What is lobbying?

Dear all,

Thank you for all your comments, I have been reading them with interest. Two questions have arisen, if anyone could shed some light on them I would be most grateful.

1. What does lobbying mean exactly?
Candidates who have been preselected have been asking whether or not to lobby their Directorate General or others. I would like to know what exactly they mean. Are they simply resending their CV's and if so, to whom? Or is there more to it? Are you sending emails saying essentially, "hi, please hire "me"? What is it?

2. What is an EC stage like? What kind of work can I expect to be doing. Any detail on this would help my application.

Thanks in advance for your help on this, much appreciated.

Mark.

Dear Mark,
Same here, regarding your first question. Is there anyone who can give the answer of this question?

Lobbying = taking initiative and getting in touch with the units in order to get a traineeship. How people do that? By sending emails, calling, through friends, university professors who know people at the commission etc. etc.

Dear Aneena,

thank you for your quick answer. But does it mean that if you don't know people who will "push" you you can't make it? Anyway, I am a bit deluded.

Well this is what "lobbying" in this forum means. In my case I was sending e-mails to the units of particular interest for me (there weren't that many) and they were impressed by my motivation so I was chosen. But since I didn't know if the particular unit was at all hiring a stagiaire I didn't put the motivation for this unit in the general application, since this would mean trouble in case the unit wasn't searching for a trainee at all or has already accepted somebody else!!!
Of course if you study at the College of Europe and you have a lot of connections at the Commission your lobbying will look differently to somebody who doesn't have anything at all in common with Brussels.

Dear Aneena,


Since I see that you have experience in this, can you tell me have you done lobbying after preselection as i suppose, or you did it even before?


thanx!!!!

Hey, does anyone know anything about Information Society and Media (INFSO), Joint Research Centre (JRC) and Informatics (DIGIT)? Those are mine three choices (for now, still did not send application) and i would really appreciate any answer, story, experience and so ... thanks again!!!

Hello,

can somebody who applied for DGT do the lobbying, or it is only for administrative traineeship?

And if there are several units within my DG (say, 5) and each one of them seems to be doing interesting work and relevant to my background? Would you guys contact the heads of each one of them?

Also, I've been wondering what in case the units communicate with each other and two heads meet for lunch and one of them tells the other "we received CV from this one guy who claims it's his dream job" and the other one responds with "yeah, so did we". That would be a bit silly, no?

No, I don't think that anybody talks about their traineeship candidates There are hundreds of CVs coming to the Commission every day and there are better things to talk about

Believe me, Head of Units won't have time for that. ;-) It's actually quite unlikely that a Head of Unit will actually deal with your application; in most cases the selection is being done by "normal" administrators working at the unit.

In most cases, when you lobby, the email will be dealt with by their secretaries, who might forward it to the traineeship responsible person within the unit. If you choose to call someone, I would say it would be best to call a secretary and not a head of the unit. But perhaps it's better not to call at all.. ;-)

Montecito08 wrote:Believe me, Head of Units won't have time for that. ;-) It's actually quite unlikely that a Head of Unit will actually deal with your application; in most cases the selection is being done by "normal" administrators working at the unit.

In most cases, when you lobby, the email will be dealt with by their secretaries, who might forward it to the traineeship responsible person within the unit. If you choose to call someone, I would say it would be best to call a secretary and not a head of the unit. But perhaps it's better not to call at all.. ;-)

I was actually wondering about that. Perhaps it's not the best idea to e-mail heads of units as they simply won't have the time to bother reading cover letters.

What do you think, Aneena?

Hehe...Last year I even sent some letters to Directory Heads (so the person above the Unit Head), and I got reply to it! One was even pretty promising... he replied in 10 minutes, thanked me for writing to him personally, said they registered me on the list (because I didn't choose the DG in the 3 options), explained that he can not promise anything since they still do not know how many trainee places they will receive (this was on the 8th of Dec.) and there are a lot of applicants, he also CC-d this reply to a person within one of his Units.

Well...I didn't make it, but...I just wanted to clear out, that Unit heads or even Directory heads do take the time, and they probably know better whom to forward, CC your letter/profile + its not the same if someone from the office gets a lobby letter: simply sent from an applicant or from his/her Directory/Unit head as interest regarding an applicant. I'm presuming...but I guess I'm on the right track.

For emailing, you don't have much else of an option than mailing the heads of units; since the other persons email addresses are often not public on the EC website. In most cases, their mailbox is being maintained by their secretaries anyway.

Just when it comes to calling, don't think calling a head of unit will be very effective; better to call the secretary of the unit, if you want to call at all.

What about technical aspects? Do you think it's better to:
1) paste the contents of the cover letter and attach a CV;
2) paste the contents of the cover letter, attach a copy of it in .doc or .pdf (if so, which?) and a CV;
3) simply attach a cover letter and a CV and in the body of the e-mail write some short message (that you applied, got pre-selected and would like to send a cover letter and a CV)?

I have read what other trainees posted: you can paste the contents of the cover letter and attach a CV... the cover letter shouldn't be very long, just say what connection do you have with that DG, what experience or studies in that particular area

hi! i found out i am preselected today so i am wondering what should be the next step..how exactly should i lobby? i have no idea..i read somewhere that if we send an email to the dg, they will give an automatic reply and that it is better to contact the units...but i have no idea..how do we find the units and contact them? i searched a bit and saw that it's not that easy to find the email adresses...and i have another question too: i did the application in german, do you think that the emails i will send now should be in german or should i do it now in english?

FYI, this is the auto response I got from the SG trainee email. Did anyone else get this response last year? Anyone else getting it this year from other DGs?

Dear trainee candidate,
Thank you for your e-mail.
The different directorates of the Secretariat General are now examining the CVs of the pre-selected candidates for a traineeship at the European Commission. In case they are interested in your application, they will contact you in order to check your availability and your interest in their service.
If you are selected for a traineeship in one of our services, you will receive an official offer from the Traineeships Office by the end of December 2011.
Given the huge number of applicants, we would be grateful if in the meantime you would refrain from contacting the Human Resources or the concerned units.

Hi,
I was pre-selected. I am thinking not to lobby because I am not actually sure that the effect would be a positive one.
My choices were: Enterprise and Industry, Economic and Financial Affaires and Budget.
Does anyone know whether this DGs are reactive at the lobby?
Do they call or they just select their trainees based on the application sent?
Good luck to the ones pre-selected.
To the ones not selected, good luck next year

Hello,


anyone who is applying or has applied before to EPSO, HR and Security and Social Affairs?
How do they accept lobbying?
Any advice?



Thanks! and good luck to everyone?