To lobby or not too lobby

guys, be realistic: this is only an internship. We can't be hired, there is no chance! no one...

As you well know to be part of the EU commission there is the EPSO competition. On this matter, the traineeship is completely useless.

travisfull wrote:guys, be realistic: this is only an internship. We can't be hired, there is no chance! no one...

As you well know to be part of the EU commission there is the EPSO competition. On this matter, the traineeship is completely useless.

I think everybody is perfectly aware of this so I see no point in talking about that! Let's get back to the lobby dilemma :-)

I started lobbying yesterday and I got several different replies:
a) no replies at all;
b) our unit cannot host a trainee for the march 2014 round;
c) do not lobby again: we already have your CV and in case of positive evaluation we will get back to you in january.

Hello,

I tried sending an email to the Education and Culture DG and this is the answer.

Dear preselected candidate,

I thank you for the interest that you have shown in the Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC).

It is not necessary to send your cv again to DG EAC since all the relevant information you mentioned in your application form figures in the "Virtual Blue Book" and is available to the people responsible for the trainee's selection (except all personal details).

In agreement with the Traineeships Office's policy and in order to respect equal treatment of candidates, the Directorate-General endeavours not to invite you to Brussels and prefers to carry out any interviews by telephone. Please note that those interviews are not compulsory which means that you might be contacted or not.
Final selection will be closed at the beginning of January 2014. At this stage, no traineeship may be guaranteed. If you are selected by the Directorate-General for Education and Culture, the Traineeships Office will inform you by e-mail and then send you a trainee placement offer from mid-January 2014.

Should your first application be unsuccessful, you can still apply for a subsequent exercise, provided you are still eligible. You must, however, make a fresh application. This should be done on-line following the guidelines on the Traineeships Office website at  

http://ec.europa.eu/stages.

acromotcv wrote:I started lobbying yesterday and I got several different replies:
a) no replies at all;
b) our unit cannot host a trainee for the march 2014 round;
c) do not lobby again: we already have your CV and in case of positive evaluation we will get back to you in january.

Thanks for sharing your lobbing experience. I sent few e-mails and this were my results:
- we have no trainees allocated for March;
- authomatic replies;
- no replies at all.

So far...so bad

Hi guys!

Did any of you hear anything from DG COMP?
Thanks

I sent 3 e-mails to units that I perfectly fit with my experience. Got 2 replies – first our unit cannot host a trainee for the March 2014 round, and the second one "We will certainly take your application into account when looking at the applications". I just got a call from the second one - saying that I have been shortlisted and they are checking my availability. I know it does not mean anything for now as they usually short list ~5 candidates for a position. But still someone is interested in me

vvlv wrote:I sent 3 e-mails to units that I perfectly fit with my experience. Got 2 replies – first our unit cannot host a trainee for the March 2014 round, and the second one "We will certainly take your application into account when looking at the applications".  I just got a call from the second one - saying that I have been shortlisted and they are checking my availability. :)I know it does not mean anything for now as they usually short list ~5 candidates for a position. But still someone is interested in me

Wuau that's great!
May I ask which Unit of which DG was that?

Good luck

DG CONNECT Programme Coordination Unit - F3. I received a good advice that, if you lobby write a really specific lobbying e-mail and specify why you are the best fit to concrete unit (giving examples of your work or educational expertise). Any general messages would be deleted.

In my opinion it is not a matter of CV and lobby letter specificity, I do not think that units replies or do not only according to that. Perhaps it depends on their workload and due to the general amount of potentially suitable canidates. For instance, DG Competition is one of the biggest and most hanked while DG Agri is not. It is thus obvious that DG Agri will be faster to interview and then choose.

