The results of the concours for administrators are now out, and – surprise, surprise – I did not manage to pass. Here’s the extract of the letter:
The selection board for the above competition has now finished marking the pre-selection tests in which you participated. I regret to inform you that although the marks you obtained in these tests were above or equal to the pass mark, you were not amongst the top 630 candidates.
Point B.1 of the competition notice stipulates that only those candidates with the 630 highest marks in the pre-selection tests would be asked to submit a full application with a view to their possible admission to the competition.
Your marks are as follows (1):
Test a): 38.333 /60 (pass mark 30)
Test b): 15.263 /20 (pass mark 10)
Test c): 30.769 /40 (pass mark 20)Total: 84.365/ 120
For your information, the candidates who obtained the 630 highest combined scores had at least 92.611 points.
I would add that the Selection Board’s decision does not preclude you from taking part in any future competitions organised by the European Personnel Selection Office.
It’s beyond me how one can get 15.263 / 20 when there were 40 questions, but anyway, c’est la vie. All the best to all the geeks who know who won the Sakharov prize in the year X or other equally useful everyday facts.
FILE DOWNLOADS
Blog commenter ‘viking’ has made some new test files available for download, and he had also supplied the manual for electronic Reserve Lists. Some additional test files have been provided by Sorina (see comment #1003) – download 342kb, ZIPped. Enjoy!
SOCIAL NETWORKS
If anyone is a member of Facebook there’s the ‘So I won’t be a Commission official’ Facebook Group, and the EU Integration Traveler IQ challenge (you need to add the Traveler IQ Facebook application) – a more fun way to revise for the concours…
NOTE
Due to such an enormous number of comments here I have had to divide the comments function. The latest few hundred comments are below, and all the older comments are archived here. All should work technically now.
@Miu
No, it’s not normal, they have to offer you an interview, otherwise why did they flag you?!
Send them emails, ask them on the phone, don’t let you be forgotten! As long as you are flagged by one institution, the others are not allowed to contact you, so be proactive and look for your rights. Good luck.
@Peregrine,
Thanks a lot. You are very kind.
Your reply helped me to understand once more that just waiting on the reserve list and hoping is at least naif. But what if I do not know anyone to have this inside information?
Thanks again!
@Peregrine
So recognizable.
@cosnic
I was flagged once by the Council, they arranged an interview for me very rapidly, but it was unsuccessful. Then they left me flagged for another 5 months saying they are looking for a suitable position, but nothing happened, I never had any news back. Normally, they are allowed to let you flagged not longer than 3 months! So, at the end ot the 3rd month, I asked them to release me, but they didn’t. I asked again and again, and there was nor reply neither the flag on me was raised. It was only done after the 5th month, so my advice is to insist on them giving you a feedback and not to remain flagged for too long, as it might prevent other institutions from contacting you.
Good luck!
@Nova
Hi, I am also flagged by the Council for two month now and I haven`t heard anything since then (no call for an interview), Is it normal that they just “flag” you for these 3 months and then release you and not ever call you for an interview and at the same time I am also blocked for other institutions?
And you say to insist to give feedback and not to keep you flagged too long. But who should I contact there, I don`t know anybody in the system and maybe if they already know that there are no vacancies, could I ask to unflag me before these three months?
Any advice appreciated!
Thanks
@ siana, mid-March:
“Peregrine,
Would you be so kind to share with us how long you had to wait on the reserve list before being contacted?
What about the job they offered? Is it a position for the profile of the open competition you passed?
As waiting on the RL seems endless (and hopeless), any information will be appreciated.
Thanks”
So sorry, I didn’t see that you asked me a question!
