How to Prepare for Technical Interviews and Written Assessments Across the UN System

Preparation for a UN interview usually means rehearsing stories: mapping past achievements to competencies, drilling the STAR method, anticipating a panel asking about a time when something happened. All of that matters, and it leaves candidates exposed to the part of the process that frequently decides matters first. For a great many UN roles, before or alongside the competency-based interview (CBI) sits a separate exercise testing not what was done in the past but what can be produced right now, on a deadline, in front of a blank page.

That is the reframe worth carrying into preparation. The UN’s assessment stage is far broader than the interview. Depending on the organization and the role it can include a timed written test, a pre-recorded video interview, a request for work samples, a psychometric or situational judgement test, a language proficiency exam, or at senior levels a multi-day assessment centre.¹ This article covers that layer: how it differs from the CBI, what each organization does, where video and AI now fit, and how to prepare so the assessment becomes an advantage rather than an ambush.

What the technical assessment actually is

The competency interview and the technical assessment answer two different questions. The CBI asks how a candidate has behaved before, measured against published competencies, on the logic that past behaviour predicts future performance. The technical or written test asks something more immediate: can this candidate produce the work the job requires? In practice that might mean drafting a one-page briefing note or set of talking points, analysing a dataset, summarizing a complex situation for a decision-maker, solving a subject-matter problem, or answering technical questions directly in the panel.

Three features distinguish it.

It is usually timed. Completion under a clock tests not only knowledge but how that knowledge is organized under pressure. Durations vary widely by role and organization, so any figure heard second-hand should be treated as approximate.

It can be eliminatory. On many vacancies a passing threshold on the written test is required before an interview invitation follows; on others it is scored alongside the interview to form a combined result. Either way it is not a warm-up.

It is often marked blind. The UN Secretariat states that grading is anonymous, with the candidate’s identity kept confidential unless the format requires otherwise, as with interviews or presentations.¹ The practical consequence matters: inside a written test a CV does no work at all. Years of experience, the last duty station, the name of a current employer — none of it is in the room. Only the page is. Where the instruction is to omit a name from the script, it should be followed.

For a job seeker, this means the assessment stage deserves its own preparation plan. For a new hire it explains why the process felt so intensive. For mid-career staff seeking a move up it is a reminder that a strong track record does not remove the need to demonstrate current craft. And for HR colleagues, the written exercise is precisely the instrument that surfaces the drafting and analytical ability a CV cannot evidence.

What each organization actually does

“The UN” is not one recruiter. Each organization runs its own process, on its own platform, with its own assessment habits. The patterns below are the ones worth planning around.

The point is not to memorize the table. It is to stop assuming that the process described on one careers page is the process that will appear on another.

The substance varies with the job

Within any of those organizations, what candidates are asked to produce tracks the post. A communications role might require a press release or social copy drafted from a brief. A political or humanitarian affairs role might supply a scenario and ask for a briefing note with recommendations. A programme or monitoring and evaluation role might provide data to interpret and request a short analytical write-up. A technical specialist in law, statistics, medicine or engineering might face domain questions in writing or aloud in the panel. Language posts typically add a proficiency component. Consultancy selections often work differently again, with a technical proposal and a financial proposal scored separately.

What assessors read for is remarkably consistent across all of it: substantive mastery, clear analytical thinking, structured and concise drafting, judgement about what a busy reader needs, and delivery on time. A brilliant half-finished answer usually loses to a solid complete one.

Video interviews: a standard stage rather than a novelty

The asynchronous video interview — answers recorded alone against set questions within a time limit, with no panel on the other end — is no longer experimental. It is named as an assessment method by the UN Secretariat¹ and offered as a phase-one option by UNDP.² It should be expected.

It is a genuinely different skill from a live conversation, and it rewards different preparation:

• Practise on camera against a clock. Recording answers to competency and technical questions in 60 to 120 seconds, then watching them back, is the core drill. Most people are startled by how long they take to reach the point.
• Front-load the answer. There is no interviewer to steer a wandering response back on track, and no follow-up question to rescue a slow start.
• Check the mechanics first. Whether re-recording is permitted, how many attempts are allowed, how much thinking time precedes each question — the rules vary by platform and are usually stated in the invitation.
• Plan for bandwidth. Some platforms offer audio-only fallbacks for low-connectivity locations. In a field duty station that is worth establishing in advance rather than at the deadline.
• Ask about accommodation. Where a timed, recorded format creates a barrier related to a disability, reasonable accommodation can be requested. That request is best made early and in writing with the recruiter.

