PRESELECTION

And what about CoR (Committee of Regions) and EESC, is there anyone who also applied for these inst ? Let's hope for !

Pre-selected for the administrative traineeship! Good luck to everyone that was pre-selected as well, can't wait for some of us (hopefully me too) to meet in Brussels or perhaps elsewhere.
Now on to this lobbying and DGs phase, which seems pretty complicated (I'm not European btw...).

Il y a des francophones parmis les (pré-)"élus" de ce forum par hasard?

@Berenice GF

Ah bon tes pas européen ? Tu es d'où ?

entourage wrote:And what about CoR (Committee of Regions) and EESC, is there anyone who also applied for these inst ? Let's hope for !

I'm afraid what the CoR calls a "limited number" of stipends is nothing compared to the number of places available at the Commission. The Traineeship Office just pre-identified about 2,800 applicants for the EC's Blue Book, and the official facebook group for the fall 2014 CoR traineeship is more than 100 (!) times smaller than that. Then there is a combined facebook group for spring 2014 CoR & EESC trainees having 64 members.
In a word, this looks very much like game over.

Would those people who got pre-identified for a translation traineeship be willing to indicate the language department they applied for and share a bit about their background?

Anyway, congratulations to those who made it!

How many people did get the preselection results? those who did not so far, does this mean that our applications are rejected?
I hope they started sending the results out today and it might take two more days?!

Fingers crossed, I am so nervous!!

Congratulations to those who got news. At what time did you get the e-mail Berenice?

Congratulations to everyone who got an email! It seems like I didn't make it.

Did everybody receive the email at 10 AM CET?

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum. I received the email (9:50AM) this morning notifying me that I was pre-selected for the Administrative traineeship. I'm not European either and according to my estimations using the statistics from past years, between 15 and 60 non-Europeans will be selected out of the couple hundred that originally applied!

I have a question about the next step. Do we wait until the next step (after having submitted our documents) to start lobbying? Or should we do that à partir de now?

Thanks!!!

If you have not received the email like the rest of the people here, then unfortunately this means you have not got enough points. There is a very small chance that they might still send out final emails in the next one hour before the end of the work day at the commission; however I doubt it that they will leave this for the end of the day even though other EU institutions do that. Congratulations to all who have made it! For those who have not, cheer up. After all this is one of the toughest traineeships to get in and the competition is fierce as we all know.

@Soph

I received the e-mail at 3:50 am, Québec time, which means 9:50 am in Bruxelles, like everyone else it seems.

Hi everyone,

Congrats to those who have been pre-identified for the Blue Book! I've been identified as well and now I'm in the process of gathering documents. I'm wondering whether school and university transcripts will be sufficient or whether we need to provide recent proof of language competencies? My application states that my French is a C1 Level (but this could be a little optimistic) and this is mainly based on my Bachelor's Degree and Erasmus placement which I completed over 5 years ago! Since then I've lived in Brussels and haven't neglected my French although I have no way of proving my current proficiency. Can anyone advise whether I should apply for a certificate attesting this?

I also stated that I have basic Spanish and a B2 level of Irish and this is based on my final year school exam from 2006. Should I provide some proof that I know these languages or would it be sufficient to only provide proof of French?

Also, does anyone know whether the Commission will notify us if any of the documentation is not up to standard or will they just reject the application outright?

If anyone has any advice on these points it would be hugely appreciated!

Thank you!! Helena, from Ireland.

Thanks for your reply!
I guess if like me you didn't get an answer this morning it's probably over. The last times I applied everybody I know was notified at the same day around the same time.
They usually only send out the rejection e-mails a few weeks after the positive reactions.

Just to still have some hope, I was just wandering between those of you who were pre-selected, is there any Italian? Because I know Italians are always the largest group of people applying and maybe they have not been contacted yet and I can still hope I will be contacted in the following days?!?

Thank you!

Hi guys, I received the email as well. I have dual citizenship but applied as a French citizen to boost my chances, apparently it worked!

However, I have accepted an other internship that lasts until the end of April. I'm assuming there's no possibility to do a shortened traineeship, right? I was aware of the conflict and consciouly chose the other internship over this one, but of course it would be ideal if I could combine both Thanks!

Helena, if you have stated something in your application form, then it is advisable to have a proof of it because you were pre-identified owing to the points you received from the statements made. They would want to confirm your eligibility by seeing docs substantiating the claims that have been made. Good luck

candidate wrote:Helena, if you have stated something in your application form, then it is advisable to have a proof of it because you were pre-identified owing to the points you received from the statements made. They would want to confirm your eligibility by seeing docs substantiating the claims that have been made. Good luck

Thanks for the response!

sophiagg wrote:Hi guys, I received the email as well. I have dual citizenship but applied as a French citizen to boost my chances, apparently it worked!

However, I have accepted an other internship that lasts until the end of April. I'm assuming there's no possibility to do a shortened traineeship, right? I was aware of the conflict and consciouly chose the other internship over this one, but of course it would be ideal if I could combine both Thanks!

Hi Sophia and all!

