Vacancies

The more common set of successful candidates recurrent questions vis-à-vis job openings are:

• How do I find information vis-à-vis job openings?
• Why are the job positions not published externally?
• Am I allowed to postulate for a job opening?

Please allow me to explain How the system of job openings works.

The job opening is an internal position, that is open to internal candidates (officials) which are due for mobility. This is the reason why job positions are not published externally (with the notifable exception of same senior management positions). Thus, successful candidates are not allowed to postulate for such job openings.

NB: The EU institutions apply a system of obligatory job rotation (normally every 5 years) for all sensitive posts in order to avoid among other things the building of "cliantele" relations.

The simplified version of the whole "vacancy" procedure is as follows:

1. In anticipation of a vacancy for a (permanent) post, the unit decides to make a (first) publication of a job opening. Normally there is a period of around three weeks for officials from the same EU institution to submit their candidature.
2. If following the first publication of a job opening, there are no (suitable) internal candidates (officials) from the same EU institution, then the unit in question, will most probably redraft the job opening and will shortly after re-publish it for a second time.
3. If following the second publication of a job opening, there are still no (suitable) internal candidates (officials), then the unit in question, will most probably open the job for candidates from other EU institutions, thus transforming the post to an inter-institutional job opening.
4. If following this third publication, there are still no (suitable) internal candidates (officials in any EU institution - even in a different country), then the unit in question, will most probably be given the chance of looking to the available reserve lists for suitable candidates.
5. However, there is still the possibility that, i.e. the reserve lists of successful candidates of open competitions are depleted, so the unit cannot find any suitable person for the job opening. The unit may decide at that stage to opt for a short-term temporary contract in the form of a contractual agent contract from the CAST lists.

I hope that the above information will make the recruitment process of aspiring candidates a little bit more transparent.