I entered a competition in 2006, with the interviews taking place in 2007. So it’s been quite a while. I was not ever contacted by the institutions while sitting on the RL. I was, however, told by several people that I can wait until retirement day, if I don’t start actively soliciting jobs myself. The problem is that the actual vacancies are not accessible from outside the institutions, and a lot of heads of unit apparently don’t even realise this. There are enough candidates on the reserve lists who send in their applications anyway (and they can do so because they have contacts who regularly send them the vacancies). I think this is pretty rotten… at least there are places like this forum now where you can find out information like this, but it’s still dubious that the practice diverges so much from the official communications from EPSO.
I had also been told to cold call heads of unit, HR departments in my preferred DGs etc, and I did. People were generally willing to speak to me, but nothing concrete came out of it. I had a hard time finding people willing to send me the vacancies, but I managed to arrange semi-regular access in the end. I got my job through applying to one of these internally advertised vacancies.
Hope this helps!
Here come some comments of mine about the parts of the test:
SJT : This is the part to worry least of all as it is not eliminatory:
My guess is that the most effective options are the ones that lead to getting things done on time without “doing too much evil” … something your manager would love you to do …
The least effective options would be those most silly, those leading to not getting things done on time etc….
Verbal reasoning: not so much different than other times … just wonder if it is possible to get full scores consistently.
Numerical reasoning: I don’t know if the tasks were not somewhat more difficult than last time, or it was rather my personal condition … but this time my score would be 8/10 rather than 10/10 . The issue is not complexity of tasks but limited time, the math involved is of primary school level but 2 minutes per task can get difficult.
Abstract reasoning: here again, the issue is limited time, 1 minute per task was too little for 1 type of figures. I suppose that with some practicing of the types of figures tha occur in the test, it would be possible to get a full score …
Just came back from the AD 5 177/10 CBT.
Quite surprisingly, I did not do as well as I expected (my last EPSO numerical and verbal score was 20/20), this time I did not complete all numerical tasks on time, so at most 28/30, and the abstract reasoning at best 8/10 (did not get the system of 2 figures)
So, instead of the desired 40/40 something like 35/40 … not a clear hope of making it to the assessment center. I wonder what went wrong with the numerical reasoning – the tasks are easy but I was slow this time, perhaps due to bad sleep, having worked too much, EPSO making the tasks more difficult … or just missing the old good EU knowledge test (?)
Kiwi and Caro,
I do believe that the latest EN translator list includes a couple of non-natives. Pretty good when you consider that about 4000 people sent in their application and only 24 or so got onto the reserve list. Therefore, Caro, it’s worth giving it a try!
Hi!
Is anyone out there getting ready for the less exciting, “old” style, oral tests for EPSO/AD/169/09 that will start on 14th of June?
@curious1
With regard to the number of native speakers who applied in the last EN translator concours, I would like to make the point that being a native speaker does not make you a translator! (although many native speakers make that assumption). But it is true that there is no requirement for a translation qualification. Ultimately, I think both non-native speakers and native speakers enter these competitions without really understanding what is required of them (i.e. a *very* high standard of accurate and idiomatic translation) and then fail.
A further important point is that you need proficiency in *two* languages to pass the concours. I have a degree in translation but my qualifications are in German and Russian and I work professionally translating just from German into English. I have done three concours in the last fifteen or so years and whilst I have passed the German written test each time, I have always failed my second language, which is French, a language I didn’t study beyond school and don’t work with professionally (of course I could still fail the oral even if I passed the written tests). A lot of people have a very good first language but are not as proficient in their second language (I would say my German is near native-speaker standard, but at the same time, I would never dream of applying as a German translator, for the same reasons cited by Kiwi – although I revise many excellent translations into English done by my German colleagues, so I know there are exceptions to the rule). If you have just one good language it is difficult bringing a second language up to the required standard alongside other commitments.
The standard required by the EU really is exceptionally high and just one or two misunderstandings of the source text or omissions will mean your translation will not pass – at the very least you are expected to understand the text and be able to render it faithfully in its entirety!
