UN System Chief Executives Board secretariat careers: contracts and grades

The United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination is the highest-level coordination forum of the UN system. Its members are the executive heads of participating organizations, chaired by the UN Secretary-General. Those executives are not recruited by the CEB secretariat.

Career opportunities concern the small secretariat that supports the Board and its High-level Committees on Programmes and Management. The secretariat is co-located in New York and Geneva and recruits through United Nations Careers.

Employer and contract rules

CEB brings together organizations with different legal and employment systems, but its own secretariat vacancies are United Nations Secretariat posts. They use UN Staff Regulations and Rules. A staff member working on system-wide coordination is not jointly employed by every CEB member organization.

Openings appear in UN Careers under the department or office “Chief Executives Board.” The appointment may be temporary, fixed-term or another type expressly stated in the notice.

Temporary job openings cover time-limited needs and do not carry an expectation of conversion. Fixed-term appointments expire on their stated date unless renewed. Some associate-expert positions may be sponsored by a government under a Junior Professional Officer arrangement; their nationality and funding rules come from the sponsoring programme.

Consultants, if engaged, are non-staff and do not hold the grade of a neighbouring staff post. Secondments or personnel contributed by a member organization remain subject to the written arrangement. A person attending a CEB network meeting on behalf of WHO, FAO or another agency is not thereby CEB secretariat staff.

Grades

The secretariat uses normal UN grades. Professional and higher posts run from P-1 to P-5 and D-1 to D-2. The CEB secretariat page identifies its Director and Secretary of CEB at D-2 and the chief of the Geneva office at D-1. Recent recruitment has included a temporary Associate Programme Management Officer at P-2.

General Service staff use local G grades in New York or Geneva and are locally recruited. Professional posts are internationally recruited. Professional salary combines the common base scale and the post adjustment for the duty station; General Service pay follows the local scale.

Grades describe posts, not participation in high-level work. A P-2 officer may prepare analysis used by senior inter-agency bodies, but that exposure does not change the grade. Titles such as adviser, coordinator and programme officer must be read with the vacancy’s stated level.

Two offices and different portfolios

The CEB structure includes the Board, the High-level Committee on Programmes and the High-level Committee on Management. New York supports the Board and programme-policy coordination. Geneva has a strong focus on management coordination, including human resources, finance and budget, digital technology and administrative networks.

Job families include programme management, sustainable-development policy, inter-agency coordination, research and drafting, system-wide data, statistics, human-resources policy, finance, accounting standards, budget, digital cooperation, meeting support, communications, information technology and administration.

The secretariat is small, so vacancies are relatively rare and individual roles can span several functions. New York posts may involve General Assembly and ECOSOC reporting. Geneva posts often require close work with specialized agencies and UN offices. English is required; French or another UN language may be particularly useful in Geneva.

Applying

Search UN Careers by department rather than waiting for a vacancy list on the CEB website. A current example in the official portal shows the department field and category clearly. Submit the specific application before the deadline; a saved profile is not enough.

Selection can include written exercises, technical assessments, competency-based interviews and references. Strong candidates show that they can reconcile different institutional positions, produce accurate analysis and move a process forward without pretending that coordination gives them authority over member organizations.

Do not confuse the Council of Europe Development Bank, also abbreviated CEB, with the UN System Chief Executives Board. The former is a Paris-based multilateral bank with its own A, L, B and C grades. The latter’s secretariat is a UN office using P, D and G grades.