How to Write a CV That Gets Shortlisted at NGOs and UN Agencies – 2026 Guide

By Amina Ochieng | Former UN recruitment associate and career coach with 10 years supporting East African professionals into NGO and UN careers Last updated: April 2026

Your CV lands on a recruiter’s desk at UNHCR, UNICEF, or World Vision. They have 180 applications for one Programme Officer post. They spend 45 seconds on each one before deciding: pile A (call for interview) or pile B (the bin).

This guide tells you exactly what puts you in pile A.

What Makes an NGO and UN CV Different

NGO and UN hiring is not like corporate recruitment. The people reading your CV aren’t just looking for qualifications — they’re looking for mission alignment, field credibility, and evidence that you can produce results in complex environments with limited resources.

A few things that set these roles apart:

Competency frameworks are everything. The UN uses the UN Competency Framework, which includes core competencies like communication, teamwork, and planning; and managerial ones like leadership and managing performance. Your CV needs to signal these competencies through your achievements, not just your job titles.

ATS systems filter before humans see anything. Most large INGOs and UN agencies use applicant tracking systems (ATS). If your CV doesn’t contain the right keywords from the job description, it won’t reach a human reviewer. We’ll cover this in detail below.

Functional experience beats academic credentials. A postgraduate degree helps, but a recruiter at ACTED or Mercy Corps cares more about whether you’ve managed a Kshs. 50 million budget in a field setting than whether you have a distinction in your master’s thesiStep 1: Read the Job Description Like a Contract

Before you write a single word of your CV, spend 20 minutes on the job description. Print it out. Highlight every skill, qualification, and competency mentioned. These words are your blueprint.

Look for:

• Required qualifications (non-negotiable — if you don’t meet these, don’t apply)
• Desired qualifications (you need at least 60-70% of these)
• Competency language — phrases like “results orientation,” “accountability,” “building trust,” “stakeholder engagement”
• Sector-specific language — WASH, GBV, MEAL, SBCC, Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA), resilience programming

Now mirror this language in your CV. Not word-for-word plagiarism — but if the JD says “MEAL systems,” your CV shouldn’t say “monitoring and evaluation” and hope they’ll connect the dots. They won’t.

This step alone puts you ahead of 60% of applicants.

Step 2: Format Your CV for the NGO/UN Standard

There’s a format that works in this sector. Stick to it.

Length: 2-3 pages maximum for mid-career professionals. Entry-level: 2 pages. Senior/leadership roles: up to 4 pages is acceptable.

File format: PDF only. Never submit a Word document unless the application portal specifically demands it. PDFs preserve formatting; Word docs often scramble on different machines.

Font and layout:

• Clean, readable fonts: Calibri 11pt, Garamond 11pt, or Arial 11pt
• Consistent margins (1 inch / 2.5cm on all sides)
• No photos, no graphics, no coloured boxes — ATS systems choke on these
• Clear section headers in bold or slightly larger font size

Sections to include (in this order):

1. Contact information
2. Professional summary (3-5 lines maximum)
3. Core competencies / skills (keyword-rich bullet list)
4. Professional experience (reverse chronological)
5. Education
6. Certifications and training
7. Languages
8. Publications / reports (only if relevant)

What to leave out: Marital status, date of birth, passport number, religion, a photo. These are irrelevant to the hiring decision and can introduce unconscious bias. Most UN agencies now actively discourage their inclusion.

Step 3: Write a Professional Summary That Anchors Everything

The professional summary is the first thing a recruiter reads after your name. Three to five lines. Make them count.

A weak summary: “A highly motivated and result-driven professional with a passion for humanitarian work seeking a challenging position.”

This says nothing. Every applicant writes something like this.

A strong summary: “Programme coordinator with 7 years’ experience delivering food security and livelihood interventions across Kenya and South Sudan, including direct management of a Kshs. 120 million USAID-funded project with 45,000 beneficiaries. Proven track record in MEAL system design, donor reporting to USAID and ECHO, and staff supervision in insecure environments.”

This summary is specific, quantified, and sector-relevant. A UNHCR recruiter reading this knows immediately whether you’re worth 45 more seconds of their time.

Your summary should answer three questions: Who are you professionally? What have you actually done? What’s your value to this specific type of role?

Step 4: Write Achievement-Led Experience Bullets

This is where most Kenyan applicants lose the race. They write duties instead of achievements.

Duty-based (wrong): “Responsible for coordinating project activities and preparing reports.”

Achievement-based (right): “Coordinated nutrition programming across 6 sub-counties in Turkana, reaching 12,400 children under 5 with a 94% retention rate against a 80% target — recognised in the mid-term review as a best practice model.”

The formula to use: [Action verb] + [what you did] + [scale/context] + [result/impact]

Strong action verbs for NGO/UN CVs: Led, Designed, Coordinated, Negotiated, Secured, Established, Monitored, Reported, Trained, Assessed, Piloted, Scaled, Managed.

For every role, aim for 4-6 achievement bullets. Not 10. Not 2. Four to six, each one punchy, specific, and quantified wherever possible.

If you’re early career and don’t have many quantified results yet, focus on scale (how many people, how many counties, what budget) and outputs (reports produced, trainings delivered, assessments conducted).

