Hello, and welcome to this 26th episode of the Happy UN Career podcast which is all about the power of prioritization – and what happens when you fail to honour the prioritisations you’ve made. Or even to take the time to do the prioritisation in the first place.Many of my clients contact me because they’re not progressing in their career and their professional development as they would like to. Maybe you recognize this? The days race by and suddenly there went another week, another mont...

Are you a bit of a time optimist? Do you often take on a new task thinking: “Oh - I can easily squeeze this in between the next two meetings”? Only to find that you needed the time between meetings to go to the bathroom, find your papers, respond to an urgent email and a question from a colleague...And at the end of the day, you’re feeling deflated and behind in your work – even if you’ve been crazy busy all day? If you recognize this kind of scenario - then today’s episode is ...

I’m excited to share an interview with my friend and former colleague in the UNDP – and someone I consider a mentor - Ms Christine Heyting.Christine is Australian and we met in 2013 when she worked with UNDP Headquarters in the area of performance management and leadership development. Since then, she’s been a regular contractor for various UN agencies doing missions on four continents. Before that, she was an HR Director in the private sector for about 15 years. I asked Christine t...

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/23 where you’ll also find the 3 keys to take control of your own reality.This episode is about a topic that is on the one hand very basic – but on the hand quite essential for how you can effectively - and successfully - deal with your career. And your life! Simply put, it's about working with the reality you’re in! Or dealing with the hand you’ve been dealt, you could say. I’ve noticed how we spend a fair bit of time and energy wishin...

Hello, and welcome to this 4th episode in a small series I’ve called: “Plan and Succeed”. Previously in this series, I’ve talked about effective planning principles, goalsetting and the underrated importance of having an overview. All of these things are of course interlinked and influence each other, but in this small series, I’m trying to take them apart a bit so that you can apply them more easily in your own work and life. Find the FULL show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/22 ...

I’m thrilled to be able to share in this episode an interview with my good friend, Dr. Akjemal Magtymova. Akjemal is a national of Turkmenistan where she started her UN career in 1998 as a G5 programme assistant with UNFPA. Today (in 2021) she serves with WHO as a D2, Head of Mission and Representative in Syria. I asked Akjemal to come on the podcast because she’s had – and has - a very interesting career and I’m fascinated by her approach to work and life and how she, together with...

Is it time to get going?Hello, and welcome to this short episode which is about a mindset issue that many of us struggle with: When is it time to take the next step? Or to use my favourite car analogy: When is it time to go from “being parked” to “start driving”?Do you want something else?For this episode, I was inspired by a conversation with a new client the other day where she shared with me how for several years she had been feeling, well... - not really happy in her job. She ha...

Hello, and welcome to this 3rd episode in a small series I’ve called: “Plan and Succeed”.Have you ever had that feeling at the end of the workday that you couldn’t really tell what you’d been doing all day? Back in the days, I distinctively remember evenings where my husband asked how my day had been, and I responded something like “umm, ok, I guess?”. All the while I was frantically searching my brain to find out what I actually had done that day. Sure, I’d been crazy busy attendin...

Hello, and welcome to this 2nd episode in a series I’ve called: “Plan & Succeed”. In the previous episode, I argued that good planning and organizational skills will help you both in your daily work – and in your career. (That’s the episode called “Can Planning Help Boost Your UN Career?” which you can find at www.barbarakandersen.com/17). Planning, structure and prioritisation will of course help you be more effective with your day-to-day tasks and projects. Which will ma...

Welcome to this 1st episode in a new series called: “Plan and Succeed”.In the last few episodes, I’ve talked about some of the big issues around career and work life. Your visions. Your dreams. And your values. So, basically all about what fulfils you in your work and life.However, a very important element in succeeding with all of this is your ability to make your visions and dreams tangible. And take action on them. So, in this new series I’ll share some very simple, but very effective...

