NGO and UN interviews are competency-based. The vacancy notice lists competencies such as “community engagement” or “working in insecure environments”, and each panel question tests one of them. Three to five people score every answer from 1 to 5: the hiring manager, a technical lead such as M&E or WASH, an HR officer, sometimes a colleague from Nairobi on Zoom. Most questions start with “Tell us about a time when…”, and the expected shape is STAR: situation, task, action, result, with numbers.
- Humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, and “do no harm”. Not the definitions alone; one moment when you served people by need and not by clan, and what it cost you.
- Safeguarding, PSEA and the code of conduct: zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse of the people we serve; you report, you never investigate or negotiate; you will sign the code before your first day.
- Donor language: log frame, outputs and outcomes, indicators and targets, baseline, beneficiaries or “people we serve”, accountability to affected populations, complaints and feedback mechanism, value for money. Use the advert's own terms.
- Field realities: travel to districts on bad roads, movement restrictions and security briefings, pressure from elders and clan to change a list, working through district authorities. They want to hear you have done it, or know exactly what it involves.
- Systems and honesty: data you collected, reports you wrote, budgets you tracked, and a clear “I have not done that yet” where it is true.
The process almost always includes a timed written test before the panel: 60 to 90 minutes, in English. Typical tasks: read a short case and propose a response, turn a table of data into a one-page report, spot the errors in a budget, or draft three indicators. Only the top scorers go on to the panel, often the same day. Some agencies add a group exercise where five candidates plan a distribution while HR watches who listens, who organises and who dominates. Ask HR which parts you will face and practise writing one page in 30 minutes.