Impactpool (UNjobfinder): Welcome to the UNjobfinder career podcast and today I’m honored to introduce our guest, Julia Watt. Julia, welcome to the UNjobfinder career podcast.
Julia Watt: Thank you, Magnus.
UNjobfinder: Great. Julia and I, we got to know each other over ten years ago I think it was, when we both were working at UNHCR at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Geneva. And Julia has been working for many different UN organizations for a long time. If I’m not mistaken, you started with UNDP as a JPO, a Junior Professional Officer. You moved on to UNOPS and then you were with UNHCR for many years, working both in West Africa, in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire and then in east Africa, in Ethiopia.
Julia Watt: That’s right.
UNjobfinder: And now you’re the Chief of Human Resources at the International Telecommunication Union, ITU, one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations.
Julia Watt: That’s correct also.
UNjobfinder: Great. So that was a very short description of your career, but please introduce yourself.
Julia Watt: Well, actually it was a good description. Indeed, I’ve been with the UN system for 25 years. It will be 25 years this coming August. And it’s been quite an incredible journey. And before the UN, I guess if anybody’s interested, I was in Canada and I studied in Toronto. My family lives in Calgary, so western Canada. And nothing particularly extraordinary there. Quite a normal track I would say.
UNjobfinder: Yeah. What did you study?
Julia Watt: I studied political science and environment studies and French.
UNjobfinder: Okay, okay.
Julia Watt: And in the political science field I focused on African studies and development.
UNjobfinder: All right. Maybe that’s when the interest for this type of career started.
Julia Watt: Well, I would say it definitely peaked during the course of my studies. I didn’t set out to study development or particularly go overseas or have any particular interest in the UN as such. I think it evolved just naturally, I could say. I had the opportunity through networks and various contacts to go on a research seminar to Africa in 1986. And it was love at first sight basically. And then I would say by accident perhaps and a convergence of positive and favorable circumstances, I was able to start working for the UN.
UNjobfinder: Right. Well, tell us more about that. What was that? How did you get into the JPO program?
Julia Watt: It was actually very easy at the time. At least for me. I don’t know if everyone went through the same lucky process, but I had a part-time job during my master’s studies with an NGO in Toronto called the Foundation for International Training and the director of that NGO went to New York to pitch the program to the UN, to UNDP specifically, because he was doing some trainings at the time on sustainable development on human resources and various other issues. And he had a contact in the UN, I believe in the training department. So I went with him and we did the mission and we pitched our program. I think it was a three-day trip to New York altogether. And, as I was walking the halls of UNDP, I happened on an office where on the door there was a brochure about the JPO program. So I literally knocked on the door and found the person in the office who was the responsible officer for the JPO program who interviewed me right there and then and the rest was history basically.
UNjobfinder: Okay.
Julia Watt: I was still in the midst of my master’s program. It was February if I recall and I didn’t start until August, so UNDP really made all the contacts with the Canadian government, presented my CV for the sponsorship which happened without any further intervention or contact from me. So it was quite a smooth process I would say. I’m not sure that it actually happens that way nowadays.
UNjobfinder: No.
Julia Watt: That JPO programs are a little bit more competitive than they were in 1990.
UNjobfinder: Right, yeah. I guess now JPO programs - I’m also a former JPO from Sweden. When I was accepted, it was quite a competitive process. Maybe could you tell us because some of those who are listening don’t know what a JPO is. Could you say a few words about that?
Julia Watt: I’m not sure what a JPO is now anymore. I think a JPO now is probably very different to what a JPO was in 1990. But I was recruited as a program officer to UNDP, posted in Dakar, Senegal. And I arrived; I was briefed by the assistant representative for programs who was also new, just arrived. I was given a package of projects to monitor. That was sort of the traditional or maybe not traditional but this was the package that JPOs passed on one to each other in that particular UNDP office. So I had four or five projects and that was it. I was given the contacts, I was put on the list of correspondents, there was no e-mail at the time, it was all done through the old archaic methods. And I started going to meetings and workshops and plugged myself into the network like that. And spoke with my predecessors, spoke with people in New York, all the people that I could get my hands on really to guide me as to what it was that was expected of me. And it was really what a program officer today would do.