Welcome to this 5th episode in a small series I’ve called: “Professional Development - Job Hunting and Your CV”.In the previous episode, I talked about how to use all the work you have to do anyway for your annual performance review to fuel your own work on your career development. You can find that episode at www.barbarakandersen.com/15.In today’s episode, I want you to take a longer view of your career. You could say that we’re going to have a look into the crystal ball! Because I want to i...

Welcome to today’s episode which is related to something many of us dread - the annual performance review process! Oh, the hours I spent on this in my UN career. And, to be frank, not always convinced that the value of the process compared to the time I and everybody else invested in it. So, although I very much agreed with the theory of the performance review (I was working in Human Resources after all!) – I must say that I didn’t personally look forward to the process. Having to evalua...

Hello, and welcome to this 14th episode in the Happy UN Career Podcast - about 3 reasons why you want to set goals for the next year (and the 8 steps you need)!So, today’s episode is about looking forward in the next year – even if that seems difficult in the midst of the pandemic. But most of us are geared in such a way that we function best with something to look forward to.And if the outside world is not providing that – you should look to create it yourself.I believe that if we want chang...

Hello, and welcome to today’s episode which is about using the end of the year to take stock and celebrate everything you did and all that you accomplished in 2020. Remember the Career Car analogy that I talked about in Episode 3? Well, imagine that you’ve been driving for a while now. The traffic has been dense, and you’ve often had to find new routes – trying to get around big holes in the road or avoiding an accident you could see further up the road. But you’ve still been d...

Welcome to this 12th episode of the Happy UN Career Podcast!I’m so pleased to see that the podcast has been well received by you who are listening to this. Because without you – there really wouldn’t be much point in doing this.It’s very interesting to see the metrics for the different episodes and I can see already that some episodes are particularly popular. One of them is episode 10, the one I called “Take a Chance” where I interviewed my former colleague from UNDP, Mike Dodd, about how he...

Hello, and welcome to this 3rd episode in a small series I’ve called: “Professional Development - Job Hunting and CVs”.In the previous episode in this series (the episode called “Why You Always Want to Have an Updated CV!”) I talked about 5 problems you solve by always having a good, updated CV. You can find that episode at www.barbarakandersen.com/9.As I also promised in that episode, I’m back today to talk about some important guiding principles for writing a CV you’ll feel proud of – and t...

I’m thrilled to be able to share an interview with my good friend and former colleague, Mike Dodd. Mike is from the UK and he started with UNDP in 1991 and retired at the end of 2015. I asked Mike to come on the podcast because I think he’s had a very interesting career path, but maybe more importantly – because of the way he has approached work and career and the way he’s taken decisions in his own career over the years. Mike began as a UN Volunteer in Zimbabwe, moved to supp...

Hello, and welcome to this 2nd episode in a small series I’ve called: “Professional Development - Job Hunting and CVs”.In the previous episode (the one I called “Keep Your UN Career Open - Look for Jobs”) I talked about the importance of staying open to new opportunities. Regularly looking at vacancies and applying. You can find that episode at www.barbarakandersen.com/8.In that last episode, I also promised that I would share some guiding principles on CV writing, but while preparing for tha...

Hello, and welcome to this 1st episode in a small series I’ve called: “Professional Development - Job Hunting and CVs”!In the last episode, I suggested that you should prioritise time to work on your CV and keep yourself updated about vacancies. Even if you’re perfectly happy in your current job! So, in this and the next episode, I’ll delve into the CV and job-hunting sphere. When I speak to my clients, they often tell me that they think they ought to look for another job. But ...

Hello, and welcome to this episode which is all about taking action!In all the episodes until now, I’ve offered you ways to reflect on what works and what doesn’t work in your career and work life. And then I’ve suggested that you look for and decide on action points. Big or small. So today, I’ll share some tips that will help you do exactly that: take action. Because it might seem like there’s so much you could do or should do? But how do you prioritise? How do you find t...