which DG's have you contacted? which ones have contacted you?

can you please share info about particular DG's?

has anyone been contacted by DG Communication?

So far I sent my emails to certain Units in DG MARKT, JUST and REGIO... and I am still waiting, now a little bit worried cause no one has responded to my messages... ;-)

I sent emails to units in DG Communication and DG Information Society. I got one general reply from DG Comm:

Dear colleague,

Thank you very much for the interest in our unit.
I have forwarded your CV to the person who will make the final selection.

Kind regards

As for me, I lobbied by email a few units in DG ENV, DEVCO and AGRI.

Someone from DEVCO called me on Friday for a phone interview, and they told me they would interview 3-4 more people and make their final decision by this wednesday.
I keep my fingers crossed...

Good luck to everyone !

May i ask which unit from devco called you? I also applied there...

I lobbied among others DG REGIO and got the response today:

"I regret to inform you that REGIO B3 does not have a post available"

Now I worry it will be the same with other DGs i lobbied. Do you think it is now too late to lobby in additional DGs?

I lobbied DG ENTR and was told that the unit I lobbied have not been given any stagiaire post.... So I sent an email to the general address indicated in the pre-selection email and got the following answer:

"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 will start on the 23rd of May and the Heads 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 (27 places available / 45 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 (7th of June). If you are selected, the Traineesships Office will contact you directly from the 9th of July. At this stage, there is no need 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 to you at to whom your experience could be of 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/enterprise/dg/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"

So now I am worried that other units I loobied might not take any stagiares either and I made all the effort for nothing...As for other DG I lobbied, I either got an automatic answer or nothing...(TRADE, ECFIN)

pocahontas wrote:I lobbied DG ENTR and was told that the unit I lobbied have not been given any stagiaire post.... So I sent an email to the general address indicated in the pre-selection email and got the following answer:

"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 will start on the 23rd of May and the Heads 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 (27 places available / 45 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 (7th of June). If you are selected, the Traineesships Office will contact you directly from the 9th of July. At this stage, there is no need 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 to you at to whom your experience could be of 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/enterprise/dg/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"

So now I am worried that other units I loobied might not take any stagiares either and I made all the effort for nothing...As for other DG I lobbied, I either got an automatic answer or nothing...(TRADE, ECFIN)

They are moving so fast this year. From what I've read in this forum, there were always delays and deadline-missing at Preselection and Selection phases in previous years. Not that I'm complaining but really, so shocked at being contacted this month regarding PreSel and Sel already. Seems like we do not need to wait in agony that much anymore.

Mermaid, have you already been contacted for definitive selection? If so, can I ask what DG?

Marcanum wrote:Mermaid, have you already been contacted for definitive selection? If so, can I ask what DG?

))) I have not been contacted, hopefully, yet. But many ppl in this forum have, and who knows how many other out there.

I also imagine that it should be sufficient to send only one mail per HoU you contact, if you do not wish to annoy them further regarding your profile? In the end, there are only so many people you can contact regarding your profile of course, so long term lobbying seems... impossible?

Ok, so I've also contacted within external action service the units for the Americas, Middle East and Human Rights (all three of these areas are very visible in my previous experience and in my CV). And I sent one to the human resources thingy of the EEAS, since the general traineeship e-mail that we got in our email last week didn't work, so I thought it was legit to send my general 'external action service interest' email there.
I think I should stop now or they might think 'who is this annoying person'...
But one more thing: I've mainly tried to highlight my experience with the specific topics (ie with the Middle East my academic experience and that I lived in Israel), but then to include what types of tasks I used to do (ie experience in research, drafting, event organization and general administrative tasks)... How did you guys do it?

Hi there,

I have contacted DG COMP and EEAS until now. I've received no response from the last one, from the people I e-mailed within DG COMP I got to hear that most units there have already selected their candidates by now. Has anyone else received a phonecall from DG COMP? I saw that it was only Joan_85 who received two calls last week.

Hey guys,
I contacted some directorates of DG ENER last week, but got no response so far.
Has anyone heard back from them?

november wrote:Hi there,

I have contacted DG COMP and EEAS until now. I've received no response from the last one, from the people I e-mailed within DG COMP I got to hear that most units there have already selected their candidates by now. Has anyone else received a phonecall from DG COMP? I saw that it was only Joan_85 who received two calls last week.

nothing from comp either

Ingen wrote:Hey guys,
I contacted some directorates of DG ENER last week, but got no response so far.
Has anyone heard back from them?