UNjobfinder: I think you’re mentioning a couple of things that I think are really important to sort of getting into any job in any international organization is that you need to make sure that you understand how things work. Nothing will be served to you.
Julia Watt: Absolutely.
UNjobfinder: You really need to find those networks that can support you, that can guide you, but also make sure that you take actions yourself.
Julia Watt: Exactly.
UNjobfinder: Just maybe a short note on that. I think the JPO program is you are employed by a UN organization but you’re financed by normally a country donor.
Julia Watt: That’s right. Normally by your own government. And there are some governments that also finance JPOs from other countries. I think the Dutch finance as well as the Spanish finance some JPOs from developing countries specifically.
UNjobfinder: Great. Thank you for that Julia. I’m sure you have tons of stories that we can talk about for hours, but it would be nice to hear if you could give us an example or an experience that you’ve had that you are really proud of or that was rewarding for you in your career.
Julia Watt: There were so many. As you say, it’s very hard to pinpoint one and I really thought about this a little bit in advance to try and give you something interesting and relevant. I would say that one of, and I won’t call it the proudest moment, but it’s definitely one of the ones that marked me quite significantly, was when I was in Ethiopia with UNHCR. And I was posted as education officer but I also had responsibilities in the community services field. And, one day, a young Somali woman showed up at my office and she said that she would like to talk to me. So I asked her to sit down. She introduced herself and said that she was coming from Holland where she had been a refugee for I think two or three years if I’m not mistaken or a little longer even. And she was coming back to Ethiopia because she was looking for her children. She had two children with whom she fled Somalia, Mogadishu specifically. And on her way to wherever she was going at the time, I can’t recall if it was Addis that she ended up in or some other city in Ethiopia prior to traveling to Holland. She was obliged to leave her children with some distant relative in some village and had lost trace of them basically. And they were quite young. They were under the age of five at the time. There was a boy and a girl. So I thought wow that must be quite incredible. And her story, I’ll spare you all the details, but her story was quite moving - the flight, the issues of how they left Mogadishu etc. - and she was also strikingly beautiful. So for me it was, and I had two young children under the age of five at the time, and I thought oh my God, it’s inconceivable how much anguish and suffering people go through in this world. And this is just one example and probably not the worst example of what people see. But I thought okay let’s see what we can do. So, again, plugging in to the various networks in Ethiopia, and by her various descriptions of the places where she had been, we managed over the space of about I would say five months to actually trace the village of where this distant relative was. And long and short of it was miraculously she was reunited with her children. And we were able to then manage for these children who were close to being teenagers at the time already to accompany her back to Holland. And I still get a knot in my throat when I think about this story. It was very rewarding. I can’t say proud moment because I was sad for her, I was sad for the state of the world where such things are allowed to happen. But it was great that it had a happy ending. Because many stories like that don’t have happy endings.
UNjobfinder: No, you’re right. I can hear that you’re still moved by that story and I can fully understand it especially since I also have children. I think it’s always easy to relate to stories or lives like that when you also have your own kids. For you especially, it must be energizing also to be able to think back about all those things that have happened in your career that actually make it worth working in this field.
Julia Watt: Exactly. I don’t think that if I didn’t have those memories and stories and achievements, I don’t think I’d still be as motivated and as happy to get up in the morning and come to work.
UNjobfinder: Yeah. How do you sort of remain professional? I guess you can also drown in all these people that you meet that have faced all these horrible…?
Julia Watt: Yes. In fact, I have thought about this quite a number of times because I don’t know if it’s a good quality or a bad quality, but I have managed to really stay sufficiently detached to preserve my sanity. And while I do care and I do feel for the people and I’m very committed to what I do when I’m in the moment, I am able to step back and look at my life and feel that I’m not necessarily responsible for all the ills on Earth and I can’t necessarily change all of that. I can do my part and change the little bit that I can change. And that keeps me focused.
UNjobfinder: Yeah. I think that’s a great strategy and always important to keep in mind. Great. Thank you, Julia. Going from that, from something that has been rewarding for you, could you share something that has been maybe a struggle or a challenge for you, that kept you awake at night? I’m sure there’s plenty of those stories as well.