Answer from Enterprise and Industry DG

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your e-mail requesting information on the traineeship possibilities as a Blue Book selected candidate in our Directorate General.
The selection process for the next session has started and the Head of Units are now choosing directly in the electronic database called "Virtual Blue Book" the most suitable candidates according to their needs and the number of places available in DG Enterprise & Industry (26 places available / 42 Units).  They will use this information to draw up a shortlist of candidates after which the Human Ressources Unit will finalise the selection for the service as a whole, on the basis of these preferences.
In the meantime, unfortunately, it is not possible to give you any other information or to meet you before the end of the selection process. If you are selected, the Traineesships Office will contact you directly from mid of June.

At this stage, it is no use to contact me directly. If you feel it necessary to lobby for your candidature, we do not recommend you to send a message to all units, but rather to choose a limited number of those which are of major interest for you at to whom your experience could be of best interest and to contact their Head of Unit. For more information on the activities and structure of DG Enterprise & Industry please look at :  http://ec.europa.eu/comm/dgs/enterprise/index_en.htm
I wish you good luck for the selection and we would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for your interest in DG Enterprise and Industry.

Yours sincerely,

Luigi Schirinzi

Traineeship co-ordinator in DG ENTR

anam1985 wrote:Answer from Enterprise and Industry DG

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your e-mail requesting information on the traineeship possibilities as a Blue Book selected candidate in our Directorate General.
The selection process for the next session has started and the Head of Units are now choosing directly in the electronic database called "Virtual Blue Book" the most suitable candidates according to their needs and the number of places available in DG Enterprise & Industry (26 places available / 42 Units).  They will use this information to draw up a shortlist of candidates after which the Human Ressources Unit will finalise the selection for the service as a whole, on the basis of these preferences.
In the meantime, unfortunately, it is not possible to give you any other information or to meet you before the end of the selection process. If you are selected, the Traineesships Office will contact you directly from mid of June.

At this stage, it is no use to contact me directly. If you feel it necessary to lobby for your candidature, we do not recommend you to send a message to all units, but rather to choose a limited number of those which are of major interest for you at to whom your experience could be of best interest and to contact their Head of Unit. For more information on the activities and structure of DG Enterprise & Industry please look at :  http://ec.europa.eu/comm/dgs/enterprise/index_en.htm
I wish you good luck for the selection and we would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for your interest in DG Enterprise and Industry.

Yours sincerely,

Luigi Schirinzi

Traineeship co-ordinator in DG ENTR

mid of June????

For mihi>> I think they made a mistake. It is mid of January.

anam1985 wrote:For mihi>> I think they made a mistake. It is mid of January.

or maybe your posting a reply from the October traineeship session?

mihi wrote:

anam1985 wrote:For mihi>> I think they made a mistake. It is mid of January.

or maybe your posting a reply from the October traineeship session?

I thought this forum was about helping each other not giving out false information... is this what this forum has come to...I mean...what some people wouldn't do to for the job.......

mihi wrote:

mihi wrote:

anam1985 wrote:For mihi>> I think they made a mistake. It is mid of January.

or maybe your posting a reply from the October traineeship session?

I thought this forum was about helping each other not giving out false information... is this what this forum has come to...I mean...what some people wouldn't do to for the job.......

Relax - no one is posting false information, that is a typical mistake from the DG - they forget to change the dates in their automatic reply e-mails. Last year I also received some, saying thank you for your interest in October trainee ship.

Guys, please...we are really ridiculous. We are talking about an internship, lets try to be sincere.
This competition without rules and respect is really annoying and malicious foe everyone.

so those who did lobby...did you email to the general email of the DGs that we were given in the system? or did you write to specific units? - and if so how did you find their emails?

mihi wrote:

mihi wrote:

anam1985 wrote:For mihi>> I think they made a mistake. It is mid of January.

or maybe your posting a reply from the October traineeship session?

I thought this forum was about helping each other not giving out false information... is this what this forum has come to...I mean...what some people wouldn't do to for the job.......

The person answering from the DG is the one who is copy/pasting old text.. No use in blaming other people before thinking facts through yourself. Come on..!

Hi guys, I don't feel very good after doing it, but I just sent two emails to two different divisions... That's all I'm gonna do - I'm not sure it will help though. If I were the head of division, I would be super annoyed about getting so many lobby emails......

