-recorded virtual Workshops
The virtual workshop was held live and recorded for participants who could not attend. The sessions were delivered in both French and English. OCHA did not include subtitles or sign-language interpretation, although Impactpool can provide these services for webinars.”
The Workshops are divided into three online sessions, facilitated by a coach to create a participatory atmosphere where the individuals ask questions and share experiences and knowledge. The workshop topics were:
Job search strategy in a UN context
CV and application writing in a UN context
Interview preparation in a UN context
Individual coaching
The Impactpool coaching network offers coaches a broad range of language skills; hence, the individual can in most cases (if desired), work with a coach in their native language.
“The selected career coaches all had HR experience within the UN and specialized in supporting UN career development. The focus of each coaching session was agreed upon by the staff member and the coach. Many participants chose topics related to the workshop sessions
Self-studies
The Impactpool Fellowship is a premium membership of Impactpool providing a large library of self-learning materials. The affected staff member registers their career profile and receives AI-matched job alerts with relevant jobs. The individual will also receive online access to individualized content and learning paths, increasing their chances of promotion. At Impactpool, the self-study material contains:
Learning material on how to write a strong application.
Learning material on how to succeed in an interview.
Guides to understanding different grading systems in International Organisations;
Databases filled with CBI interview questions;
Library with Webinars from Impact employers and Career Coaches
Live webinars, etc
Diversity results
Over the past 2 years, 400 staff have gone through the coaching program.
Thanks to frequent participation in Impactpool's Virtual Career Events and being a premium partner for several years, 52,5 percent of the talents viewing OCHA jobs on Impactpool are women today. These women come from 195 different countries.
Below is the dashboard OCHA (and all our partners) uses on Impactpool to monitor the diversity targets in real time.
If you would like to discuss a coaching program for your organization, please fill out the contact form below, and an Impactpool representative will reach out.
