Junior Professional Officer Programme and Young Professionals Programme

The aim of the Junior Professional Officers (JPO) programme is to provide qualified junior staff initial working experience in an international organisation. The deployments last between two and three years and are financed by the member country that selects the jobs and the candidates.

Minimum requirements are a master's degree and three years relevant professional experience. The candidate must also be a Swiss citizen and maximum 32 years of age. Switzerland currently supports the following JPO programmes:

• The UN Division (UND) funds four to five JPOs every year for various specialist areas at the UN Secretariat and the OECD.
• The Peace and Human Rights Division (PHRD) funds up to nine JPOs a year for jobs in its area of expertise.
• The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) funds around 10 JPOs every year for their priority multilateral partner organisations working in development cooperation and humanitarian aid.

All Swiss-funded JPO jobs are published on the cinfo website.

cinfo: Talent programme "Swiss Junior Professional Officer at the UN"

The UN Secretariat's Young Professionals Programme (YPP) is an initiative to recruit talented and qualified graduates who want to pursue a career at the UN. After passing an entrance exam in either administration, finance, law, information/media, social affairs or statistics, successful candidates can also benefit from professional training programmes to complement their new career path in the UN.

The YPP usually takes two years to complete and offers follow-up contracts to candidates that have performed well. Other international organisations also offer YPPs.

Please note that YPPs might have nationality restrictions depending on the level of representation of the member states.

Here is a list:

• UN Young Professionals Programme
• UNESCO Young Professionals Programme
• UNICEF New and Emerging Talent Initiative NETI
• OECD Young Associates Programme
• IMF Economist Programme
• World Bank Young Professional Program