AI in UN assessment: what is actually happening

Two separate questions get tangled here, and they are worth keeping apart.

Whether the UN uses AI to assess candidates

Not in the way rumour suggests, though the system has been actively scoping it. In a Request for Information on video interviewing and online testing services, the UN’s Human Resources Services Division set out what it was seeking in the market: live and pre-recorded interviewing, grading of interview performance by recruiters and panels with or without advanced technology or artificial intelligence overlays, the option of avatar interviewers or written questions in place of a live interviewer, and UN-specific interview question banks.⁷

That document repays careful reading. It is market exploration rather than deployed policy — a Request for Information indicates what an organization is investigating, not what it has bought. What is confirmed in use today across the system is asynchronous video, structured written tests, psychometrics and human-scored panels. What the document indicates is the direction of travel: more structure, more standardization, more technology in the screening layer.

There is also a reason for institutional caution. UN organizations are not bound by national AI-hiring law in the way ordinary employers are, but they buy from the same vendor market that such law is reshaping. The EU AI Act classifies recruitment tools as high-risk, with obligations phasing in through 2026 and 2027, and Ontario now requires job postings to disclose whether AI is used to screen or select applicants. The underlying expectations — transparency to candidates, human oversight of decisions, accountability for biased outcomes — are precisely the standards a public international organization would wish to be seen meeting. Adoption is therefore likely to be slow, visible, and with a human holding the pen on the decision.

Whether candidates may use AI on a written test

The safe assumption is no, unless explicitly told otherwise.

Written test invitations across the system routinely restrict outside assistance: no internet, no external sources, and unattributed or plagiarized material treated as grounds for disqualification. A generative AI tool falls squarely inside that restriction unless the instructions say otherwise. Where the instructions are silent, asking the recruiter in writing before starting costs nothing, and a disqualification costs everything.

Two further reasons for restraint go beyond the rule itself. The incentive to break it is rising, and so is the response: research published in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment in 2026 found self-reported use of generative AI in pre-hire assessments was higher in 2025 than in 2024, and that a simple consequences-based warning measurably reduced it.⁸ Employers are watching this closely.

More practically, the panel is the detector. A written test that reads nothing like the person who appears at interview three days later is the fastest available route to losing a job that was otherwise winnable. The written test and the panel operate as cross-checks on each other, whether or not that is ever stated.

Where AI is legitimately useful is upstream, in preparation: generating practice prompts, critiquing a briefing note already drafted, quizzing on a mandate, keeping time. It builds the muscle rather than faking it.

How to prepare, practically

The encouraging part, and the myth this article most wants to dispel, is that the technical test is preparable.

Start with the vacancy notice. The technical requirements and duties repay line-by-line rereading, because the exercise is almost always built from them. Where a post calls for drafting reports for senior management or analysing programme data, that is very likely to be the task.

Study the organization’s mandate and recent work — the country programme, the latest report, the current strategic priorities. Assessors value answers situated in the organization’s actual context rather than generic policy prose. Given anonymous marking, this is one of the few channels through which judgement can show.

Practise timed drafting. A clock, and a one-page briefing note, set of talking points or short analytical piece on a topic in the relevant field. More than once. The skill under test is not perfect prose but clear, structured, on-time thinking, and it improves quickly with repetition.

Rehearse the technical panel separately. A CBI question calls for a real past example. A technical question calls for current reasoning: how the problem would be approached, what trade-offs are visible, what would be checked before committing.

Refresh the tools the role assumes. Where a vacancy leans on data work — a monitoring and evaluation, programme or analysis post, in which a timed exercise may supply a dataset and an hour — and spreadsheet skills have gone rusty, a focused refresher such as IBM’s Analyzing Data with Excel course on edX* rebuilds confidence before the pivot table appears under a clock.

Prepare the logistics. Whether the test is remote or on-site, timed or open, which tools are permitted, and whether an interview may follow the same day. Where the invitation does not say, the recruiter can confirm.

Common mistakes & FAQ

Assuming there is only a competency interview. Many UN roles add a written or technical test, and it can be the gate that must be cleared before the interview happens at all. The format is worth asking about where it is not stated.

Believing a technical test cannot be prepared for. It can, and it should be. Timed drafting practice, mandate study and rehearsal of the specific tasks the vacancy implies are the levers within a candidate’s control.