Julia Watt: There’s plenty of those stories as well indeed. Let me narrow it down to one, general one. I would say that, and this is faced by not just the UN, not just NGOs, but I think the private sector as well faces this in large organizations, but the power of bureaucracy and by power I mean the sort of intangible difficulties that are raised by administrative processes that we in fact have created and are responsible for, but yet have gotten away from us somehow and have taken on a life of their own. And it’s not entirely clear in every situation what or who serves what or who. Does the administrative process serve the organization and enables us to fulfill our mandates or do we serve the administrative process? And that at times has been extremely challenging. The balance of finding the point, the sweet spot of how to manage the needs of the organization, the administration, the staff and the clients is an extremely challenging every day task. And that is something that I don’t think people are necessarily as well prepared for as they should be.
UNjobfinder: No. You’re right. And I think that lots of people who have been working in huge organizations like you say, doesn’t have to be the UN or NGOs, I think many large organizations are facing these problems or challenges. But, as you say, I think it’s also, we’re talking about organizations that have thousands of staff in hundreds of countries with multinational staff. In some ways of course, some administrations are, that’s also needed but it’s again as you say finding the right balance.
Julia Watt: Yes.
UNjobfinder: So that maybe leads us into my next question about whether there was something that you didn’t expect before joining the UN, that you were sort of surprised when you started working for the UN.
Julia Watt: Yes, I was. I was surprised at just how ordinary and normal it was as compared to the rest of organizations in the world. I really thought I had these phenomenal naive ideas, I suppose, of the UN being something like the beacon of this and that – human rights, development, etc. – all of the things that all of the different agencies stand for as well as a secretariat, peace keeping etc. But in the end I think, we as UN staff are just as human and just as fallible as anyone else. And we do our best for the most part. I think people are extremely dedicated and, again, I’m talking about the majority. There’s always that one little minority percentage that casts a negative shadow on everything else. But as a group, I think we are extremely dedicated. But yes, that bureaucratic inertia and sometimes the personal interests overtaking the real purpose of why we’re all where we are did surprise me a little bit. And I think that I would be lying if I said that I didn’t come out of it somewhat jaded.
UNjobfinder: I see your point. Great. I’m curious to hear. You have been working both in Africa in smaller offices but also in the headquarters in Geneva and now also for ITU. What would you say are the main differences in working in a smaller country office and headquarters?
Julia Watt: Well of course the obvious one is that you’re very close to the point of delivery. You’re able to see the impact of what you’re doing much quicker and in real time and with all the colors and everything that goes along with being close to the clients. So that definitely is one big difference. The other ones I would say are from the lifestyle and the cultures that you are implanting yourself in, which of course are different to what you are used to, where you are coming from. That is true to some extent to headquarters, duty stations as well, because we’re not from Switzerland or we’re not from New York necessarily or Vienna or Nairobi or wherever headquarters duty stations are. So we are different. We’re guests. And it’s enriching to some extent. To a large extent, it’s very enriching. I found my field assignments particularly satisfying. I enjoyed the overall slower pace of life in the field, the contact with people, the relationships that you build with colleagues and within the various networks that you’re evolving in, much closer I think than just being in a 9 to 5 environment in a headquarters duty station although not all headquarters duty stations are 9 to 5 environments and not all organizations are like that. I’m generalizing a little bit.
UNjobfinder: I see what you mean. I think it’s a great point. Would you say that for you, because I think that to simplify you can say that many people in the UN, especially in headquarters duty stations like Geneva, New York, some of the people working there haven’t been working for years of being stationed in the field. But you have. Would you say that that experience for you has made you better in your work?
Julia Watt: For me, absolutely. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, I think it completely enhanced and improved my appreciation and my ability to scope things and to give a better opinion, a better view, a better option to the various problems that I’m responsible for solving.
UNjobfinder: Yeah, great. So you were talking about how you in many occasions but when you joined as JPO but also in that story you told about when you met that woman in Ethiopia. Would you say that you have a personal habit or trait that has been critical for your success in this career?