@curious1
I think what happened is that lots of the non-native speakers sit loads of different EPSO exams and get very proficient at doing the EU questions and the verbal and numerical reasoning (based on conversations I overheard at the tests), so they pass the pre-selection bit but fail the translation tests. Many competent native-speaker translators miss out at this stage. The new competition is supposed to do more testing of the native language to try and address this problem.
With due respect to your friend, I completely disagree. I speak excellent French and write very good French (and did a masters degree in France, in French) BUT would never in a million years dream of translating into French because I know that the standard of my translation will fall far short of what I can do in English. However, as I say, there are people who can, but I think it is very rare – although they do sometimes do reverse translation here when they don’t have anyone with rarer languages, and apparently many (for example) Bulgarians are very good at it, so there you go – but it still always needs to be revised by a native speaker afterwards.
I don’t think it would be fair to make being a native speaker a condition, because there are people who can do it without being a native speaker, but I do think there should be a stringent pre-selection test of people’s English (this isn’t such a problem in the other languages, as everyone appears to be attempting the tests in English rather than, say, French or German).
@kiwi
Well, I wanted to hear how it is 🙂
However, I am amazed by the numbers: even if just 20% (720) of the applicants had been native speakers, that should have given a sufficient pool to fill 40 places – about 20 native speakers per vacancy. Or is it that most native speakers did not make it through preselection/written tests and most non-native speakers did not pass the oral exam (where the selection board can effectively decide to not let any non-native pass)?
It seems to me there was a substantial flaw in the selection process; I do not believe it is not possible to select 40 competent translators out of 3600 people with university degrees …. (Almost feels like there is a secret rule that non-native speakers won’t be let in?)
A friend of mine – AD5 translator in Luxembourg – has complained to me – he is annoyed by the fact he is not allowed to translate into any other language as he used to in hs previous job.
I think it is pretty common for translators around the world to translate into languages other than their native ones. Of course, the quality of the translations varies…
I think even DG Interpretation allows lots of non-native speakers to interpret into other languages.
On the average, native speakers will be much better translators than non-native ones just as graduates of university translation courses will be much better than graduates of other courses – but having a degree in translation is not a condition . So I wonder if being a native speaker is – and/or should be one ?
@ bored – I was recruited at AD5 (step 2). Whether people consider the money good or not depends on what you are comparing it with. For translators it is generally a lot more than you can get elsewhere, except if you do vast numbers of hours as a freelancer (but then you don’t have all the conditions of working for the EU). For people in the financial sector it is not so attractive as their earning potential in the private sector is better.
@ curious1 – this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I think it is virtually impossible for non-native speakers to pass the translation exams. I think there are a very few individuals with a particular gift who can translate into a language other than their native tongue, but it is extremely rare. In my competition there were 3500 applicants for 40 places on the reserve list, but only 18 passed the exams – mainly because most were not native English speakers.
@kiwi
Given your experience, what would you think of chances of non-native speakers to succeed at exams/recruitment for translators?
Thank you Nova for the feedback!
@cosnic
I was flagged once by the Council, they arranged an interview for me very rapidly, but it was unsuccessful. Then they left me flagged for another 5 months saying they are looking for a suitable position, but nothing happened, I never had any news back. Normally, they are allowed to let you flagged not longer than 3 months! So, at the end ot the 3rd month, I asked them to release me, but they didn’t. I asked again and again, and there was nor reply neither the flag on me was raised. It was only done after the 5th month, so my advice is to insist on them giving you a feedback and not to remain flagged for too long, as it might prevent other institutions from contacting you.
Good luck!
Hi everybody,
I have a question about the “flagging process”: does it happen often that an Institution flags you and after three months release you without contacting/scheduling an interview?
I have been flagged one month ago and nothing happened so far; I was flagged once in the past, but back then I was contacted beforehand via e-mail (with the job description and request for interest), so I knew I was going to attend an interview.
Thanks in advance!
