From reflection to renewal: A mid-term JPO’s journey through the 2025 Career Booster

In 2025, the United Nations(UN) stands at a critical juncture. The world is navigating a complex web of crises—from climate emergencies and geopolitical tensions to widening inequalities and the lingering aftershocks of global health disruptions. At the same time, there is a renewed call for multilateral cooperation, innovation in peacebuilding and inclusive development that leaves no one behind. 

For the UN system, this means more than responding to challenges—it means reimagining how it works, who it empowers and how it leads. 

For junior professional officers (JPOs), especially those in the middle of their assignments, this moment is both demanding and defining. They are no longer newcomers, yet not quite veterans. They are the bridge between fresh perspective and institutional memory. They are being called upon to lead—not someday, but now. 

This is where Maria* found herself.  

Having spent over a year in her JPO role, she had grown familiar with the rhythms of UN operations. She had contributed to policy briefs, supported field coordination and built relationships across teams. But as the world around her shifted, so did her questions: How can I deepen my impact? What kind of leader does the UN need me to be in this moment? Am I growing in the right direction? How do I navigate the next steps in my UN career?   

What she hadn’t yet found was a sense of belonging and agency—a feeling that she was not just a cog in a global machine, but a valued contributor to a shared mission. 

In a time when international cooperation is more vital than ever, UNSSC’s 2025 JPO Career Booster arrived not as an introduction—but as an inflection point, a strategic pause. It was a space to reflect, reconnect and realign.  

A pause to recalibrate 

The 2025 Career Booster offered Maria a rare opportunity: the chance to step back, reflect, and recalibrate. It wasn’t about learning the basics—she had already lived most of them. It was about connecting the dots between her daily work and the broader purpose that had brought her to the UN in the first place. 

Each session became a space for reflection where she not only revisited the UN’s core values as common ideals, but also aligned them with her own personal beliefs. She revisited the values that had driven her to the UN and examined how those same values were showing up in her daily work. She could feel that the space allowed for curiosity, fostered agency and empowerment, encouraged open-mindedness, and created unexpected learning moments. 

Learning that meets you where you are 

What surprised Maria the most was how much she resonated with the stories of other JPOs, who—being also in their second or third year of assignment—were on the same path as her or who had walked a similar one a long time ago. The latter were not simply experts—they were former JPOs, now seasoned professionals, who shared not just their successes but their stumbles as honest reflections filled with lessons, pivots and moments of doubt. 

They spoke of the same challenges. These weren’t just conversations—they were catalysts. They reminded Maria that growth in the UN is not linear. It’s layered, iterative, often shaped by the unexpected, and not always visible. Sometimes, growth looks like asking better questions. Sometimes, it means knowing when to listen. Sometimes, it means recognizing that leadership starts long before you hold the title. 

The Career Booster challenged Maria to map out her career not as a ladder, but as a landscape—full of lateral moves, learning loops and unexpected turns.   

The real impact unfolded gradually from virtual engagement to in-person learning, where Maria found herself approaching her career with renewed clarity. The Career Booster hadn’t changed her JPO assignment—but it had changed her relationship to it. 

It was a reminder that while each journey is unique, the mission is shared. 

The Career Booster didn’t just offer inspiration—it offered tools. Maria left each training day with practical strategies she could apply immediately. From how to align personal values with professional goals, to how to approach competency-based interviews with more confidence and navigate ambiguity with more agency. From how to shift habits for career advancement, cultivate a growth mindset and agility, improve personal branding and visibility, to ways to leverage JPO assignment, career conversations with the supervisor, and networking to navigate careers in the UN.  

These weren’t just theoretical insights—they were actionable shifts. 

A network that endures 

After one week online, in Turin a shift happened. The Zoom squares that up to that point had felt distant, now felt like a community. JPOs from different agencies, time zones, and backgrounds became sounding boards, collaborators and friends. 

The most lasting impact of the Career Booster was the community it created for Maria. She left the programme with more than new knowledge and skills—she left with a network of peers who understood the nuances of her journey. 

They exchanged experiences, ideas, career strategies, shared resources, and committed to staying connected. In a system as vast and complex as the UN, such moments are rare—and invaluable. 

Final reflections 

In a world that demands both urgency and wisdom, the UN needs professionals who are not only capable, but also conscious—of their values, their impact, and their potential to lead. 

Because sometimes, the most powerful boost isn’t the one that launches you forward. It’s the one that helps you look inward, recalibrate your compass and continue your journey with purpose.  

The Career Booster is helping shape exactly that kind of leadership. For JPOs, it offers not just a head start—but a head-and-heart start—to a meaningful and impactful career in the UN. 

*Maria is a fictional learner persona based on the analysis of past participants' pool and developed following consultations with the UN DESA