Did the units contact you before you got official confirmation?

This is the question coming over and over on this forum, so maybe you could give some feedback on that?
Did you lobby?
Did somebody contact you for an interview?
Or did you directly get an offer from the TO without any contacts with the Commission services in advance?
Was it a unit you lobbied with?

As soon as I got the pre-selection e-mail, I immediately lobbied to my favorite units. One of them answered me the same day and scheduled a phone interview for the day after. That was the unit which selected me and to which I was offered a traineeship. Afterwards I still got contacted by 3 more units, which told me I was on their selected list (with 2 I had phone interviews and with the other it was just en e-mail). They were all units I had lobbied to.

So, in my opinion, lobby does indeed work BIG TIME! I had these 4 contacts all from units I had lobbied, which I cannot be sure would have found me in the blue book if I hadn't lobbied.

I also had some replies from units I lobbied to informing they were not going to host any trainees this session. I never got a negative e-mail or someone who was upset from the lobbying. I would say I got a nice reply from 90% of the units I lobbied to, even if it was just to thank me for my interest in their unit.

I have a friend who was selected for an Unit which never got back to her by e-mail nor interviewed her, but she had send them a lobby e-mail as well.

So, for future trainees, I sincerely recommend LOBBYING!

I lobbied - sent plenty of mails. I got two phone calls from units where I lobbied - no final offer.
Then I got one phone call, where I didnt lobby and I got today that beatiful mail I am In. So...

I lobbied for a few units and did not hear anything from them. Then in December I got a call from a Unit at Taxation and Customs and today I received a call from them.

I lobbied a day or two after the preselection e-mail to... 6-7 units altogether I think. I did not get contacted (a few e-mails saying a trainee had been selected and it was not me). However, I am in at DG DEVCO (one of the units I lobbied there) so I guess lobbying helped even though no one from there contacted me, only the TO today.

I immediately started lobbying at the specific HoUs of units I was interested in and matched my education and internship experiences. I was interviewed by another unit, to which I did not lobby. I received a rejection afterwards.
I got flagged by a unit of my preference, where I lobbied. This HoU did not contact me, no interview, no e-mail. I found out by calling HR that I was flagged by that unit.
So lobbying in my experience definitely helps..!

Missy_S: this was also my experience. From what I found out at the Commission, many units had the experience of choosing their stagiaires from the Blue Book and then it turned out the candidate was no longer interested after the official offer was sent from the TO. Such a unit was in a lot of trouble as they quickly had to find a replacement, and the best candidates were already taken. Therefore they started calling people in advance just to check availability. If you lobby it means you're interested and available, therefore they sometimes just take you without confirming - this was at least my case. I was only accepted because I lobbied, but the unit never contacted me before the official offer.

I lobbied to 4 HoUs, got one automatic response, one "we are not taking trainees" and one "we'll consider you" email. Then 1 phone call (without previous notice) from a HoU that I did not lobbied to and today I received the good news from that same unit.

I lobbied too the second day after I received the preselection email... the HoU contacted me, had an interview and got selected... I am pretty sure that lobbying was the key point in being noticed and getting selected so I encourage lobby (and by lobby, I mean sending short emails with the CV attached to only those units that really fit your profile and worth it)

I have lobbied units of DG SANCO, ENER and some other (the ones that actually seemed to be more suitable to my profile).

About 1 out of 3 mail got a reply that range from "thank you for your interest" to "we would carefully consider your profile" and "out of office"

I got a telephone interview but the line collapsed in the middle of the interview and nobody call me back..

In the end the unit that selected me has been one I sent a mail to, but that chose not to interview or even reply to my mail..

i got a phone call right after the blue book was published and before i even thought about lobbying...i was pretty nervous during the interview and thought i had messed up (i was in the us then, and it was in the middle of the night )...however i then wrote a follow up mail (never got a reply) and also started then (pretty late) to lobby to some other units with mainly replys that they had already chosen their trainees or would do so in the next days from the blue book only....
i already thought i had to prepare my new application for october when i finally received the offer from the unit that has called me =)

After I got the pre-selection email in December, I lobbied about 10 units in the DGs I was most interested in. I only heard back from one of them to say that they were not taking any trainees for this session.

I had not heard anything else from any unit of DG since then so I presumed that I would not get a traineeship and had basically given up all hope. Then, today, completely out of the blue, I got an email to offer me a traineeship in a DG that I did not lobby to and a unit which I don't think particularly matches my skills....weird! But, obviously I'm still delighted to get an offer of any kind.

Woohoo, going to Brussels!

Not sure if anyone is still active in this thread, but I was wondering if you could say something about the interviews?