Just called DG HOME, DG JUST and the Legal Service...2 or 3 random Units in each one of them. Well, nobody had any idea about trainees in the next session, and most probably they're not taking any! Has somebody else contacted these DGs?
If they are not taking any trainees, what DG will have the bulk of the trainees?

travisfull wrote:Guys, please...we are really ridiculous. We are talking about an internship, lets try to be sincere.
This competition without rules and respect is really annoying and malicious foe everyone.

Actually I got the same reply from DG Entr, so it is definitly their mistake. No one here is trying to compete without rules. We are only helping each other.
You should relax a bit, breathe and just wait. We have all done our best to get an internship. point.

eurolawyer wrote:Just called DG HOME, DG JUST and the Legal Service...2 or 3 random Units in each one of them. Well, nobody had any idea about trainees in the next session, and most probably they're not taking any! Has somebody else contacted these DGs?
If they are not taking any trainees, what DG will have the bulk of the trainees?

wow, you actually called them ? This is not a common practice Maybe they just told you so because they were not sure whether they will have trainees or they just did not like the fact that you actually called.. or maybe these units really will not have trainees but it is not possible for the whole DG LS or DG Home or DG Justice to not have trainees. It clearly says otherwise in the automatic replies you get from these DGs So I guess you can lobby for other units within these DGs, just to make sure you have a back up in case these units really do not have trainees.

MoreEU4all wrote:

travisfull wrote:Guys, please...we are really ridiculous. We are talking about an internship, lets try to be sincere.
This competition without rules and respect is really annoying and malicious foe everyone.

Actually I got the same reply from DG Entr, so it is definitly their mistake. No one here is trying to compete without rules. We are only helping each other.
You should relax a bit, breathe and just wait. We have all done our best to get an internship. point.

Im not talking about the reply, I know that it was a standard automatic reply and they have not updated it to the March session. Please MoreEU4all don't be rude, Im relaxed, absolutely; I was just commenting the fact that there is a negative mood around the internship especially in the last days.
Of course, we are all nervous about the outcome of the selection.

Anyway, I hope I have explained myself

I was also thinking about calling the units or the DG i'm interested in to know if they take trainee and if it's ok to express ones interest by an email. But I haven't done it yet, my respect for your braveness, eurolawyer!

I just got a call from a unit of the DG Mobility & Transport which is my prefered DG. They wanted to check my interest in their Unit and my availability, but no further questions which could have make me sweat . I'm so excited. They said that the final decision will be made by the traineeship secretary though and that I could contact other Units if I wanted to.

So, I think lobbying makes only sense if you feel like Units you are interested in might not find your CV because it's not very specific. Otherwise, as for my case, they will find you by themselfs in the blue book.

Anyway, since I put "research" as my field of interest, but I'm also interested in policymaking and others, I'm thinking about writing email to say so to my prefered Units. But I find it realy annoying, that this lobbything seem to be a kind of illegal and usefull at the same time...

I have to say I'm really glad this forum exists and that we can exchange infos and help each other Also, we could already get in touch before going there, in case we get the traineeship... find a flat together and stuff !! Oh it would be so nice getting it....  

As I said in some other place, there is no need to bombard with e-mails, unless your qualifications are suitable for a very specific position and Unit. General degrees or experience do not mean anything, everybody has these. If you are interested in a DG or Unit, you will have spent at least some months working or studying on its field of activities in the past.

No need to be super competitive. We already know that "the number of pre-selected candidates is four times higher than the number of available trainee positions. Therefore, being preselected is no guarantee that you will be offered a trainee placement". So, the final choice is not linked to our efforts but only to our CVs. Moreover, we are not allowed to know which units are willing to host trainees. Everything is so random and the lack of transparency is self evident.

Smilyfunny: I totally agree, it's great to have a platform where we can exchange in this exciting days and once we've been chosen (if it's the case)!

Pinhead, I see it the other way around, that just if your cv is specific, you don't have to lobby, because they find you.