UN-Honed Transferable Capabilities

Dimension: Capability · Type: Foundation

Three capabilities UN staff systematically underestimate but that travel well to other IGOs: sensemaking in chaos, systems mindset, and professional agility under structural change. A self-recognition reference for staff considering a transition outside the UN, and a checklist of what to surface explicitly in applications and interviews.

Introduced by Mariam Kakkar (Director of Human Resources, OSCE) at the Beyond the UN Blue, Transition to Other IGOs session of the UN Inter-Agency Career Week 2026, on 8 May 2026. Mariam articulated the three capabilities from her 24+ years across UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP, UNHCR before joining the OSCE. Theresa Beltramo (AIIB, formerly UNHCR) reinforced the practical implications throughout the session, particularly on the importance of investing in self during transition rather than contracting.

Note: the Index file lists this framework primarily under Direction. The audit places it within the Capability cluster, where it operates as a self-recognition tool for staff in transition. Primary dimension: Capability. Davide to confirm.

The framework

The session was direct: these are not nice-to-haves. They are genuine differentiators when entering organisations outside the UN, where colleagues may not have had the same forcing functions to develop them.

When to use it

• When you are considering a transition out of the UN system and questioning whether your skills will travel.
• When drafting a CV or motivation letter for a non-UN role and wondering what to highlight beyond the UN-specific content.
• When advising a colleague through a similar transition.
• When experiencing the confidence shock that often follows post abolishment or contract non-renewal.

The three capabilities

1. Making sense of chaos quickly.

What it looks like in UN work: things happen from one day to the next. A sudden displacement crisis. A funding cut announced two weeks before the new fiscal year. A leadership transition mid-cycle. You learn to assess the situation, reflect briefly, and act before complete information is available.

Why it travels: most non-UN organisations operate at a slower decision tempo. Someone who can synthesise an unfamiliar situation in days rather than months stands out, particularly in periods of organisational change (which most multilateral organisations are now in).

How to surface it on a CV or in an interview: describe a specific moment when you had to act on incomplete information. Use the SMART Method or R-CAR. Quantify the speed and the outcome where possible.

2. Systems mindset.

What it looks like in UN work: you do not look at problems from just one agency’s perspective. You see how UNICEF interacts with UNFPA, how the field connects to HQ, how the UN system intersects with governments, donors, and civil society. Even when your job is narrow, the system view is built through working in it.

Why it travels: organisations outside the UN often have narrower default lenses. Someone who can place a problem in its broader institutional and stakeholder context, without effort, brings something that cannot be quickly trained.

How to surface it: describe a moment when you connected actors that did not see themselves as connected, or when you anticipated a downstream consequence that others missed. Frame the story around the systems thinking, not just the technical problem.

3. Professional agility under structural change.

What it looks like in UN work: budget cuts one year, growth the next. A workforce restructuring that moves your unit from New York to Budapest. A shift from MDGs to SDGs. The 2024-2025 humanitarian funding shock. Each of these forces adaptation that becomes routine.

Why it travels: most non-UN organisations are now also navigating structural change (energy transition, AI shock, geopolitical shifts). Someone who has lived through repeated structural shifts in a multilateral system has, in the speaker’s words, “a superpower” when entering a new context.

How to surface it: describe how you have adapted across two or three different organisational structures or strategic shifts. Show that you have done this more than once, that you know what the curve feels like, and that you have a working method for absorbing it.

Steps

1. Audit your last 5 to 10 years against each capability. For each one, write 2 to 3 specific moments where you demonstrated it. Use your BASIC achievement bank as the source.
2. Pick the strongest example per capability. The one with the clearest action, the most measurable outcome, and the cleanest story.
3. Write each example using SMART Method. Keep it to 3 to 5 minutes spoken or 4 to 6 lines written. The Teachability element matters here: what would you do differently is part of the story.
4. Translate the language for the non-UN audience. Replace internal jargon. “Inter-agency coordination” becomes “stakeholder management across institutions with conflicting mandates and priorities”. The skill is the same; the words must be legible to someone outside the UN.
5. Use these examples in motivation letters and interviews. Pair with the Why This, Why Now, Why You test for motivation letters specifically.
6. Reframe, do not contract, during transition. The session was emphatic on this point: stop saying “I am leaving the UN”, which generates fear. Say “I am continuing my career in international public service”. The reframe makes the conversation easier in your head and in interviews.

