Administrative Traineeship EC short-listed

Hello everyone! This is to share updates about our applications, any news yet?
I applied for October 2017, for the Administrative traineeship.

S.Anouk

Hey!
No news here either, I also applied for the Administrative traineeship. I guess they should be letting us know quite soon!

-Linnea

Hello all!

From what I have read about previous years, typically the commission will contact you in the second week of April. So it SHOULD be any day now. From the 2015 & 2016 October forums though they received shortlist confirmation on the Monday of the second week of April. So I don't really know what to think! I don't know if they send the rejections as quickly as the short list acceptances...

Hi everyone!

I was wondering the same thing! I still haven't heard anything back, and as far as I know, they inform both successful and unsuccessful candidates on the same day.

So I hope it will be any day now!

ninchns wrote:Hi everyone!

I was wondering the same thing! I still haven't heard anything back, and as far as I know, they inform both successful and unsuccessful candidates on the same day.

So I hope it will be any day now!

Not really, I applied last session and got the e-mail just few days/a week later. However, usually people share that they got into the Blue Book here in this forum, so I guess they haven´t sent any results yet. Good luck everyone, I would let you know if I would get any e-mail.

Hey.

I've been waiting for the results too. Do you think they will come out this week though? Everyone must be on Easter holidays now. Good luck to you all.

Tripti

Hi everyone,

I also applied for the administrative traineeship and got my results this morning, so either yours are already out or will be really soon.

Good luck to all

I also got my results this morning! So I guess they should be out )

By 'got results' and the smileys I guess the lucky ones have been preselected. I am trying to find out for an article on how they and others did, and how much they missed by if they didn't get preselected. Any posts with details on what the lucky ones received (e.g. details of how many points they got, if they were told, and what they have now been advised, asked for etc) and what the unlucky ones were told etc etc, would be really helpful. I think this could also be very helpful too for people applying in the future when they look back over the forums.  Good luck to all!

I am a little bit confused. I am 8 point below, while two years ago, with a shitty application, I was only 4 below.
Regarding my CV, I think it is a decent one. Internship for my Government, two years experience as a paid journalist, many years in an NGO, including board positions and the coordination of a network of 1200 people. And few more, paid and unpaid.
My international profile: lived in three countries, member of international networks, 40 countries visited, master abroad.
Education: bachelor, master and a one year fellowship for young leaders in my field.

Indeed, I have some weaknesses regarding the languages. I have certificate only for one, even I do have a conversational level in two others.

It just seems for me that 8 point below is too much.

I got a message to my personal account (and a notification to my email about it) that I've been preselected. Preselected candidates will now have to send out the documents to prove their eligibility (diplomas, proof of working experience etc). I didn't get information on how many points I got. But it says that you must give in the documents between April 18th and April 28th. And from what it says on the website, in June they will choose the ones who are officially chosen to be on the Blue book, and then you'll probably get a position but I guess that's not a garantee.

Same here. The letter didn't specify how many points I got but tbh I don't think it would be of any use to you, as results for EU nationals are country-specific. P.S. I feel the need to apologise for the smiley (I didn't realise how creepy the emoticons on this forum are).

Jules10, Linskuk and mayo, thanks for the extra information. It's very helpful and much appreciated.

I am 9 points below. I think it also depends on the other applicants' background.
I am Italian and this is even more competitive for me, talking about the first step. But I don't get what I should have more than what I have, maybe speaking 8 languages??
I have a Master's Degree, one long experience abroad as a student in the UU for year, top college. And four short experiences abroad all over Europe.
I worked in three different companies, a bank and a consulting company.
I'm pretty upset right now.

Congrats to those who were pre-selected. I've applied for the first time and got pre-identified though it seems to be very competitive from reading the comments here. If it can help anyone here is a sketch of my profile:
-C2 English, C1 Spanish, A2 Italian, A2 French
-lived in 5 countries for the past 7 years
-Undergrad in the UK, ongoing double Master's degree (in France and Germany)
- 3 international working experiences in different organisations: multinational consultancy, NGO and university

It seems that I ticked most of their boxes, though it would be interesting to know how that points system works

Could it be possible to also include where you're from? Since the EC seeks to establish a balance between nationals, they probably uphold a different standard for different countries?

S. Anouk, I really sympathise.

Being Italian really is a disadvantage for an application and, however you look at it, you are subject to discrimination based on country of origin. There is a discussion on the question of equity of access versus excellence of trainees in the 2014 report:  
'Evaluation of the European Commission’s Traineeship Programme'
which you can find online.
The report is quite critical about many aspects of the selection process, not least on the question of lobbying by candidates. It is well worth a read.
The bottom line is that the competition is really severe for Italians. Out of 17,032 applicants in March 2017, 2,029 were Italian, ie 11.9%.  Excluding applicants from non-EU countries (8,794), Italians represented 24.6% of applicants from the 28 EU countries. Looking at the March 2017 statistics, 65 Italians were taken on as trainees out of 1,987 applicants; a 'success' rate of 3.3%.