Treating it as a test of perfect writing. It is a test of clear, structured, on-time thinking. Assessors reward a well-organized, complete, decision-useful answer over polished paragraphs that run out of time or bury the point.

Assuming only the interview counts. The written test is often scored alongside the interview and is sometimes eliminatory on its own, which makes it a full component of the evaluation.

Using a generative AI tool on the written test. The safe assumption is that it is prohibited unless the instructions explicitly permit it. Unauthorized external assistance and unattributed material are standard grounds for disqualification, and where instructions are silent the recruiter should be asked in writing.

Expecting an AI to score the interview. There is no evidence that AI-scored interviews are the norm in UN recruitment today. The UN has explored the market for AI-supported and avatar-based interviewing,⁷ and asynchronous video screening is already standard, but assessment decisions rest with human panels.

Facing a format that presents a barrier. Reasonable accommodation can be requested, and the request is best raised with the recruiter as early as possible, in writing.

Wondering whether passing leads to a roster. Frequently it does. Many UN organizations maintain rosters of assessed candidates, which means a strong test performance can pay out on a vacancy that has not yet been advertised. That materially changes the return on preparing properly, as the guide to rosters and talent pools sets out.

Key takeaways

• Many UN roles include a written or technical assessment separate from the competency interview, and both need planning for.
• The CBI probes past behaviour; the technical test probes what can be produced now, usually under time pressure.
• The assessment stage is broader than a written test: it can include psychometrics, situational judgement, work samples, language exams, pre-recorded video and, at Resident Coordinator level, a multi-day assessment centre.
• Each organization runs its own process. The Secretariat, UNDP, UNICEF, WFP and UNHCR do not assess alike.
• Written tests are often blind-marked and can be eliminatory: a CV does not sit in the room alongside the script.
• Asynchronous video interviews are now a standard screening stage and reward practice on camera against a clock.
• Generative AI should be assumed prohibited in a written test unless explicitly permitted, and the recruiter asked where instructions are silent. It belongs in preparation, not in the answer.
• Preparation means rereading the vacancy’s technical requirements, studying the mandate, and practising timed drafting more than once.

* Affiliate disclosure: UNjobnet may earn a small commission on purchases made through this link, at no additional cost to the reader.

Related reading

• Mastering the competency-based interview for UN jobs
• Common UN interview questions and how to answer them
• The real UN application timeline: from vacancy to offer
• How to find the right UN job for a given skill set and level of experience
• The UN Young Professionals Programme (YPP): a complete guide

The written test is the part of UN recruitment candidates most often overlook, and the part most within their control. A career history cannot be rewritten the night before a panel, but five practice briefing notes, three recorded video answers and a reread mandate are all achievable. With that behind it, the timed exercise stops being an ambush and becomes the place where competence shows most plainly. Current UN and international vacancies on UNjobnet →

Sources

1. United Nations, “Assessment”, UN Careers Portal — describes assessment methods including UNOETS written tests, asynchronous video interviews, work samples and assessment centres, covering cognitive ability, situational judgement, personality, integrity, technical knowledge, drafting and language, and confirms anonymous grading. careers.un.org. ↩
2. UNDP, “Our recruitment process” — the two-phase assessment, including pre-recorded video interview and/or written test in phase one. undp.org. ↩
3. UNICEF, “Get prepared: assessment” — assessment types including verbal, numerical and logical assessments and online psychometric testing. unicef.org. ↩
4. WFP, careers information on the Future International Talent (FIT) Pool — technical tests, UN language test and panel interview. wfp.org. ↩
5. UNHCR, “Career resources” — includes recruiter-led webinars on how written technical assessments are used in recruitment. unhcr.org. ↩
6. UN Sustainable Development Group, “The Resident Coordinator Assessment Centre” — format, RC Leadership Profile competencies and eligibility. unsdg.un.org. ↩
7. United Nations, “Provision of Video Interviewing and Online Testing/Assessment Services for Recruitment”, Request for Information, UN Global Marketplace — UN HRSD’s exploration of live and pre-recorded interviewing, AI overlays on grading, and avatar interviewers. ungm.org. ↩
8. Robie et al., “Candidate Generative AI Use in Pre-Hire Employment Assessments: Self-Reported Incidence and the Impact of Warnings”, International Journal of Selection and Assessment (2026). onlinelibrary.wiley.com. ↩

Last reviewed: August 2026. This guide is general information rather than official HR or recruitment advice — the assessment format for any specific vacancy should be confirmed with the recruiting organization and against the instructions issued. Assessment practices differ by organization and change over time.