The sheer number of comments at the main post ‘So I Won’t Be A Commission Official‘ has been causing problems, so all the old comments are here instead, and hence searchable.
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If I read the Staff Regs right, TA do get all the same allowances as perm. officials.
I’m just wondering on living expenses. According to the pay calculator (DG ADMIN) this would end up (in my case) being about 5000 Euro.
I would think that a family of four live comfortablly in Brussels on that, but I just want some extra input…
@AD
Not easy to say, please read the EU Staff Regulation, you will see there are several conditions to get the Expat. Allowance.
By the way, are you sure is a 3 years contract for a TA? Sounds a little bit strange to me, anyway the duration of the contract does not influence the right related to expat. allowance.
To establish it PMO uses the “History form”, it is the only way you have to establish if you have the right or not.
Stefano
Basically, what I’m asking is whether a family of 4 (husband, wife and two small children) would live like human beings (survive? be comfortable?) in Brussels on a TA AD5 salary?
Does anyone know if a temporary agent (AD5) (moving from new MS to Brussels) would be entitled to the expatriation allowance for the three years of their contract? Or the foreign residence allowance? Or neither?
It is also very important that we should all read very carefully all documents from EPSO…
@May
Your information is valuable and critical. It means there is no point in lobbying. I was wondering if the same thing applies to non RELEX CAST27 successful candidates.
@Kostas
I continue posting on this blog because EU jobs may still be a point of interest to me. I am thinking to register for the next AD5 concours for EU2 which will take place later this year. I must be a little masochistic. 🙂
And if, in the meantime, I can help others with some information, why not? I have been also helped by others when I was a “novice”. 🙂
Basically no one has the right to distinguish people considering the number of kids or any other “personal information”. And EU Officers are not allowed to ask such a kind of information during the interview at any stage. Only the HR people has access to these information, but in this case the information is used only to prepare your salary statement. The logic is to give equal opportunity to all, non considering the “personal situation”. And I consider this approach really positive, in the private sector people are discriminated for these reasons, to prevent access to the information cut this possibility.
@Olivia
How comes you still post to this site if you are not interested for EU jobs? I think we all appreciate your effort and we thank you for your contribution. Maybe John Worth is actually helping people around Europe to become closer friends!
I think when Kalin says if someone with 3 kids has any chances, he means if someone with 3 kids has MORE chances than others, because of any social policy that helps people with more than 3 kids.
And the answer is NO, when you get in you get more money, but there is no priority for those with many kids.
@mik
I didn’t go to the interview, I refused the invitation, because in the meantime I got a better job in my country (as a manager), so my list of priorities changed a little bit. I am no longer interested in the CAST positions (I am in FG 3).
@Olivia:
What happened with the interview on 15 Feb? Did you got an answer already? Agencies usually work much faster than DGs.
Hi to everybody, I found this on epso/cast27/faq. It´s the first time I hear something about this “Unit K3”:
Directorate General for External relations would like to inform successful candidate in the RELEX profiles of the CAST27 exercise that…
Data of the successful candidates are now registered in the new EPSO database, called ERL.
Unit K3 “Career of officials and contract agents†in DG RELEX, Directorate K “External Serviceâ€, is in charge of the selection procedure to fill vacant contract agent’s posts in the EC delegations (function groups II, III, IV). To this aim we will use the date base ERL.
Selection procedure : two phases
1 – Pre-selection is made by RELEX K3
As soon as a CA post is vacant, the Head of Delegation asks Unit K3 to launch the procedure for the recruitment on the basis of a specific job description and profile.
The search in the data base ERL is done on the basis of objective criteria: sector, country, professional experience, knowledge of languages, etc. The CVs of the pre-selected candidates are then sent to the EC Delegation.
2 – Selection made by the EC Delegation concerned
After a further selection based on the CVs, the Delegation will invite the candidates to participate in a phone interview panel and will transmit the name of the chosen candidate to RELEX K3 to start the recruitment procedure .
Successful candidates should be aware of the following:
– Sending CVs to RELEX K3 or the EC Delegations is useless as all pre-selections will be directly done out of the database ERL at Headquarters.
EC Delegations can neither send CVs to RELEX K3 for the pre-selection nor consider other CVs than those proposed by RELEX K3.
The CAST 27 (Relex) data base is valid for 3 years.
not if you’re a woman, Kalin.
