Pros
- Good environment for young professionals as you can get a lot of responsibility particularly in field offices, and there are a lot of job openings for juniors, while not necessarily with the best of contracts. - Dynamic organisation - not the most typical slow, bureaucratic UN agency. - Good opportunities to get field exposure as the organisation has extensive field presence and deep field duty station experience is appreciated. - Recently the organisation is investing heavily in improving its management and HR systems which bodes well for working conditions and supervision structures.
Cons
- Traditionally WFP has not been very good at supporting employee learning and professional development. - Limited opportunities to work in specialist roles or specialise in any technical or subject matter field, as the organisation openly promotes and expects functional rotation from e.g. programme to logistics and from emergency to non-emergency operations. - Demanding rotation system for permanent staff - you are expected to move from one duty station to another every 2-5 years, and may not have a say in where you (even family vs. non-family duty station choice). The system has also not been transparent enough which has sparked discontent. - Unpredictable funding model = unpredictable jobs. WFP has no core funding like other UN agencies, which creates a lot of uncertainty even from one month to another.
