Interviews

laurip, the man sounds so funny and nice and persuasive congrats

laurip, the man told me the same

very, very sick of waiting for a call. Time to look for other paid internship/job opportunities etc. etc...

I honestly think that those people who have gotten calls on here so far are seriously over-qualified though. People who speak 8-10 languages and have been working for a few years should not be bothered applying for a 5 month long traineeship...Wasn't this traineeship supposed to be for young, recent graduates? As for me, I cannot compete with that.

lol I am a bit disillusioned as you can guess from my post ;-) Might be a good sign though. Last time I was disillusioned and then stopped caring and thinking about the traineeship (after seeing how many people applied), I got preselected ;-)

I completely agree with your comment mlle_m!

If they are going to take candidates with several years of work experience, what's the whole point of their traineeship program??! In that case we, the recent graduates, dont stand a chance to be selected coz at least 600 people of 18700 have more than 1 year of work experience!

@mlle_m I totally understand how you feel. This process is way too long, very opaque, and therefore extremely stressful... looking for other options seems wise! Que sera sera...

DutchBB wrote:Arty 99 - How did the call go? Feeling positive about it?
Rabrab - that sounds also promising. Is it the unit you are interested in?
Alex2006 - exciting, fingers crossed. May I ask which country court?

Thanks DutchBB... finger crossed for you too

Non Eu country, Montenegro

@mlle_m

Hey! It's my first post here and I actually just registered (although I've been following for some time) to try and make you feel a bit better.

I was contacted this morning from ECHO A5 and he told me that's not the only unit from the DG interested in me and that I should expect more calls.

I'm 22 years old, I have a degree in International Relations (specialized in human rights and humanitarian aid) and a 1 year post graduation in International Law. I speak portuguese and spanish because I learned from my family and english. And no experience in the area at all.

So even though I don't have a great CV, I think we still have some opportunities! Don't give up, don't lose hope

haha thanks for the support guys! I agree, it is a bit opaque and it would definitely be easier if there was a general rule for everyone finding out/being called/contacted at the same time (like in the preselection phase) and then just knowing. Thanks MLand, that is very sweet of you :-)

skaykilmaz wrote:laurip, the man told me the same

Oh did he? Haha, I guess the game's still on! When did you receive the call? Have you been contacted by other units? May I ask what your background is like? Looking at your nickname tells me that you have Turkish roots.

Best of luck with the process! He said he'd send an e-mail today to give an update on what to expect in June.

DutchBB wrote:Alex2006 what did you do? Did you send them the contact details? It sounds promising, no?

Hi arty99 *waves* - who else is joining our legal club?

Yep, I've also applied to Legal Services from whom, other than the generic unit emails received, I haven't heard anything else.

Just to make that clear - even if you just graduated recently (I got my M.A. in September last year) you can have several years of work experience.

I had to fund my studies by myself so are actually working since I am 13 years old (from delivering Pizza to working as sales assistant and of course at some point some more relevant experience such as research assistant or consultant).

I think having work experience and internships have to to a lot with attitude (how did you spend your spring breaks etc - e.g. I often tried to get internship and/or to work/travel abroad) and not certainly with age. And I went as well abroad for some research stuff and lived like for 300 Euro a month in some African cities. So its not always a matter of money either...

But I totally agree that most of us are quite likely overqualified and its somehow crazy how tight competition is...

Ok kigeugeu, I did not mean WORK experience in general but relevant work experience: So I have also worked quite a lot all my life. Amongst other, I worked night shifts for a year in a restaurant during my undergraduate studies before starting my master's to pay for what this master's would have cost my parents extra (and there was a lot of extra from studying in a small town in Germany to studying in Paris and London). Would not put that on a CV for the EC though.

I also always did relevant internships during all my spring breaks. So in total, just from my relevant internships, I have 1.5 years of relevant work experience. Apparently, that is not enough to get 1 person calling though...

