What to Expect from the UNA-NCA Young Professionals Career Dinner

By Tselmegtsetseg Tsetsendelger, Director of Communications, UNA-NCA Young Professionals Program

Are you interested in learning more about careers in the international field? How to enter the field, what to look out for, and what to expect? I was in the same position in the fall of 2015 and wanted to expand my understanding of how to initiate a career in international development with a focus on the Sustainable Development Goals. I attended the 2015 Fall UNA-NCA Young Professionals’ Career Dinner reception at the United Nations Foundation and participated in the dinner focusing on Sustainable Development. At my dinner was a USAID representative and a CEO of an implementing partner organization. Not only did I benefit from hearing their stories, I had the opportunity to ask questions about career opportunities and how to make myself standout. The most helpful information I received was participants’ and dinner speakers’ views on where the field was going and what I should expect not just in the next year, but the next 5 and 10 years. Inspired by my experience, I decided to join the UNA-NCA as a volunteer and support the dinners as I continued with my career.

UNA-NCA YP board members continue to hear participants’ anecdotes about the many benefits of the career dinners. These positive outcomes range from establishing lifelong friendships with other attendees to connecting with keynote and dinner speakers for career advice on topics such as passing a Foreign Service Test. Receiving this feedback gives us pride in our program and continues to drive us to reach out to the most relevant speakers in international development and related fields.

The next career dinner will be held on Saturday, April 14th, 2018. It will start with a reception at the United Nations Foundation, with keynote speaker Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini. The reception is a networking opportunity for the participants to meet with those who may not be at their specific dinner. As any networking event, we always recommend that all out participants and speakers bring lots of business cards. Following the reception, the dinner topics will be called out for the participants to either leave the United Nations Foundation to a dinner host’s home or to go into their appropriate dinner topic rooms at the UNF. This year we are excited to have five dinner topics. We always recommend that the participants bring their questions to these dinners as they are the best chance to get any and all of them answered!

We are really excited for this year’s career dinner, if you decide to join us please register here.