Julia Watt: Well, I think that we already touched on one and that’s sort of preserving your personal space and understanding where your responsibility ends and where someone else’s responsibility begins and respecting that in order to prevent burn out truly. I think that has been a key strategy for me. The other traits, I think that flexibility - I mean these words are glib but they’re very important - adaptability, enjoyment of the world, curiosity, love of what you do. I think all of these things are extremely important and staying in touch with what you feel is important in your life is critical.
UNjobfinder: I think if I remember you correctly, I think you also have been talking about those challenges about working in administration. I think you also have the will to not always accept rules that are unnecessary or question them to make the organization more efficient.
Julia Watt: Oh, you must. Absolutely. You must do that. And that goes back to what serves what. Do the rules serve us or do we serve the rules? I think if the rules are serving us and if that one point in time a rule doesn’t serve the needs of the organization and its staff anymore, then there’s nothing that prevents us from changing it. It may take time, it may take a lot of effort, it may take a lot of negotiation because we’re not alone. We’re in a system so we must consult. But I think that there’s really nothing that prevents rules from adapting, just like we’re expected to be adaptable and flexible and versatile and agile, so should our rules.
UNjobfinder: Yeah, great. One of the most important lessons that you would like to share with our listeners who want to pursue an international career in this field?
Julia Watt: Perseverance. I think that should be really the key. I think in today’s world it’s probably much harder and young people will get many rejection letters when they apply for posts or rejection e-mails or no answer at all. I think that perseverance and tough skin right from the start are extremely important. They will have to take some hard knocks, but if they really are committed and if that’s what they really want to do, there’s always a way. I think that there’s so much opportunity out there. I think you can see through the site that you’re started. There’s so much going on. There’s so many ways to help to get in to start something, to participate, that I think anyone who is committed and really wants to do it, can. So I think perseverance is extremely important and being able to take a little bit of rejection or a lot of rejection unfortunately.
UNjobfinder: I fully agree and I think that’s great advice. I think that’s really needed, but what would you say are the most, if any, sort of skills that are maybe more important for having an international career?
Julia Watt: Good writing ability. I always say that touch typing was probably the best course that I have ever taken that has helped me the most in my career because it enabled me to be independent in typing my reports, in typing everything that I needed to present in a really quick way, and not to rely on anyone to take dictation or to do my memos or letters or reports or mission reports, proposals. I think that has been extremely handy, so I encourage everyone to know how to touch type quickly and accurately and with the advent of computers I think it’s even better now. Certainly, languages helps. The more, the merrier. Certainly, the UN languages obviously for the UN, but I think also some local languages will always be handy, something that sets you apart from the masses. Because if you look at university graduates now, they’re extremely well-skilled in the technical subjects that they were studying. They’re overachievers in many ways. Many of us in the UN nowadays, when we get together and talk about recruitment and talent management and outreach, we joke, but it’s not really a joke, it’s kind of true. That many of us if we were applying today probably would not be selected because today we’re not that special. Maybe 25 years ago there was something in us that set us apart from the crowd. But today, not so much. And I think that that’s what people should look for – something that sets the person apart, something that makes them different, special, unusual. That’s what I look for.
UNjobfinder: That’s what you look for. Great. I would like to talk also a bit about ITU. I think ITU is well-known for those who are really into telecommunications and probably IT, but maybe not as known to others. Could you tell us a little bit more about what ITU are working with?
Julia Watt: There’s a lot of different areas. The three main pillars I would say are radio, communications, including frequency assignment. You can’t get a frequency without passing through something related to the ITU and that’s important as you can imagine to all field operations as well of the UN, of the world at large. There’s the standardization bureau which explores the telecommunication standards that everyone then uses. There’s many study groups that do extremely interesting things on these standards in telecommunications, in phones, mobile technology, cyber security, all of these things that we hear about in the news really were there. We’re not necessarily the ones on the front line, but we’re definitely there. And communication, of course in today’s world, communication is something that is key to everything. And then the third pillar is the telecommunication development sector which perhaps would be the easiest one for your leaders and listeners to relate to, which is the development sector, meaning development projects in countries worldwide, not just developing countries, everywhere that enhanced the country’s telecommunication capacity, whether it be in the human capacity or the technical capacity. So these are projects like a health project, like a water project, this would be a telecommunication project. So there’s that aspect as well. And then there’s the general secretariat which provides common services – conferences, HR, finance, administration, etc. – in many agencies.