At the same time though, I think this whole process is a lottery anyway and I honestly do not think I was in any way more qualified than some of my friends who did not even get preselected so I really do not want to step on anyone's toes or start a whole debate here... it's all good :-) *changing the topic* sooo anyone else received any interviews this morning?

I think you are right, its a big big lottery. Just as so many things in life, especially now during the crisis times.

No calls today so far, so yesterday was my lottery day apparently.

Good luck to all of you!

alex2006 wrote:I lobbied Dg Enlargment, but I have not heard of them , only automatic reply.

But today weird thing happened, Secretary of Mr Paul Nemitz, DG JUST emailed me, looking for the postal address of my employee Constitutional Court to send a letter . Didnt say why, and I didnt ask ....

Maybe EC Candidate could help me with this , plesse

I have never heard of such a thing before! Normally they don't ask for references from previous employers (if that's the case here), usually a look at the candidate's CV and an interview is enough to make up their minds in some Units, not even interviews are made, so I'm thinking it's a bit unusual that they are making all this effort of sending a letter to your current employer asking for references... or maybe it's for another reason we are not seeing here.

@ECandidate - do you know whether the units have made up their mind? (DG Justice)

@others - don't give up hope! If it is meant to be, it will be.

Hey, I also have legal background. Got an email from the legal service asking for my availability. Quite generic though. They say that they will choose their trainee on 3rd june and will contact the chosen one. Also received a generic email from taxud telling me to wait till the end of august ( !!! No shit!!) and if I dont hear from them it means they didnt choose me ;-)

This an interesting read regarding the selection steps and country quotas, even though it's from 2008. It's an evaluation report of the stage programme conducted by the DG Education and culture: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/evalreports/civilsociety/2008/stagereport_en.pdf

Interviews:"Before making their final selection, the TO encourages Trainee Advisers to contact prospective Trainees by telephone to gain a clearer idea of their motivation, availability and language skills. At this stage, the candidate should be told they have been short listed, but no offers should be made directly. In practice, anecdotal evidence collected to date suggests that only a minority of Advisers conduct telephone interviews with prospective Trainees". p.35

Quotas (for pre-selection!): "Applications are sorted not only by nationality of applicant, but also by DG of first choice of the applicant. Indicative quotas exist per nationality for the EU Member States (proportional to population size and to the number of applications), but the quality of applicants remains the overriding criterion pre-selection. As such, while it is likely that applicants from countries with low numbers of applicants overall stand a statistically better chance of being pre-selected than their counterparts from countries with high application rates, they must, in principle, still meet strict quality criteria. No absolute quotas by nationality exist.
Within nationality groups, applications are also sorted by DG of first choice. As with nationality, however, quality remains the dominant criterion. Quotas per DG are given as an indicative measure, but do not have to be followed strictly." p.34

so as before, anything can happen

hey, here in germany today is an off day. do you think it is valid also for brussels?

I'm in Brussels and today's a regular working day

@ palindrom
The 20th of May (Whitmonday) was the last holiday for a long time.
Is it Corpus Christi you "celebrate", isn't that only in southern Germany?

I have no idea, I am not German and not even Catholic. Well, good to know, though.
Thank you

DutchBB wrote:@ECandidate - do you know whether the units have made up their mind? (DG Justice)

@others - don't give up hope! If it is meant to be, it will be.

No, I don't. And that is something I will never know, nor you, until the official offers are sent by the TO. As mentioned here before, a lot of speculation can be made during the selection process and of course people who have had interviews and in the end receive answers like "we are going to send our list of preferred trainees to the TO and you're in it" can be hopeful, but really, only in the end you'll know fure sure. I know it's though to wait all this time, but really, there's not much you can do so don't expect to know anything for certain before the official email comes, because no Unit is authorized to give any certainty to the candidates as, really, it's the TO that does the final selection and everyone is notified of it at the same time. So no need to ask about any final decisions, as no-one will have them until the end!

