How hard is it to get a job in the EU?

BabyE

I speak English obviously as well as a B1/C2 level French and B1 Spanish. I have a degree in economics and looking to do a master in European economy or something or other, wondering how difficult it is to get a job in EU?

whomitconcerns

Well as a road sweeper? A doctor? It's as hard as it is here. Obviously if it's a rural German shop floor role not having German will be an issue

BabyE

Apologies, I meant the actual institution or one of its branches like the European economic and social committee

BabyE

Right need to reach fluency in French I guess.

random_guy

It depends on the job you want and what your CV says. There so many EU Commission departments for nearly every topic, and then the various associations related to them.

You could also look at training schemes/internships?
Having multiple languages is a definite advantage.

random_guy

Mr.S wrote: »

Fully depends on the job though.

But yeah I would get your French up to a very high level if you intend to work and communicate through French

Correct - this depends totally on the job.

I know people living and working in Germany who work in a European institution and can't speak a word of German after a few years.

The same goes for people working in Brüssels who can't speak Dutch or French.

TheAnalyst_

Depends on the institution. I found it very easy but that was more due to the lack of competition.

Btw, you should use Irish for the B2 as the level of testing is typically far lower.

tea and coffee

HAve you looked at the jobs on Public jobs? There are a huge number available overall. Languages is perennial issue with Irish candidates, but the application process is quite long (onerous!) too. There is a website http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/Work_Of_The_Department/European_Union_Division/EUjobs/ and they can provide help, particularly once you have passed the initial application stages.

I'm not sure what age/stage you are at, but there are unpaid "stages" available as well which might help you get a foothold.

j.s. pill II

As a recent graduate, a logical starting point might be to get a place on a training programme for one of the institutions. For the European Commission, registration for their training programme is still open for starts in March 2017. You'll often see this programme refered to as 'Stages' (French for traineeship apparently...)

https://ec.europa.eu/stages/home_en

If a masters is on the cards I would certainly suggest completing that first and applying for 2018. Use this time to vastly improve your language skills too as this is an absolutely essential requirement (Don't just dust off your leaving cert books - be sure to spend some time in a French speaking country!). For the Stages recruitment process, there is a competency based assessment which has to be done through your second language. Also, if you're trying to find work in the broader Brussels ecosystem (for example, an NGO or lobby group) language skills will be extremely important. Even if your office is English speaking, it will invariably be the case that a candidate with a second language will be hired over a candidate without - all things being equal.

I should point out that I don't have any direct experience of these application processes or indeed or working in the EU. My sister has been through it all though. Be careful not to fall in to the trap of doing perpetual internships. My sister said she's seen people in their 40s doing internship after internship in the hope of getting a foot in the door for a job that is just never going to materialise.

Good luck with it

j.s. pill II

For anyone who's interested, an advertisement for contract positions with the Commission advertised on Publicjobs.ie

https://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/campaignAdvert/34537.htm?lang=en

Has some useful links on the Europass CV system, language requirements etc.