To answer your question, see FAQ (http://ec.europa.eu/stages/information/faq-selected_en.htm):

Can I terminate my traineeship earlier than the date specified in the trainee placement?
- If a trainee wishes to terminate his/her traineeship earlier than the date specified in the trainee placement offer he must inform his adviser and submit a written request to the Traineeships Office for approval. This request can be sent by e-mail to the Head of the Traineeships Office and should be copied to the file manager in the Traineeships Office, the adviser and the stage coordinator. It must include relevant reasons and is to be submitted at least 3 weeks in advance of the new termination date foreseen.
Trainees may only terminate their traineeship on the 15th or the last day of the month.

Also, I was reading some comments and I would like draw attention to that we just got pre-identified today, which does not equal to being pre-selected.
If someone fails to submit the documents on time OR some documents are "invalid", we still could be rejected. The pre-selection will be announced after this phase (I guess the first of December).

The FAQ also refers to that:

"What does it mean that I am "pre-identified for the Blue Book"?
- When you receive the message that you are pre-identified for the Blue Book, you have only passed the first phase of pre-selection. The second phase is the eligibility check. During the eligibility check your application is checked against your supporting documents/proofs. Only if your application can be supported by proofs of work experience, education and language skills, you will be pre-selected and therefore included in the Blue Book."

I am not sure how strict they are with the proofs, but take into account that they need to verify nearly 2500 applications manually..

b00tsi3 wrote:

sophiagg wrote:Hi guys, I received the email as well. I have dual citizenship but applied as a French citizen to boost my chances, apparently it worked!

However, I have accepted an other internship that lasts until the end of April. I'm assuming there's no possibility to do a shortened traineeship, right? I was aware of the conflict and consciouly chose the other internship over this one, but of course it would be ideal if I could combine both Thanks!

Hi Sophia and all!

To answer your question, see FAQ (http://ec.europa.eu/stages/information/faq-selected_en.htm):

Can I terminate my traineeship earlier than the date specified in the trainee placement?
- If a trainee wishes to terminate his/her traineeship earlier than the date specified in the trainee placement offer he must inform his adviser and submit a written request to the Traineeships Office for approval. This request can be sent by e-mail to the Head of the Traineeships Office and should be copied to the file manager in the Traineeships Office, the adviser and the stage coordinator. It must include relevant reasons and is to be submitted at least 3 weeks in advance of the new termination date foreseen.
Trainees may only terminate their traineeship on the 15th or the last day of the month.

Thanks for your reply However I wouldn't need to terminate the traineeship early but rather start late - probably not a good sign if it's not even in the FAQ. Hoping there's some flexibility if your DG gives its approval but who knows! I'm sure they prefer to have everyone starting on the same date, which I can understand.

Sopphiagg, I remember reading somewhere that it is not allowed to postpone the commencement of the traineeship with the EC. Since there are so many applicants for the traineeships and the duration is of only 4 months, the EC would consider selecting another applicant in stead of providing for delay with it. Secondly, if such an arrangement is allowed then it will create a precedent which they would not like to happen. Otherwise, there will be so many candidates who would take them to court for not giving them similar accommodation of their needs.

I applied for the administrative traineeship and received an email 09:50 this morning that I have been pre-determined. Congratulations and best wishes.

Update in case someone else had the same question : the minimum duration for an EC Traineeship is 3 months. So a shortened traineeship is allowed but it can be hard to find a DG that's willing to take you in for such a short duration. I'm going to send my documents anyway and see what happens!

Hi guys!
I'm a new-entry here! I've been "pre-pre-selectioned" and I am preparing all the documents to forward by Thursday 19th.

I have a question for you. During the application, I could only insert 3 professional experiences but I have a few more. Should I only include the experiences mentioned in the online form or can I add other certificates to the file to upload?

Also, some dates do not match (for few days). Do you thing this could be a big problem?

Thank you! Wink

Hiya,

I've been pre-identified to be pre-selected for a translation traineeship (I'm French). Wondering how many of us there are out there!

In the past, placement offers have apparentlybeen sent out around mid-January, with up to 12 applicants pre-selected for 2 places.

Good luck to everyone!

Hey guys,

Could someone who has applied before answer this question?

If is a standard practice that the EC contacts your employers? I sent a contract, and I had them write a certificate, however, they do not speak english.

Does anyone know from experience whether the EC tends to contact the employers for info about you/background check on you?

Thank you!

I highly doubt that they will be contacting thousands of employers to fact check what you wrote about yourself. Unless your 'contract' looks dodgy of course.

thanks alchemist

Hi!

I'm from Italy (yepp, another one of us ^^) and I've been pre-identified too for the march traineeship session.
Sent my documents, and honestly starting to get a little bit nervous about all of the "waiting part". It's gonna be long...sigh.

Good luck everybody!

Got all my documents uploaded Glad that that's done and hopefully it won't be long before we hear back.

Helena, I'm English and the only proof I have that I can speak French and Spanish is my degree certificate and transcript and the certificates from my Erasmus universities, so that's all I've uploaded.  I doubt they'd dismiss you because your certificates are a few years old, because applicants don't have to be straight out of university.

Does anyone know if the formal offers all come at the same time? What happens if you're selected from the BB by more than one unit and they contact you at different times? Because I've heard that the offers expire, how do you know if you should wait and see what else you get offered or if you should just accept quickly so you know you've got something?

Hi guys!

Does anyone know how long will it take to check the documents and send us emails about their "validation"?

The page where you uploaded the documents contains the following message: At the end of November you will receive the official confirmation of whether or not you have successfully passed the eligibility check and, therefore, been preselected for the Blue Book.