Has anyone heard back from EEAS yet? I haven't heard anything and starting to panick a little bit..

loolapaloozas wrote:Has anyone heard back from EEAS yet? I haven't heard anything and starting to panick a little bit..

I received two generic replies last week and nothing else

mlle_m wrote:very, very sick of waiting for a call. Time to look for other paid internship/job opportunities etc. etc...

I honestly think that those people who have gotten calls on here so far are seriously over-qualified though. People who speak 8-10 languages and have been working for a few years should not be bothered applying for a 5 month long traineeship...Wasn't this traineeship supposed to be for young, recent graduates? As for me, I cannot compete with that.

In my session, I have met 30 year old people with 5 years or more of work experience now doing this traineeship. I have met 27 year old Phd students. I have also met 23 year old ones coming straight out of college or with just one or two short term traineeships in between. So there is a lot of variety, though it is true indeed that with the crescent number of applicants, there was also a rise on the number of (over) qualified people applying of this traineeship, rising the level of the pre-selection and, consequently, of the selection as well.

I am Portuguese and in 1 year (comparing the statistics of the Oct 2012 and the Oct 2013 sessions) the number of applicants from my country is now 10 times up. I know other Portuguese people who did this traineeship a couple of years ago and they had "just" a degree and a Master degree, no work experience at all. Now I had friends in the same situation applying and they didn't even made it through pre-selection.

Here in Brussels you'll meet a lot of people with a degree, a masters degree, probably already doing or thinking of doing a Phd, having worked before, having had traineeships before, with lots of international experience before, speaking several languages... everyone has very similar and (over) qualified profiles and are hopping from one traineeship to the other.

I don't think that do to the work you'll end up doing in this traineeship you're required to be so qualified as they end up demanding you to be. I mean, you're not being hired to save Europe. You'll do some interesting stuff, sure, you'll meet new people and see how they work in this environment, you'll attend meetings you wouldn't have the chance to otherwise, but you're not exactly going to be asked to perform extremely intelectual tasks that require you have had years of experience and studies and language knowledge. You're just a trainee and you're just here for 5 months, don't come thinking you'll be most important piece of this engine called Europe.

Simply, now they have a lot of qualified people to choose from and it is you, as candidates, who are in the "weak" position of really wanting to work with them and they are in the "strong" position of being able to choose anyone they want, with great backgrounds to choose from. So sometimes they end up choosing overly qualified people as trainees, as you get to have someone great for a "trainee-price" working in your Unit for 5 months. Even if sometimes a recent-graduate could easily perform the same tasks.

Anyway, that's the reality and I don't think anyone should feel discouraged by it. As I mentioned, among the 700 trainees of each sessions there are a lot of different people and sucessful stories from all sides, so you just have to make your best effort to make yours equally sucessful, having, of course, a back-up plan for the case you're not selected.

Good luck!

EEAS has not contacted anyone as far as I am aware . I too got some generic emails saying that my app will be sent to HoUs. I guess it is the most popular of all, that is why it takes a lot of time to decide...

europe4all wrote:

loolapaloozas wrote:Has anyone heard back from EEAS yet? I haven't heard anything and starting to panick a little bit..

I received two generic replies last week and nothing else

Ok thanks for the info! Made me feel a little bit calmer:) so confused at the moment: the representation of the eu commission in Sweden just called and they said that all units were supposed to have made their decision on Monday at the latest.. Guess that can't be right since that would mean that EEAS only has two days to contact all their selected trainees?

One of the replies I got said that the HoUs will decide on trainees until Friday... which could very well mean that they will contact people next week!

Also, every Unit has its own organisational effectiveness in the EEAS... some might be quicker than others, so don't despair and keep your fingers crossed

loolapaloozas wrote:Ok thanks for the info! Made me feel a little bit calmer:) so confused at the moment: the representation of the eu commission in Sweden just called and they said that all units were supposed to have made their decision on Monday at the latest.. Guess that can't be right since that would mean that EEAS only has two days to contact all their selected trainees?