UNjobfinder: I think one way of maybe understanding easily what ITU are doing is as you put it yourself – connecting the world.
Julia Watt: Connecting the world, exactly.
UNjobfinder: Reminds me of the old Nokia commercial with “connecting people”, but you’re actually connecting the world.
Julia Watt: Countries, organizations, people, exactly, yes.
UNjobfinder: You talked about what you are looking for when you are recruiting. When you are now recruiting to ITU, are there any specific areas that you are recruiting for if you look at skillsets or areas?
Julia Watt: Well, there’s always the technical side of things like the radio engineers, the IT specialists, the cyber security specialists, etc. It’s quite varied. We don’t have generalist posts as much as other agencies would, except perhaps in administration and finance. So each position is quite unique. It’s not a huge agency. We have about 750 staff. So each position is quite specific. I would say that there’s not one particular skillset that I can narrow down, but definitely engineers, IT specialists, communications specialists, media specialists, all that.
UNjobfinder: And that is also an area which is as many others but quite competitive in finding the top talents.
Julia Watt: It’s quite competitive, but so far we’ve not had any trouble whatsoever obtaining extremely interesting applicants for our positions. There was one position that I remember a few years ago. It was a P2 post I think in our legal department that harvested over 1,400 applicants.
UNjobfinder: Well that’s great. And why should people come and work for ITU?
Julia Watt: Well if they’re interested in connecting the world, this is the place to be.
UNjobfinder: All right.
Julia Watt: This is it.
UNjobfinder: That’s it. Great. So thank you so much. Before we end Julia, do you have any final tips that you would like to share with our listeners? Any advice or do’s and don’ts for those who want to pursue an international career?
Julia Watt: Be open to opportunity. Opportunity is not always straight ahead of you. It could be to the left, it could be to the right, it could be behind you. So look left, look right and be ready to seize whenever that comes up. Don’ts – I don’t know, it’s very hard to say don’t do this and don’t do that. There are certain things that are fairly obvious. I think I’d rather focus on the dos. Do be open to opportunity I think that is key. I would not have thought that I would find myself at ITU if you talked to me ten years ago, but the opportunity came up, knocked on my door and it’s been a great experience for the last years.
UNjobfinder: Right. Great. And be mobile I guess also. Be prepared to move around.
Julia Watt: Yes. Interagency mobility, field headquarters mobility. I think it’s difficult to organize sometimes with families and spouses and dual careers. That’s a whole other topic I think that you should probably do a separate other podcast on.
UNjobfinder: Great idea.
Julia Watt: But all of that is something that is manageable if you keep your eye on what you really want to do.
UNjobfinder: Excellent. One final question. Do you have any advice on who we should interview on this podcast who also had a remarkable career like you?
Julia Watt: Really off the top of my head, no. But I think that if you look through your network, which I’m sure you’ve maintained because you know that that’s really important, you will find many people who are far more remarkable than I am. I don’t consider myself in that super remarkable camp, but lots of UNHCR colleagues and other UN colleagues have done remarkable things and can tell you many interesting stories about their careers. If you’re focusing on HR managers, then you probably have the list of just about all of the HR managers in the UN system today and I think they’re interesting people.
UNjobfinder: Indeed. Yes, we’ll have a series of HR people, but we’re also looking forward to interviewing those who have been working more on the operational side also, which I think will be very interesting.
Julia Watt: Well, there you have a great pool in UNHCR which I’m sure you’ve kept in touch with. Very operational, very hands on.
UNjobfinder: Great. Thank you so much Julia. It’s been really great to talk to you and thank you for sharing so much of your experience and your advice to our listeners. I think we are much more equipped now to jump into this career.
Julia Watt: Thank you very much for thinking of me Magnus and it really is a pleasure. I think that we have to pay it forward. Our young people deserve to be mentored and helped and I think it’s our duty. We’ve been helped and I think now it’s our turn to try and guide others.
UNjobfinder: Excellent. Thanks Julia.