@Kostas
If you are a functionary AD5, and you want a job in the same level AD5 elsewhere, normally it is not a problem. You just check regularly the positions opening up that are reserved for people who are already functionaries. You can find these positions in Sysper2. Then you apply and your application will be checked just like the applications of the other AD5 functionaries who are interested in that job. If they are interested in you, they will invite you for an interview and if the outcome is positive, you get a job offer.
If you are a functionary AD5 and you want a job at, lets say, AD7 level, you need to first pass an EPSO concours in AD7 level to be in the database of successful candidates, and then you can apply. Or you perform really well at your current job and after some years you may get promoted to level AD7, and from there you can apply internally for another AD7 position.
If you are a temporary agent or contract agent, life is much more difficult…
Hi all! does anyone know that are the possibilities in reality to start working for an institution and afterwards change jobs in the eu (go to another institution)? (ex. as an AD5 after 2-3 years of work).
Thanks
kiwi, when you say the money is good, what grade were you recruited at?
@ Pseudo Nym – not sure about the new tests, but I used EUtests for the old-style competition and thought it was excellent preparation for the real thing.
@ Caro
I remember you! I’m extremely happy with my job – it’s much as I expected, only better. The work is more varied and interesting (I think I had in mind the kind of work they get at the Commission, whereas I think the EP work suits me bettter – shorter, less technical texts, tighter deadlines etc). Working environment is great, really nice people, nice boss, good money and really good conditions. I also like Lux a lot although it takes a while to settle in anywhere new and I did go through a couple of months in the middle where I was more negative. It’s been really easy to make friends though, and it’s such an attractive place and lovely for children. Do ask if you have any other questions, but I would highly recommend doing the competition… especially as there really does seem to be a shortage of English translators, and if you pass I would think you would get a job very quickly.
@ Kiwi
I notice you still are still active on this board and remember your posts from before your appointment. Now that you’ve been at the EP for a while are you able to comment on whether the work / working environment has fulfilled your expectations? It seems a very big step to make the move to Lux and the commitment to the job, I am wondering about applying in the next round (I just missed passing one of the translation exams in the last concours). Would appreciate any thoughts you could share.
And another thing… for those who did the test already: what did you think of the Situational Judgement Test?
Just wondering did anyone use EU Training website (used to be EU tests I think) as preparation? I am usually not much good at these tests but I did one on that site and did really quite well… I am wondering if the EU training site has really easy tests or did I (I wish) somehow improve?
@ Rayos
I totally share your view on the abstract reasoning part! I sat the exam the other day.
I took part in several competitions in the past and have always made it to the second phase (written tests). In the verbal and numercial reasoning part, I always scored something between 92.5 and 100% of the points. (the 100% in an AST competition, my highest score in an AD competition 96.67%) Thus, I was quite confident that it would work out well this time as well. I felt well prepared before taking the test (I bought two books, the “EU Ultimate Test book” and the one by Peter Rhodes mentioned by RIS in a thread above). As concerns the verbal and numerical reasoning parts, I have got to say that they were exactly the same kind (and level) as in previous years. The questions all had about the same level of difficulty (and, according to my experience, there never were “very hard” or “very easy” ones). The abstract reasoning part, however, was weird. I think that the variance among the task was quite huge. There were several really hard ones, well beyond anything I had practised before, and some easier ones. The 10 minutes were really short, I think. As they have a database of questions, and taking the variance in the levels of difficulty into consideration, I think it heavily depends on which questions you get…
@Eszter: in my case the question always was ‘which one of the following options is correct’.
@RIS: I used ‘Testez votre QI. Nouvelle edition mise a jour’ by Anne Bacus, Marabout, 2007, because it was recommended to me by the people in the bookshop at Schumann roundabout. I had little choice because this semi-official first abstract reasoning test preparation book published by the editorial that does all the epso test preparation books was not out yet when I had to start my preparation. The ‘testez votre QI’ is full of exercises, their solutions plus explanations, and apart from that very little theory. Altogether 538 pages. It for sure helped me to some degree but obviously not enough.
