Feb 22, 2010

Career advice from the inside

Are you pursuing a career in EU politics and are you active in a green party or social movement? Die Grünen in Brussels offer career advice for those with brains and a green hart.

Sven Dammann is the initiator of this service. He answered some questions through email for us.

Why did you start this initiative?

Well, as you may know, jobs in the EU-Institutions are quite in demand, a) because they are very prestigious and well-paid, with a life-time contract and a rather good social package, and b) because they go along with access to detailed knowledge about the mechanisms and content of European politics which, of course, is of interest to all those who want to influence the policy agendas in the EU. The latter aspect, by the way, is also reflected by the fact that several EU-member states run programmes that help their applicants to pass the difficult selection processes for EU-officials to make sure their country gets a decent share of the posts.

Working as official in an EU-Institution myself, I was regularly approached by acquaintances of acquaintances, if I could give them tips how to get a post in the EU. Now, as someone who is socialised in the German environmental and peace-movement and an active member of the German Green Party I thought “Why should I give such career advice to someone who just wants a well-paid, prestigious job, but may not even share my values? I would much rather help candidates whom I can trust would use their position to make Europe and this world a greener, more peaceful and more just place.”

I discussed this with my local Green group here in Brussels and we decided to set up an “EU-career coaching” initiative for the green-minded, proactively offering our networks and know-how about the EU-institutions, the Brussels NGOs and the respective recruitment processes to those active in green parties and social movements.

A second aspect important to us is, that even if only a few may end up as official in the EU-institutions, this initiative also helps to build up and maintain an EU policy competence in the Green Parties, which often still focus very much on the national level of policy making, while more and more is being decided or at least framed at the European level.

What is the main obstacle people face when pursuing a career in an EU institution?

Well, you have to be bold enough not to be deterred by the fact that you will have to compete against a sometimes seemingly overwhelming number of competitors. For each of the ca. 700 traineeships per half-year in the EU-institutions there are up to 60 applications, and for the so-called reserve-lists (with around 100 posts) for EU-officials (from which you can be recruited for an permanent post) there are initially often thousands of applicants who register for the selection tests (called “concours” in French). But many of them do not prepare properly and just want to give it a try. I, for example, worked super hard for the first concour in which I participated and was quite depressed, when I failed after in the second of three rounds. But I managed to pass two other concours with much less effort in the following year. So there is a training effect. But once you have e.g. passed are selection process for a traineeship, you have to lobby for yourself for getting a post. We explain all this in more detail in our initiative once people have contacted us and documented their “green credentials”. And for NGOs in Brussels it is a totally different story. In any case one should plan this as a long-term objective and document an interest for European issues already in ones university studies and extracurricular activities.

What is the best advice you have ever gotten?

To talk to someone who knew and was willing to share his know-how with me. Like we do!