I had one or two thank you mails, but it seems they're not really giving much info out otherwise.

Marcanum wrote:
I had one or two thank you mails, but it seems they're not really giving much info out otherwise.

At least you had that If the 'silence' lasts till the end of the week, I'll write to DG RTD as it's my second preference.

november wrote:Hi there,

I have contacted DG COMP and EEAS until now. I've received no response from the last one, from the people I e-mailed within DG COMP I got to hear that most units there have already selected their candidates by now. Has anyone else received a phonecall from DG COMP? I saw that it was only Joan_85 who received two calls last week.

i also got contacted by 3 units of DG Comp and they were trying to make me decide very-very quickly which one i preferred. they seemed to be in quite a hurry already last thursday. no surprise, after all, these guys do competition for a living so they must be born strategists

congrats grrr_v may I ask what`s your profile?

Hey - so. Very confused.
There's a lot of talk about lobbying on here?
Can anyone shed some light on this, thank you so much.

I've heard from some DGs and don't know what happens next. My understanding is as follows:

You submit application (make one preference).
Goes to blue book
DGs pick you (you might be lucky enough to get your preference)
They contact you, telling you they've picked you, and that they're passing your details on to the Traineeships HR head office.
The traineeships HR head office then review the shortlisted candidates and get back in touch with you in a few weeks time to tell you if you have been offered the placement.

Am I wrong? Where does lobbying come in?

Incidentally - two DGs have contacted me saying that I have been pre-selected by their Unit ... there is one that I really want and one that I am not as sure about; do I just go ahead and accept them both? Or do I tell the second one I've already had an offer made to me?!

So confused!

Thank you so much for any advice. !

yeah, you got the right idea

1. Submit application

2. Pass eligibility criteria (they make sure that you have proof of what you declared)

3. Pass Preselection, which means you are in blue book.

4. Selection

Now, we are somewhere between step 3 and 4. After passing the preselection, our applications are available for all DGs to be search for in the Virtual Blue Book. So at this point they have to decide who to choose. Some accept lobby mails, others prefer to search themselves in the VBB. Some call to ask for availability, others don`t. It`s your decision what to do, but you will know for sure is you are selected when you will receive the official final offer from the Traineeship Office. Till then, nothing is for sure

To let everyone know,

Division 'Multilateral relations & global governance' of the EEAS will not be offering a traineeship position this period. I just got this answer in response from the unit.

Wait, the entire division won't? There go my human rights unit ((

This is the response I got:
"Thank you for your interest in completing a traineeship in our Division.
Unfortunately, we will not welcome a stagiaire for that period.
Good luck!"
I think she refers to VI.A 'Multilateral relations &
global governance', rather than MD VI 'GLOBAL AND
MULTILATERAL ISSUES' as a whole.

Just to let you know guys,

This is what I received from -DG for Economic and Financial Affairs, Unit- Financial institutions and stability mechanism.


"Thanks for your application.
Unfortunately, my unit cannot have any blue book trainee for the next session."

Has anyone else been contacted these days and got traineeship offer?

in seems that there are potential trainees just with the backgrounds in political science and/or economics. what about other fields? Like communication, culture, education?? Anybody..?

Well, I'm doing international relations now but started out with history/communications; actually I also think the best chances have those that did some sort of 'skills' degree, like finance, maybe law, also HR or similar things. I think it's hard for them to distinguish between the 10.000 international relations students (sucks for me, good for the rest i guess)

I also did my UG in IR, currently concluding a PG in Chinese, hoping it will give me some extra edge in EEAS. Just like everyone else, I've also tried to get some lobbying done but the email bounced back - I'm quite cautious about approaching people from my desired unit but at the same time very curious about whether they are taking up any trainee[s]...

hello everyone!
I am thinking to lobby some DG's. Do you think it is too late? Do you know in what language it is better to write to them, english or french ?

Thank you !

-am I the only one thinking lobbying might not help our cases or -worse- has diminished our options?

(yes.. the paranoia of not hearing anything back has gotten me...)