Worked example

A staff member with 18 years across UNICEF and UNHCR is preparing applications for non-UN IGOs. She runs the audit:

• Sensemaking in chaos. 2024: managed her unit’s response when a major donor announced a 40% reduction with two months’ notice. Restructured the portfolio, kept three out of five flagship programmes running, communicated honestly with implementing partners, lost one staff member through redundancy but retained the team. She had not previously seen this as a CV-worthy moment; through the audit, she sees it as exactly the kind of capability that would land in a non-UN organisation.
• Systems mindset. 2022: while leading a child-protection programme in a difficult country context, she anticipated that a planned change in national education policy would create downstream child-labour risks two years out, raised it with the country office and the regional bureau, and contributed to the reframing of the programme’s monitoring indicators. The systems view is what made her see the connection that the policy lead had not.
• Professional agility. Across the 18 years: relocated through three duty stations, lived through one full agency restructuring, adapted across two distinct organisational cultures (UNICEF and UNHCR). She had been thinking of these as “I happened to be there when things changed”. The audit reframes them as evidence she can do this again.

The motivation letter for the non-UN application now opens with a paragraph that names all three capabilities by example, in the language of the target organisation. The interview is structured around the same three examples. The transition that felt like “starting over” now reads as continuing what she has done before, in a new system.

On the confidence shock

The session named a specific pattern: colleagues whose posts have been cut often suffer most from a confidence shock, not a skills gap. The skills are real and transferable; the felt sense of value has been damaged.

This page is partly a confidence intervention. Naming what you have built, with examples, restores the felt sense of capability that the contract loss did not actually take away. The skills do not need to be rebuilt; they need to be re-recognised.

If the confidence shock is acute, pair this audit with a Strengths Profile reflection (the unrealised quadrant especially) and the Notice, Pause, Shift, Act routine for the saboteur patterns that often surface during a contract loss.

Pitfalls

• Underclaiming. The speaker’s argument is that UN staff systematically underestimate these capabilities because they are taken for granted internally. Be explicit. If anything, lean into the specifics rather than soften them.
• Listing the capabilities without examples. “Strong systems thinker” without a specific moment is not credible. Each capability needs its own concrete story.
• Translating poorly to the non-UN audience. UN-internal jargon that did not need to be translated inside the system needs translation outside. “Cluster coordination” means nothing to a development-bank hiring manager; the underlying skill (stakeholder management across institutions with conflicting mandates) does.
• Treating the three as the only capabilities to surface. They are the ones the speaker named as systematically underestimated. Your CV should also surface domain expertise, technical competencies, and language skills as appropriate.
• Doing the audit alone if confidence is depleted. A trusted peer or coach who can validate the examples often helps when the felt sense of capability is low.

When not to use it

When you are applying for an internal UN move. The capabilities are still real, but the audience already has them; surfacing them adds little. Use the JD vs Profile Comparison instead, focused on the specific role’s requirements.

When you are at a very early career stage in the UN system. The three capabilities take 5 to 10 years of varied UN experience to develop credibly. Earlier in a career, the surfacing exercise is premature.

How I use it

Personal note pending. Davide to fill.

Related frameworks

• Skills-First Approach, the broader stance under which these capabilities sit as named skills.
• BASIC Achievement Bank, the source of the achievement examples that illustrate each capability.
• Why This, Why Now, Why You, the three-question test for the motivation letter that surfaces these capabilities for a specific role.
• Notice, Pause, Shift, Act, the in-the-moment routine for the saboteur patterns that surface during transition.

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Notes compiled by Davide Piga. Last updated 2026-05-09.