Only thing you shouldn’t do is suggest you want a sex change in the near future. DG ADMIN don’t like dicks 😉
Kalin, are you serious? If some institution or agency rejects your application on such (personal) grounds, make sure you gather as much evidence thereof as possible, you can then make a fortune out of claims against them.
Anyway, you are not required to give details about your family situation in the CV and during the interview they are not allowed to ask you any such questions. If they do, you can always refuse to answer them. Good luck and enjoy the time with your kids!
@Kostas,
I have received the same mail for expressing my interests in a CAST27 FGIII ICT position in Bilbao.
Maybe they do it sistematically.
I wonder, if you say “yes”, does it mean that you are “flaged” and not available to the other potential employers.
Kalin,
no news from ECHA no news from ITER …
Dimitar,
Any news from ECHA?
Samo tam li si bil na interview?
Does anybody know if someone with 3 kids have any chance for TA or CA?
@Breach
Can be both, usually some DGs/Agencies use E-Mail and then they confirm via normal postal service, some other prefer written papers.
Anyway it takes 1-2 weeks to get a letter in the worst case.
Be patient.
Stefano
@Breach
All documents were sent by email. When they sent me these documents they also proposed the date of the interview (I received the email at the end of February and they set the interview for 15 February). But it was not a job at the Commission, it was in a executive agency based also in Bruxelles (Trans European Networks).
@Olivia:
“they have proceeded with sending me the invitation letter and the documents needed for money reimbursement.” <- did that happen over e-mail or regular mail?
I’ve been contacted by the Commission’s Secretariat General last week for a potential Head of Sector position. They e-mailed me whether I had an interest, and I replied positively, but I wonder what I should expect next. I am in kind of an uneasy situation because I am in the middle of a job change…
To Kostas:
I passed CAST27 FG III, Finance/Accounts. When I was contacted I received first the same letter, asking me if I would be interested in that job. Only after I confirmed my interest they have proceeded with sending me the invitation letter and the documents needed for money reimbursement.
I think something has started moving with the CAST27 FGIII ICT group. I got a “job opportunity” letter from OSHA, Bilbao, Spain. Not an invitation for interview, just asking me to declare whether I am still interested or not. Have they sent the same letter to every FGIII ICT succesfull candidate?
Anyone knows the human resource or IT manager mail address of ITER Agency in Barcelona ?
I haven’t sent letters to many institutions or agencies, just to this one. So, I guess I was VERY lucky!!! Now, I am thinking seriously of sending my CV to other agencies too. Who knows 🙂
As I have already said, I am FGIII ICT officer.
@Kostas
Can you please tell us what is your FG and domaine in CAST27? I’m asking this because I’ve took too into consideration the ideea of sending spontaneous letters of application and I would be interested to evaluate the chances of such an intention.
PS. I’m on the reserve list of CAST27 FG IV Adm. publique/Ressources humaines
I think they liked your profile and wish to hear you as well, maybe to check your language skills and generally to get a “feeling” of your personality.
Does anyone have experience on telephone interviews from CAST27? Are there many candidates competing when there is an invitation for telephone interview? I have sent my CV to one of the European Agencies, and they called me back asking me for a telephone interview. There is no vacancy notice published on their site, they’ve called after they had received my CV and motivation letter. What do you think?
yeah, they always seem to be exhausted :)))
I assume that a post is assigned as permanent as early as it is budgeted. In my understanding, these posts are filled up primarily by officials but, as I said, there is a possibility also to hire temporary agents on permanent posts, probably abusing the “a†and “b†options (already quoted by Sebastian above):
“Temporary agents may be employed to perform a wide variety of tasks, within one of the following categories:
* (a) for non-standard (highly specialised jobs) or temporary tasks;
* (b) to make up for staff shortages in cases where competition reserve lists have been exhausted – ;
….”
@Lia
But the permanent posts are not the posts for officials, or am I somehow mistaken?
@claude, I know that the posts fror officials are different than those for temporary agents. For instance, in 2007 the Commission (without the agencies) had 24.812 positions for officials only and 568 for temp.agents. But then they have the category “temporary agents on permanent posts” – app. 17 % of all permanent posts for AD5 in 2007. So obviously, there are a lot of ways to outwit the system.