Step 5: Optimise Your CV for ATS Screening

The UN Secretariat careers portal and most INGO application systems run your CV through automated screening before a human sees it. The system looks for keyword matches between your CV and the job description.

Here’s how to beat ATS without keyword-stuffing:

Add a “Core Competencies” section near the top. List 8-12 skills as a comma-separated or bullet list. Pull these directly from the job description. For example:

Project Management | MEAL | Stakeholder Engagement | Proposal Writing | Donor Reporting (USAID, EU, DFID) | Budget Management | Community Mobilisation | Conflict-Sensitive Programming | M&E Frameworks | Capacity Building | Humanitarian Standards (Sphere) | French (Intermediate)

Use standard section headings. Don’t get creative: use “Professional Experience,” not “My Journey” or “Career Story.” ATS systems look for standard heading labels.

Avoid tables and text boxes. Text inside tables often doesn’t get parsed by ATS. Put everything in plain text.

Include acronyms and their full forms. ATS may search for “Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning” or “MEAL” — include both, at least once.

Step 6: Tailor Every Application — Yes, Every Single One

You cannot send the same CV to Save the Children, Oxfam, and the World Bank and expect results from all three. These organisations have different mandates, different cultures, and different language preferences.

Create a master CV that contains everything. Then for each application, spend 30-45 minutes tailoring:

• The professional summary (rewrite it for this specific role)
• The core competencies section (mirror the JD language)
• The first bullet point of your two most recent roles (make sure it directly speaks to what they’re looking for)

This sounds like a lot of effort. It is. But a tailored CV to 10 organisations outperforms a generic CV to 40.

Step 7: Handle Gaps, Relocations, and Career Changes Honestly

If you have a gap in your employment history, don’t try to hide it with vague dates. Address it briefly.

A gap for study: “2023-2024: Sabbatical — completed Masters in Public Health, University of Nairobi”

A gap for caregiving: You don’t need to explain it in the CV itself. If it comes up at interview, address it directly and pivot quickly to what you’ve maintained during that period — consulting, volunteer work, courses.

Changing sectors (e.g., from banking to NGO work): Lead with transferable skills. Donor budget management maps to financial management. Corporate stakeholder engagement maps to partner coordination. Frame the transition in your professional summary

Common Mistakes That Get NGO CVs Rejected

These come up again and again in recruiter feedback:

Using a photo. UNICEF, UNHCR, and most UN agencies explicitly ask you not to include one.

Listing references on the CV. “References available upon request” wastes space. Leave them off entirely.

One generic CV for every application. Covered above. Don’t do it.

Vague descriptions of your organisation. Not every recruiter in Geneva knows what “KESHO NGO, Nairobi” does. Add a one-line description: “KESHO NGO — a Kenya-based organisation implementing WASH and nutrition programmes in arid and semi-arid counties, with annual budget of Kshs. 80 million.”

Listing courses without certifications. If you attended a training but didn’t get a certificate, leave it out. Only include formally certified programmes.

A career objective instead of a professional summary. Career objectives are outdated. “I am seeking a position where I can grow” tells a recruiter nothing. Replace it with the achievement-led professional summary format above.

Burying key skills. If the JD asks for French proficiency and you speak French, put it in your summary, your skills list, and the relevant experience bullet. Don’t let it sit quietly at the bottom of your CV.Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a CV be for a UN job application?

For most professional-level (P2-P3) UN positions, two to three pages is the accepted standard. If you’re applying for a senior or leadership role (P4 and above), up to four pages is acceptable. Going beyond four pages signals poor editing and will likely count against you. The UN also has its own internal application forms (the P11) which you’ll need to complete separately from your CV — check the vacancy notice carefully to see what’s required.

Should I use a Europass CV format for NGO jobs?

Europass is required for some European Commission-funded positions, but most INGOs and UN agencies don’t want it. It’s rigid, wastes space with irrelevant fields, and doesn’t allow you to showcase achievements the way a custom-formatted CV does. Unless the job post specifically requests Europass, use a clean, standard format as described in this guide.

How do I list volunteer experience on an NGO CV?

Treat volunteer experience exactly like paid employment if it involved real responsibilities and outputs. List the organisation, your role title, the dates, and 2-3 achievement bullets just as you would for a paid position. INGOs value field volunteer experience — don’t bury it in a footnote.

Do I need to include a cover letter for every application?

Yes — always include a cover letter unless the application system has no field for it. A well-written cover letter is your chance to connect the dots between your CV and the specific role in language that an ATS won’t scan. Keep it to one page, address it to the hiring manager where possible, and make the first paragraph specific to the role and organisation — not a generic introduction.

What salary should I expect in NGO or UN jobs in Kenya?

Salaries vary widely by organisation, funding source, and grade level. UN international professional positions (P-grade) are governed by the UN salary scale and are competitive internationally. National staff positions at INGOs in Kenya typically range from Kshs. 80,000 to Kshs. 350,000+ per month depending on seniority. For Kenyan market benchmarks, check Glassdoor Kenya and LinkedIn Salary Insights

Vacancy information and career guidance published on ActiveJobs.co.ke is compiled from publicly available sources and independent research. Always verify application requirements directly on the official organisation careers portal.