United NationsCore Competency
Planning and Organizing — UN competency
Setting clear goals consistent with agreed strategies, identifying priorities and adjusting them as required.
What this competency means
Planning and organizing covers translating objectives into activities and timelines, allocating appropriate time and resources, building in contingencies, monitoring progress against plans, and using time efficiently. It is closely linked to how a candidate handles competing demands.
Based on the UN Competency Framework
Behavioural indicators
- Develops clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies
- Identifies priority activities and assignments and adjusts priorities as required
- Allocates appropriate amount of time and resources for completing work
- Foresees risks and allows for contingencies when planning
- Monitors and adjusts plans and actions as necessary and uses time efficiently
Our interpretation for interview preparation
Behaviours that weaken an answer
- Reacts to whatever arrives last rather than to priority
- Plans without contingency and is derailed by predictable risks
- Does not track progress until the deadline
PanelPrep interview guidance
What a strong example might demonstrate
Candidates preparing for competency-based interviews can use this competency to think about a period with genuinely conflicting demands. A strong behavioural example would demonstrate the criteria used to prioritise, how the plan was tracked, and what was adjusted when circumstances changed.
PanelPrep interview guidance
How to prepare for questions on this competency
Panels commonly ask about competing deadlines, a plan that had to be reworked, or managing a workload with shifting priorities.
STAR preparation
- Situation — set the context in two sentences: where, when, who was involved.
- Task — state precisely what you were responsible for, not what the team was responsible for.
- Action — spend most of the answer here, in the first person, showing the indicators above in practice.
- Result — quantify the outcome and add what you learned or changed afterwards.
PanelPrep interview guidance
Common interview question patterns
Illustrative patterns written by PanelPrep to help you practise. They are not published or endorsed by UN.
- Describe a time you had to manage several competing deadlines.
- Tell us about a plan that had to change significantly.
- Give an example of how you prepared for risks in a project.
PanelPrep interview guidance
Common mistakes
- Listing tools instead of decisions
- No explanation of why one task outranked another
- Omitting the outcome against the original deadline
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The competency name, category and behavioural concepts on this page are based on United Nations, "UN Competency Development – A Practical Guide". Summaries, interview guidance, question patterns and preparation advice are original PanelPrep content.
Framework version: UN Competency Development – A Practical Guide. Source date: 2010-01-01. Last verified: 2026-08-09.
PanelPrep is an independent interview-preparation service. It is not an official website of UN and is not endorsed by or affiliated with UN.