Working in the EU –Find vacancies, learn about different career paths and contract types

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by Impactpool

The institutions of the European Union (EU) employs over 40,000 people. This means plenty of interesting opportunities for qualified candidates. To get your career going we will explain the different contract types available. You will also find a list of links to websites for all 44 agencies and decentralized bodies. Be advised that most EU jobs are only open for nationals of member states.

  

Being European is an Advantage for these jobs!

 

 

For most positions in the EU, you must be a national of one of the member states of the union. That said, some EU Institutions (such as European Investment Bank, EIB) also allow nationals of supporting countries to apply for vacancies.

The following 27 countries are member states of the EU:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.

 

Career opportunities within the EU – learn about different contract types below:

 

Working for the EU means that you are either tied to an institution or an agency. The EU offers different contract types and career opportunities; the most credible is the Permanent officials category, and these positions are recruited through open competition, commonly referred to as Concours in all languages, originally referring to the French public administration's recruitment exams.
 
Permanent officials

Permanent officials form the EU Civil Service. This group is divided into functional groups: administrators (AD), assistants (AST), and Assistant-Secretaries (AST/SC).

  • Administrators (AD) are engaged in drafting policies and implementing EU law, analyzing and advising. Administrators may find her-/himself playing an important role in the EU's legislative and budgetary processes. Translators and interpreters are recruited as administrators. 
  • Assistants (AST) are generally employed in an executive and technical role (administrative, financial, communication, research, policy development and implementation, etc).
  • Assistants-Secretaries (AST/SC) are employed in office management and administrative support roles.

Contract staff

Contract staff (CAST) are employed for a fixed maximum period, often with a shorter initial contract of 6-12 months, depending on the type of job. CAST is recruited to do manual or administrative support–service tasks or to provide additional capacity in specialized fields where insufficient officials with the required skills are available. 

Contract staff is divided into four functional groups (FG) defined as below:
  • FG-I. Manual and administrative support-service tasks
  • FG-II. Clerical or secretarial tasks, office management, and other equivalent tasks
  • FG-III. Executive tasks, drafting, accountancy, and other equivalent technical tasks
  • FG-IV. Administrative, advisory, linguistic and equivalent technical tasks.

Temporary staff

Temporary staff may be employed to perform a wide variety of highly specialized or temporary tasks.

 
Interim staff

Some Institutions also employ staff on a very short-term and temporary basis (up to 6 months), through temp agencies.

 
Trainees

The European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the External Action Service, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Ombudsman organise traineeships for young university graduates, each lasting 3-5 months. Trainees will have completed their first university degree and receive tasks similar to those of lower AD-grade officials.

 
Seconded national experts (SNEs)

SNEs are national or international civil servants or public-sector employees working temporarily for an EU Institution. They bring specific expertise to the Institution and take back to their home administration knowledge of EU policies and procedures acquired during their period of secondment. 

 
Parliamentary Assistants

An accredited assistant has a contract of employment under European law concluded directly with the European Parliament. They will be based in one of the Parliament's three places of work (Brussels, Luxembourg or Strasbourg). A local assistant is based in one of the EU Member States and has a contract of employment or a service provider contract governed by private law that is concluded directly with the Member and is subject to national law. See the European Parliament's website for information about parliamentary assistants.

 

Opportunities for young professionals - join the European Solidarity Corps

Are you 18-30 years old and from the European Union (EU)? Check out the European Solidarity Corps. This is a fantastic opportunity to work or volunteer to make a positive difference for communities and the people around Europe.

The European Solidarity Corps is the new European Union initiative which creates opportunities for young people to volunteer or work in projects in their own country or abroad that benefit communities and people around Europe.

You can register for the European Solidarity Corps when you are 17 years old, but you cannot start a project until you are over 18. European Solidarity Corps projects will be available to people up to the age of 30 years old.

After completing a simple registration process, European Solidarity Corps participants could be selected and invited to join a wide range of projects, such as helping to prevent natural disasters or rebuild afterwards, assisting in centres for asylum seekers, or addressing different social issues in communities.

Projects supported by the European Solidarity Corps can last from two to twelve months. They will usually be located within the European Union Member States.

More information about the European Solidarity Corps [FAQs]

 

When applying to the EU

To accommodate a large number of applicants, the EU institutions select candidates for their permanent officials through the so-called ‘open competitions’ (commonly referred to as Concours in all languages). The Open competition follows a centralized recruitment process, where you are tested with assessment exercises designed to measure both an applicant’s professional skills and a number of core competencies [click here to read a previous blog post describing skills and competencies]. Successful applicants are placed on the so-called ‘Reserve list’ from which the institutions upon need draw recruits. The competition is not conducted to fill specific posts, rather build a pool of talent when the need arises. (Find more info about the Open competition on the website of EPSO)

 


EU institutions

 
It is good to know that three agencies are excluded from the centralized recruitment process above and follow their own selection procedures, these are:


EU agencies

EU has 44 agencies and decentralized bodies. They are divided into four groups:

  • Decentralized agencies
  • Executive agencies
  • EURATOM agencies
  • European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
These offer a wide range of job opportunities to experts and specialists. The agencies have ongoing recruitments throughout the year even during a time when no open competition is taking place. 
 
Some EU agencies may recruit contract staff from the European Personnel Selection Offices reserve pool (the so-called CAST database). As mentioned above CAST stands for Contract staff. This is a pool of applicants that are deemed qualified after successfully passed the CAST recruitment process, a recruitment process that differs from the recruitment process used in the Open competition. 
 
The main difference between CAST and Open competition is that the CAST's do not need to go through an assessment center and the numbers of successful candidates are not predefined. If successful in the CAST, your name will generally remain in the database for three years.
 
For your convenience, below we have provided links to all available career sites of EU agencies and decentralized bodies, by following these links you can learn more about the organizations. 
 
Note that all jobs are already gathered in our job search - www.impactpool.org/search.
 
Decentralized agencies
Executive agencies
 
EURATOM agencies
 
European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)

 

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Impactpool has the tool to sort things out. Download our career grade converter today! Free for Fellows. In a simple format, we let you compare career grades across different credible International Organisations. We make it easier to navigate the grade jungle.

 

Vacancies at EU organisations

 

 
 
 
 
Disclaimer: We would like to emphasise and remind you as a reader that this article reflects Impactpool's standpoints and interpretations alone. The description you have read of EU careers is not an official EU text, nor approved by the EU/EPSO. This article may include opinions, recommendations, and standpoints that the EU/EPSO does not share.
 
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