I thought I was well prepared but the complexity of the figures in the Epso exam was way beyond those described in the book.
@Rayos and @User2008,
Thank you for sharing this information.
I think that the abstract reasoning is mostly a question of luck (with the questions you get, the computer bug that hits you or not…).
So it will be a competition
@ Rayos, Could I ask you what book you used for Abstract reasoning and how useful was it?
I had access to:
1. “Practice Tests for Diagrammatic and Abstract Reasoning” by Peter Rhodes – it has a good theoretical part, but only a small test that looks like EPSO’s one. And, also this example test is too easy and does not prepare you enough for the exam level.
2. On the other hand, “EU Ultimate testbook 2010” has quite a lot of examples, but many of them are quite irrelevant to this exam.
There are some grid problems, find “the odd out”, etc and also the level is lower then at Epso.
I think in the EPSO’s exam, there is just a series of 5 figures where you have to find the sixth one (no grids, no odds-out…)
So, I am still searching for a good book.
Good luck.
Hi all,
I sat the exam twice. Firstly, I had just had 7 questions of my abstract reasoning test, and the software bugged. Then I was offered either to go through another new test right away, or to arrange a new date. I chose the first option and then everything was normal. Though it was very exhausting.
Regards
Rayos,
thanks for sharing your experience. in the verbal reasoning test were the questions all “which one is correct/incorrect” or has there been precise questions as well?
Eszter
Ok here is my personal experience with the new Epso exams… I sat mine today. I had no technical problems with Prometric or the computer. The time for the numerical exam was really short, and for the abstract I found it definitely too short (or too difficult, either way). 1 minute per question for abstract reasoning, and I studied a 400 pages book with exercises about this before, and I think these questions for Epso are at the high range of difficulty (my opinion), for 3 questions time was too short to answer them so I had to guess.
Verbal reasoning was fine.
The SJT seemed like a guessing game to me. Maybe I just didn´t prepare enough.
I went out of the exam room totally exhausted. Good luck to everybody else.
I sent you the contacts via your non-public contact form, maybe better not to post them here…
First time I have written anything here for a *long* time!
I have a question about EPSO and the concours, and hope one of you may be able to help me… I need to find a speaker from EPSO who would be willing to present the current concours rules to a group of German Masters students from Berlin. Does anyone know anyone from EPSO I could contact to ask about that?
Thanks!
@ Yankunytjatjara
thanks for having shared your experience (by the way, another colleague of mine had the same problem with the SJT, so you’re not alone)
other 2 small questions : 1) verbal and numerical part > questions are all different (one from the other) or some of the texts/problems to solve are the same like the examples provided online by EPSO? 2) more difficult or similar to the examples provided online by EPSO?
Thanks in advance.
Very many thanks to “Yankunytjatjara” for kindly sharing his/her admission test experience! Rizpekt, man! Wish you’ll make it to the 2 stage! BTW, what about the verbal and numerical reasoning parts?
The abstract reasoning part was quite easy, the sequences weren’t as hard as others I found on the web. I saw often more than one rule in the graphics, leading to the same result. I had even time to review the answers, which on a total of 10′ is quite something. I’m more concerned with the SJTs, thanks to those bugs I basically had a lot less time than the official one: I tried to go back and forth with all the questions to check if the answers were sticking, and in several cases, where they weren’t, I tried several times and finally called the tutors. Quite annoying!!
@Yankunytjatjara
Thanks for the early input. Prometric is not always a perfect test provider.
The biggest concern for me is that they don’t even have centers close to my city.
What about the abstract reasoning part. Does it work fine? Was it rather difficult?
Good luck
The new SJTs don’t work!! I tried the exam this morning. The system is buggy, when you have dragged the answer box on the empty box it seems to stick there, but if you click ‘next’ then ‘previous’ to return to that question, it won’t be there!