@ Lia. isn’t it true, though, that the ‘quotas’ that they have refer also, specifically, to people hired at AD levels? They cannot fill quotas for RO and BG with temporary agents, can they?
@ Lia
I think I even know who they hired recently (a Romanian girl from inside, of course), sorry about that. I wonder why do they even assign people somewhere if they do not have any plans with them? This assignment expires in 3 months, right? You still have some time, keep digging!!
I am assigned at the EC and still not much progress. I was just presented 2 vacant posts, one I do like, but most likely I will not get it, the other one is in Internal Control and I am not sure that’s such a nice job. But turning down offers might be risky…
I really can’t understand how those 27 & 22 were employed so fast in the Commission…
@Breach, Lia, Kiril
Guys, thank you for your response. Wish you best of luck, and keep hunting down this EU folks ‘till you get you dream job
Good Bless You!
@sirena, no news. I contacted the Parliament to find out about my reservation – guess what, they informed me that they have already hired somebody in the meantime, so no need to go there for an interview. And here I am now “greenmarked” again…
Today I came across some interesting statistics about Commission staff figures – since October 2007 the Commission has hired 22 Bulgarians and 27 Romanians at grade AD5 .
Temporary staff accounts still for an important share in the BG and RO recruitment – 58 % and 69 % respectively as of 01/01/2007 (both AD and AST).
It seems that since April 2007 the Commission has started actively recruiting temporary staff wih BG and RO nationality, and now all DG’s have almost filled their quotas with BG and RO employees….
@John4
I recommend the following site for a verbal and numerical test sample – http://www.depondt.eu
It is pretty close to the actual computer-based test.
Good luck!
@Lia
any news on your recruitment? or friends of yours?
good luck to us all.
@ John4
They’ve got an example on the EPSO website. But it’s from the paper based era, and I found the computer based test easier.
then I subscribed to one of the online training sites, whose tests i found quite close to the real one. it’s http://www.eutests.eu, but there are a number of others out there. easy to find, and some give you also a free trial, so that you can get an idea of what they offer.
good luck! i’m sure you’ll make it.
@John4, no, the test is not adaptive, it’s random tho 😉 For the Verbal and Numerical part I can recommend ‘Verbal and Numerical Reasoning MCQ’ (I don’t endorse the book in any way, it’s just what I used, and I am quite happy with it value for money-wise). There are plenty of web sites out there as well (well, not plenty really, couple of) which offer sample tests if you’re willing to pay. Good luck.
Dimitar,
My interview was in June 2007, and I received a letter stating I am in the reserve list August 2007. I am still waiting to hear from ECHA…meanwile I got one more interview with another agency, with no success. And I keep applying for non-permanent post at EU agencies.
Kalin,
I mean competition, sorry no access to yahoo at work and i dont still have adsl at home… sorry
@Breach
Thanks for the info dude. I was wondering if this test is what is call “CATâ€(Computer Adaptive Test), meaning that the test is adapting it’s level of difficulty based on your current performance. Any clue from where I could get some practice exams??? I’m cool spending some money if I find something close to the real test.
Thanks man!
Dimitar,
pishi na kalin_galin at yahoo.com
I am AST3 for IT, and by context what do you mean?
Hi Kalin,
no news from ECHA, still waiting … AST5. What I didnt undestand its why we need to do a context after 3 years usually it’s only for official but will see. When you did the context ?
Dimitar,
It is clear what this mean – after two succesfull periods of 5 years each your contract could become indefinite.
Do you have any news from ECHA? What is you grade in the waiting list?
I HAD my oral examination for the translation concours……too many questions about etymology, history, general issues, geography-even mythology! And not at all about personal plans etc etc….as far as the EU questions, they are trying to see what you have understood from all the things u have studied so far, by asking for examples….I am not at all satisfied with myself as I had never thought it would have been so stressful trying to form a plausible and coherent answer (from things that u are sure u know!) in front of 6-7 persons!
Good luck to all of you
The TA indefinite contract is foreseen by the statute, after two renewed contract. I dont really undestand what they mean at the ECHA. I hope Stefano, that already work there, can give me an explenation …
Well, EU recruitment works in mysterious ways… The Commission, for example, seems to need relatively much more RO auditors (70% of the AD/47/06 reserve list for auditors) than BG auditors (40%). Likewise, RO lawyers have a much higher chance of placement at the Commission than BG lawyers – 66% aganst 37.5%.