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The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Internship Programme offers an exceptional gateway for undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD students to gain direct exposure to global health diplomacy and technical health frameworks. Whether you are aiming for Headquarters in Geneva or one of the six Regional Offices (such as AFRO, AMRO/PAHO, or EMRO), securing a position requires passing a highly competitive screening infrastructure.
The single biggest point of confusion for applicants is the term “CV.” While you can upload a traditional PDF resume to your application, the primary evaluation document used by WHO selectors is the automated curriculum vitae generated by Stellis, the WHO online corporate recruitment system.
If your Stellis profile fields are incomplete or unoptimized, your attached PDF CV will likely never be opened by a human recruiter. Here is the structural masterclass to formatting your CV data to navigate the WHO screening gates.
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1. The Core Architecture of a WHO Digital CV
When technical units browse the internship pool, the Stellis platform flattens applicant profiles into a standard, structured layout. Your experience must be organized into these explicit data blocks:
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ā THE STELLIS PROFILE STACK ā
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ā 1. Eligibility Screeners ā 2. Education History ā
ā (Age, Member State, etc.) ā (Must match WHED standard)ā
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ā 3. Professional Experience ā 4. Core Competencies ā
ā (Academic projects count) ā (Mapped to WHO Framework) ā
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2. Formatting the Crucial Sections
A. The Education Matrix (The WHED Checkpoint)
WHO enforces a strict law regarding academic institutional validation. They only consider degrees obtained from higher education institutions officially recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED).
- How to format: Spell out your university’s name exactly as it is registered within the Official WHED Registry. Do not use local acronyms or shortened names.
- The Status Field: If you are an undergraduate, you must explicitly prove you have completed at least three years of full-time study before the internship start date. For recent graduates, ensure your graduation date sits strictly within the 18-month cutoff window at the time of your application.
B. Formatting Experience Without Direct Job History
Many applicants struggle to fill the “Work Experience” segment if they have spent their lives inside a classroom. WHO technical reviewers explicitly look for functional skills, meaning you can format major academic research, field surveys, and long-term volunteer initiatives as professional milestones:
1.Deploy the Action-Verb-Impact Model:Checkpoint 1.
Avoid passive descriptions like “Responsible for tracking data.” Instead, write: “Coordinated quantitative field surveys across three urban community health clinics, managing data input for 450+ patient records.”
2.Embed WHO Competency Keywords:Checkpoint 2.
Align your operational descriptions directly with the official WHO Global Competency Model. Weave phrases like “communicating in a credible and effective way,” “fostering integration and teamwork,” or “producing results” directly into your project narratives.
3.Separate Technical vs. Administrative Outputs:Checkpoint 3.
If you worked on a mixed campaign, clearly separate your health technical outputs (e.g., systematic literature reviews, epidemiological data cleaning) from administrative actions (e.g., event scheduling, drafting stakeholder memos).
3. The Technical Profile Checklist
To ensure your digital profile reads cleanly when exported to a technical unit’s screening desk, structure your variables across these strict categories:
| Profile Section | Critical Formatting Standard | Strategic Target |
|---|---|---|
| Language Skills | Select absolute levels carefully (Mother tongue, Fluent, Confident, Basic). | You must show total fluency in at least one official WHO working language required by that office (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, or Spanish). |
| Technical Competencies | Group tools by functional category (e.g., Data Analysis: R, STATA, SPSS; Lab: ELISA, PCR). | Simplifies keyword filtering when a technical unit searches the central pool for a specific skill. |
| Publications & Training | Format using clean APA or Vancouver style. Include full citation lists for any co-authored papers. | Proves academic writing ability, which is highly prized for teams developing policy briefs or technical guidelines. |
4. Crafting the Motivation Statement Block
Instead of a separate cover letter attachment, the Stellis system includes a text field box for your statement of motivation. This text should bridge the gap between your formatted CV fields and the specific technical unit you want to join.
- Avoid Generic Drafts: Never drop a catch-all cover letter template here. Reviewers can spot a recycled essay immediately.
- The Three-Step Formula:
- Define your specific area of interest within global health (e.g., Antimicrobial Resistance, Maternal Health, Health Emergencies Logistics).
- Explicitly map your CVās strongest research asset to the active work of a WHO division.
- Outline how this exact placement directly fits your long-term research or professional goals.
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FAQ’s
Can I update my CV after entering the general application pool?
Yes, you can edit and update your general profile details inside the Stellis system at any time. However, once you submit your profile to a specific, live internship vacancy notice, the data configurations submitted at that exact moment are locked for that specific requisition.
How long do applications stay active in the global pool?
When you submit a generic profile to the global internship vacancy announcement, your dossier remains active and visible to technical units for a period of six months. If you have not been contacted for an interview within six months, you will need to re-apply to the newly launched vacancy loop.
Does WHO provide a stipend for interns?
Yes. As of January 2020, WHO provides a structured financial living allowance to all eligible selected interns. The exact monthly calculation varies significantly depending on your designated duty station (e.g., Geneva Headquarters offers a higher baseline than smaller country offices to offset local cost-of-living differences).
Final Tip From ScholarshipsHive
When describing your language capabilities in the Stellis portal, remember that you may be required to complete a written test or a verbal language exercise during the technical review phase. Be completely honest about your proficiency levels; claiming fluency for a language you can only read basic texts in will quickly backfire during the screening rounds.
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