Contrast that with, eg British applicants. The 'success' rate in March 2017 was 14.5%. (There were 145 applicants of whom 21 were 'successful'. (I am taking 'success' here as securing a traineeship).

Things look even worse when you consider that around 2,500 applicants get into the Blue Book. So, around 4 times as many are preselected as finally get traineeships. That gives a ballpark figure for March 2017 of 260 Italians preselected, and 84 British. So, to be preselected, you had an approximate chance in March of:
260 out of 2,029 , ie 12.8% for Italians
84 out of 145, ie 57.9% for British

You are being scuppered by the simple fact that so many Italians apply. I personally know an applicant who is considerably less qualified than you but has been preselected in two consecutive sessions. He comes from the UK. The report mentioned above has quite a bit of detail concerning selection based on country of application and explicitly states: a candidate’s nationality, as
well as their skills, plays a role in their eventual recruitment. Quite a big role I would say!!

Going even further, I am able to identify some further discrimination on the basis of nationality, looking for example at the October 2016 selection.

1644 Spanish applicants, places awarded - 35 (2,12%)
3651 Italian applicants, places awarded - 78 (2,13%)
645 German applicants, places awarded - 67 (10,3%)
11 Luxembourger applicants, places awarded - 5 (45,45%)
Total applicants 18455, places awarded - 650 (3,52%)

Some numbers for March 2017:
121 Hungarian applicants, places awarded - 21 (17,35%)
286 Belgian applicants, places awarded - 17 (5,94%)
556 German applicants, places awarded - 45 (8,09%)
313 Dutch applicants, places awarded - 21 (6,70%)
Total applicants 12676, places awarded 616 (4,85%)

My point is simple. If the general rate of success is 3,52%, you cannot increase that rate up to 45,45% for the nationals of one country, unless you have a transparent minimum quota for each Member State. Questions are raised also by the fact that one MS with 1644 applicants has a rate of success of 2,12%, while for another you allow a rate of 10,3% (from 645 applicants).

Hi, if we decide to lobby, does anyone know when is one supposed to start with it ? Already now or only after the confirmation of eligibility in June ?

Hi Everyone,
if your name has special characters in it (ö,ű,ä,ł,Đ..), do you include the proper characters in your file names when uploading documents at pre-selection? Or you go with the standard English alphabet?
Thanks in advance!

scandilla wrote:
Hi Everyone,
if your name has special characters in it (ö,ű,ä,ł,Đ..), do you include the proper characters in your file names when uploading documents at pre-selection? Or you go with the standard English alphabet?
Thanks in advance!

I usually don't use special characters (Ć in my case). So far they didn't seem to mind.

Hello everyone! I was pre-identified for the October 2017 session, and I already sent my pdf file with all the necessary documents to be pre-selected. I only have one questions: how strict do you think they are with mistakes? For example, in the application, I wrote that my master degree ends in September when in fact it ends in October (weird cause my dissertation submission date is in September, so effectively I'm done in September). I am afraid that they're going to kick me out because of that. Can anybody relate to this?

giova23 wrote:Hello everyone! I was pre-identified for the October 2017 session, and I already sent my pdf file with all the necessary documents to be pre-selected. I only have one questions: how strict do you think they are with mistakes? For example, in the application, I wrote that my master degree ends in September when in fact it ends in October (weird cause my dissertation submission date is in September, so effectively I'm done in September). I am afraid that they're going to kick me out because of that. Can anybody relate to this?

Same here, there is an error in the year of award of my bachelor (entered 2007 instead of 2005 which is strange because i read my twice application line by line before submitting it). How strict do you think they are? I have already gathered all of my necessary docs and am ready to submit them but I'm wondering if they allow you to amend entries or if it even matters... Don't want to get rejected because of a simple typo... Any idea???

lu_cette wrote:

giova23 wrote:Hello everyone! I was pre-identified for the October 2017 session, and I already sent my pdf file with all the necessary documents to be pre-selected. I only have one questions: how strict do you think they are with mistakes? For example, in the application, I wrote that my master degree ends in September when in fact it ends in October (weird cause my dissertation submission date is in September, so effectively I'm done in September). I am afraid that they're going to kick me out because of that. Can anybody relate to this?

Same here, there is an error in the year of award of my bachelor (entered 2007 instead of 2005 which is strange because i read my twice application line by line before submitting it). How strict do you think they are? I have already gathered all of my necessary docs and am ready to submit them but I'm wondering if they allow you to amend entries or if it even matters... Don't want to get rejected because of a simple typo... Any idea???

They seem to be very strict with the dates. But on a closer look, it looks like they care more about them for work experiences. In any case, anyone with some common sense wouldn't penalize a person for a mistake as such...I guess we will have to see. As far as I know you can't edit your application