Professional highs, personal lows. be sure of life-work trade offs!
Pros
inspiring to work, can be dynamic despite the usual UN bureaucracy. hard working colleagues keep motivation high. lots of field work if based in country offices. if you have good managers, you can be exposed to lots of responsibility and learning. lots of opportunities if you want to live in the field, and more and more opportunities for fixed term contracts as incentive to go to hardship duty stations - check the FIT POOL. good place if you are a generalist!
Cons
core rules if you want a career with WFP: overtime work and high costs to your personal life choices. the high mobility culture takes you to tough places, sometimes you have little decision power on where to go next if you are fixed term staff. the high flexibility of job profiles comes with a downside: you need to be ready to do any sort of tasks, which combined with usual bad management, makes your life very difficult and frustrating. highly competitive culture and environments can be toxic. speed of project implementation most of the time prioritised over quality...a bit difficult to negotiate competitive consultancy rates with HR.
