DG ECHO -

Has any of you been contacted by the DG ECHO? I listed them as my second choice and they contacted me without prior notice on friday. I was on vacation walking my dog, so the talk unfortunately took place outside in the woods. The talk lasted about 7-10 minutes. We agreed for me to send my updated cv to the direct email address of the unit. As I was on holiday this proved somewhat difficult, I managed to improvise and sent it yesterday.
I got an auto-reply back saying selection closes the 20th! Which was yesterday. So I called and the very friendly lady on the phone said she could not help me with forwarding it as the process of selection was already complete. I will just have to wait.

My question is: are there any others approached by this DG who want to exchange experiences and: why do they close the selection so fast? They have till the end of the month if I'm not mistaken, to make their choice? Now they don't have my newest cv.. So the coincidence of me being on holiday for a week might make me miss this opportunity.. (I know, I knew the dates of selection prior to my vacation so should have taken this in consideration before. But I didn't know I only had a week of actual selection..)

They should all burn in hell!!!! LOL
You have all my sympathy. Frankly I don't understand how they can expect people to be able to answer their calls and requests and get interviewed without any notice. We live, we work, we go on vacations! I just got traumatised when I read about people missing anonymous calls and never being recontacted. This is AWFUL!

Haha :-D well it's not THAT bad...
Just would feel really bad if I would miss this chance... I took all the effort of applying and such and now because of a couple of days I am completely in the dark on what my status is and will just have to wait! That doesn't feel good

FG85 wrote:Has any of you been contacted by the DG ECHO? I listed them as my second choice and they contacted me without prior notice on friday. I was on vacation walking my dog, so the talk unfortunately took place outside in the woods. The talk lasted about 7-10 minutes. We agreed for me to send my updated cv to the direct email address of the unit. As I was on holiday this proved somewhat difficult, I managed to improvise and sent it yesterday.
I got an auto-reply back saying selection closes the 20th! Which was yesterday. So I called and the very friendly lady on the phone said she could not help me with forwarding it as the process of selection was already complete. I will just have to wait.

My question is: are there any others approached by this DG who want to exchange experiences and: why do they close the selection so fast? They have till the end of the month if I'm not mistaken, to make their choice? Now they don't have my newest cv.. So the coincidence of me being on holiday for a week might make me miss this opportunity.. (I know, I knew the dates of selection prior to my vacation so should have taken this in consideration before. But I didn't know I only had a week of actual selection..)

you have my sympathy as well. I was contacted yesterday. After the standard questions, they asked me to send them 'asap' my ....bluebook number (they had my cv as I lobbied them last week, so no need for that). When I asked when they were to make a decision they said 'today', which essentially meant I had to rush over and find a cyber café to send them my reference number, since the trainee selection was a matter of minutes. To make things even more ridiculous, I then noticed that I did mention my BB numberin my lobbying email (though it was addressed to someone else in the Unit), so I really struggle to see how they could not have it and why the hell they made me go through a hectic afternoon for an information that they could easily retrieve.

At least they sent me an email to acknowledge the receipt of my bb number, but still..!

on another note, the person I spoke to emphasised how 'down to earth' are the tasks of trainees in that particular unit, which kind of puts me off to be honest. So it would be a shame if they had flagged me and I would be missing the chance to speak to other units in the coming days..

concerning the speed of the selection process, I guess it varies from unit to unit..

I dont get that flagging..
If they would really be doing that they could 'flag' their entire short-list and take their time to choose...

Is this really how it works?

Which ECHO units have you guys been contacted by? I also got a call but it went really bad so I'm kinda worried now...

Elister please tell us more, why do you say that it went really bad? How was it like?

elister wrote:Which ECHO units have you guys been contacted by? I also got a call but it went really bad so I'm kinda worried now...

what do you mean by 'really bad' exactly? Mine was A.3, what about yours?

nic85 wrote:

elister wrote:Which ECHO units have you guys been contacted by? I also got a call but it went really bad so I'm kinda worried now...

what do you mean by 'really bad' exactly? Mine was A.3, what about yours?

A5

The interviewer only asked me to talk about my dissertation and when I finished they said: 'so I see you are more interested in Member States efforts on the issue, not what the Commission does". Of course I tried to prove that wrong but they asked no more questions. I think I screwed my chances. Good luck to you though.

elister wrote:

nic85 wrote:

elister wrote:Which ECHO units have you guys been contacted by? I also got a call but it went really bad so I'm kinda worried now...

what do you mean by 'really bad' exactly? Mine was A.3, what about yours?

A5

The interviewer only asked me to talk about my dissertation and when I finished they said: 'so I see you are more interested in Member States efforts on the issue, not what the Commission does". Of course I tried to prove that wrong but they asked no more questions. I think I screwed my chances. Good luck to you though.

yes doesn't sound like the best feedback..sure you'll get more calls..gd luck!

Elister, are you talking about unit A5 DEVCO? What was your dissertation topic if you don't mind me asking?

dgs wrote:Elister, are you talking about unit A5 DEVCO? What was your dissertation topic if you don't mind me asking?

No, I'm talking about Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection (ECHO).

Ok. So civil protection, right? SOunds interesting..I did not lobby ECHO, but they say it's quite small, so they offer very few positions..

dgs wrote:Ok. So civil protection, right? SOunds interesting..I did not lobby ECHO, but they say it's quite small, so they offer very few positions..

Yes, civil protection indeed. I also heard it's quite difficult to get into ECHO.

That's what the lady I spoke to told me too. They have a small amount of positions, but get lobbied a lot! I'm worried though... She obviously couldn't tell me anything about my selection but said she did see my name on a list somewhere which meant she could tell me I was not definitely declined..

Can please anyone tell me about the 'flagging' or 'reserving' of people in the VBB? If that would be the case they could tell you when you are selected. Which means that I'm at best second in line as she couldn't tell me anything..