Lobbying with units

Congratulations to those preselected! About lobbying - my advice is to contact directly the units you are interested in. Not all the units get a trainee - so you can quickly even give the secretary of the unit a phone call asking if the unit will have a trainee, then contact the Deputy HoU with your CV (deputy is the one normally responsible for recruiting people).

In the unit where I worked last year they only considered people that directly contacted the unit. This is also how I got my traineeship 2 years ago, so it is definitely worth it!

And the general e-mail addresses you were provided - well, they go to the HR unit of each DG, that in my case had nothing to do with the selection of candidates. All they did was sending in reply automatic e-mails and probably deleting the CVs directly afterwards - not very helpful.

Thanks for the info! I was preselected and I'm going to lobby. Would you recommend sending the same european CV that was provided with the application or a personalized one? I don't like the european CV and I would prefer to send one created by myself as I think it's more personal... However, I'm not sure whether they prefer to have the same documents that were provided before.

I sent them a different CV, with a photo and of a format I considered appropriate. Other thing is that at the Institutions everybody is using the European CV format (the Europass CV) - I took my Europass CV in word and personalised it a bit. I don't think in the units anybody cares what is in your EPSO profile, however if they are interested in you for sure they will also have a look there.

Hi Aneena... Thanks for the tips. I am just afraid how it will look if I send emails to more HoUs in the same Directorate?? Also, I am afraid that system will recognize me as spam after ... let's say 5 emails

Nooo the system is not so smart When I was applying for a job after my traineeships I literally sent HUNDREDS of CVs, got 11 interviews out of it. 1 in 70 CVs or something gave me an interview
I know it is spaming, but on the other hand it is not my fault that the system is so bad and unless you contact the people directly they will never know of your existence even though you're in all of those databases.

Hi Aneena,

Thanks so much for the advice!! Could you give some tips on what to write in the email?

Thanks,
Senta

Hi!

I have also been selected and am starting to lobby. The only problem that I have encountered is that it is quite difficult to find the email addresses of staff working in the commission. Is it a good idea to phone first to request the address?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hi Aneena, thank u very much for advising all of us! as sentita said: any tips? and wich email addresses we have to send the lobby? thank you very much!

Thanks Aneena! Is sending your e-mail to the deputy head of unit always better than to the head of unit himself?

Another problem I have encountered is that I want to e-mail a unit of Trade, but it only states the HoU's name like M. Jorgensen. Can't find his first name anywhere. Any tips on where to look and how to get an e-mail address out of that?

Hi AnoukM and All,
I am also new to this forum, and very glad we have it! I also got to know yesterday that I was pre-selected, yeeey !! After the first moments of happiness I am facing the same questions myself as you all.
@Anouk: just a tip, for the email address if you need a full name, try to google the family name with the terms European Commission and linkedin, and if the person has a public linkedin profile, then you will have a full name you were looking for... That is how I found my contacts' full names. Success to all!!

Thanks etusje! and good luck

How long are the e-mails you guys send?

Which person u send the email? to the head of unit? Whera are the emails? Thank u!!

I have been pre-selected and am now about to start lobbying. I am particularly interested in DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

I'm quite confused about the whole lobbying process. Should I email all the Head of Units in all of the units in that DG which I'm interested in? Should I email other people in the unit?

What should I attach? My CV of course but should I also include a PDF of my original application (not sure if I saved it!)? Should I also write a new personal statement/cover letter about why I want the role, etc?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

AlbertRoi, I was asking similar questions myself as well... I think that is very important to be as specific as possible regarding which units we are mailing. Think it through which units you want the most, and send emails to the HoU of those units only that you really want.
Mailing all the HoU's in a DG would just be not okay, I think, because it gives the wrong impression, in my opinion. The whole point of this lobbying is to give the right impression, so.. On the other hand, I understand your question, as I feel like I want to email more and more people, hehe, but we have to be rational and limit it very specifically to the ones that we are really interested in unit-wise. I sent out 3 emails, and even though it is very tempting to send out more, I will not do so.
Regarding the lengths: I also tried to limit my words as much as possible, because 'less is more'... So, I wrote a short motivation letter - and all the times I paid attention not to repeat the contents of the previous letters (which was btw very hard), so that they would see you are really interested in THAT specific unit. Of course, telling them a bit about my background, experience, etc., but in a way that you show them why you want the position, why you would be good in it, how you imagine your work, what is your work ethic, etc... so the conveyed message has to be strong. I did not attach the application file, as they can find it in the Blue Book anyways, so... I only attached my CV (not the Europass version, but my own), as it gave me more space to tell them details about myself. Regarding attachments the CV is enough, I think, because I felt here that again, no need for the pdf, as the less attacement, the better it is... well, that is my opinion, hope it helped of course you should not take it for granted what I say, it is just an opinion

That is very helpful etusje, thank you.

Where did you find the email addresses of specific HoU's? On this website, http://ec.europa.eu/staffdir/plsql/gsys_www.guide?pLang=EN&pId=435, I can see the units and the name of the heads but I can't see their email addresses there. Any ideas?

I haven't found them anywhere, that info is not in the staffdir. I just saw that all email addresses end with @ec.europa.eu, and before that it is normally a firstname.famailyname combination ---> so you need to investigate and combine and you have an email address

I think sending it to all units you are interested in is the key. I do not think that they exchange information on who has contacted them. I got a reply from a unit within DG ENV that the selection process has not yet started. So lets not panic

Yes, as Aneena mentioned that she sent hundreds of email, I think they don't exchange info about possible trainees. It is huge system, and they are busy people!
So you can write to anyone and as much as you want, just of course the mail has a point, in a sense that your profile fits to the Unit and what they do.

In the DG I'm interested in, there are 8 directorates and then 4/5 units in each directorate. Should I email both the director of the directorate as well as the head of each unit I'm interested in?

This is all quite confusing...so many DGs, directorates, units, etc.!

Just Head of Units... they will decide. I mean, if you have time send email to others too, but as you said there is sooooo many!

Vielen Dank mdenic85!

Hey guys,

Just one quick question. How do you get the email addresses of the Heads of Unit? I made a phone call to ask for an email address, but they said they don't give out info like that.

Thanks!

It's very hard to find emails. Although it seems to always be firstname.surname@ec.europa.eu

Thanks AlberRoi! I might try it!

I didn't send hundreds of CVs for the traineeship, only a couple of them and very specific. I got an internship in the unit that was working on a subject I wrote my Master thesis about. THey were impresed about my paper and accepted me as a trainee. Hundreds of CVs was when I was applying for a job afterwards. I think for a traineeship it is really good to be specific and underline your strengths for the particular position.

Ah, OK. I mixed internship and job story

Bit I still think that sending many CVs is quite a good idea, I think it is even better to follow up with a phone call to check, whether the unit accepts trainees at all. Not all units have trainees! So if you really really want to work for a particular unit, you wrote your motivation letter and prepared everything to apply there and the unit doesn't accept trainees at all you might have a very bad surprise.

I have sent about 8 emails but got only one reply and that said that they haven't started the selection process. Does anyone have any information on DG ENVIRON, DG ENERGY or DG CLIMA? Although I assume DG CLIMA is just coming back from Doha...so no surprise there