I suggest to all to postpone their exam as much as possible, let the betatesters paid by prometrics fix this, don’t be their betatester… As I was…
Be careful with “The Ultimate EU Test Book 2010” (5th Edition) by Andras Baneth, I’ve found some very annoying mistakes and incorrect answers!
Hey guys, has anyone on this forum previously taken the oral test for EPA? (this is under the old system – I am scheduled to take it in May as part of the last bunch under the old system). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
“So if the probation period is 9 months, you are entitled to 9+1=10 months allowance…”
Yes, but ONLY if you are entitled to the household allowance. And many of the new AST or AD5 recruits are not. So for them it’s either 120 or 180 days.
Cheers Kiwi. I have applied for a couple of AST posts for one of the political group in the Parliament. As these are temporary agent posts, I don’t know if there is less allowances involved. I’ll need to look into it in a bit more detail.
Michel,
thanks! You are right, I should read the whole article.
EU Careers (EPSO’s profile on Facebook)
Dear all,
A few of you have been wondering how the booking of the computer-based testing is being arranged. Hopefully this will answer you questions:
The booking system for 2010 is different compared with previous years when candidates had to wait until the end of the registration period to be able to book and take a test. As of 2010, the registration, booking and testing periods will overlap. The CBT stage will now only take 9 rather than 14 weeks. Once candidates validate their application, they can choose their testing date, on the basis of the seats available.
The full registration period for this open competition is divided into different sub-periods. The numbers of seats/dates needed in order to be able to accommodate all tests are then calculated on the basis of the overall number of validated applications for each of the above mentioned sub-periods. Therefore, not all test dates/centres/seats can be opened as from the first day of booking (24th March), even though various dates are already available both in April and May. Seats are available on a “first come, first served basis”. If candidates can see only a limited number of dates/centres/seats available, this means that other testing slots have already been booked by other candidates. Additional test dates/centres/seats will be added gradually, taking into account capacity needs.
I hope that this information is useful for you!
Best, Alice G (Comms. Team – EU Careers)
Ala,
If you read the article till the end it says:
“(b) in the case of an official who is entitled to the household allowance: 180 days or, if the official is a probationer, the period of probation plus one month.”
So if the probation period is 9 months, you are entitled to 9+1=10 months allowance…
Kiwi, may I ask you about the daily allowances? How come they are paid for 10 months?
The staff regulations say that you get them for 120 or 180 days (Annex VII Art. 10). Is there some new provision about the extension of this period? Thank you!
Stevo – there is a daily subsistence allowance when you first arrive which lasts for 10 months if you are a permanent official with a 9-month probation period. However, this allowance is stopped as soon as you claim removal expenses (if you decide to do so).
There is also an expatriation allowance (16%) or foreign residence allowance (4%) depending which criteria you meet, and this lasts throughout your career (unless you move to a workplace in your own country).
so i give you the minimum advice:
1. just mention youre degree relevant to the competition. mentioning others is really useless at this stage.
2. don’t mention any certificates. again, it is useless at this stage.
general advice – keep things simple
I fear this is not a good advice when dealing with EPSO 😉
i can just one advice to you pedder – use your common sense!
well, I was trying to put in my data (AD/177/10) – and had the following problems:
1) they say that you are supposed to first “enter the qualification that gives you access to the competition or selection procedure. Check that it matches the qualification requirements of the competition or selection procedure. Then you can enter all other qualifications that you consider relevant. ”
If I save it, the program brings all my degrees in chronological order… So – some other degree (which might not give me access to the competition) appears first…
Did anyone encounter the same problem? What did you do?
2) As concerns exchange semesters etc: did you give any info? Generally speaking, you don’t get a degree, only maybe some certificates of participation or so. Do you just say “other certificate”, and then specifiy it was a study abroad semester?
Thanx for your help
pedder