EU Staffing Unit EU Careers Month by Charlotte Sanderson

EU Staffing Unit EU CAREERS MONTH :

by Charlotte Sanderson

If you follow @FCOcareers on Twitter, read the Guardian Careers website online, or even cut across the King Charles Street FCO Quad on your way to work, chances are you will have come across the words EU Careers, especially over the last month.

I work in the EU Staffing Unit, tasked with promoting EU Careers to UK Nationals and Civil Servants. Let me backtrack a little…The EU Staffing Unit was set up in 2013 to increase the number of ‘Brits working in the EU’. We are a small, cross-Whitehall funded team based in the FCO, trying to help reverse the declining numbers through building awareness, offering guidance on jobs and secondments, practice sessions and, well, almost everything EU recruitment related really!

The EU recruitment for permanent posts operates on an annual basis, and the application process is currently open until 15^th April. As such we have been running ‘EU Careers Month’ across March and April to promote EU Careers both within Whitehall and beyond.

The European Union Institutions have loads on offer, and whether you’re a final year student or a recent graduate they’re a great place to kick start your career. This is why back in January I packed my bags and headed off on my university Roadshow covering everywhere from St Andrews to Sussex (via Durham, Essex and many others on the way). All the of Roadshow presentations were well attended by intelligent, enthusiastic students who came across as being genuinely interested in the opportunities available to them…and we will now support them as they apply!

We have also been working with the Economist, the Guardian, the Times Top 100 Graduate Recruitment and the ICAEW’s Auditor online site to promote EU career opportunities. Our Permanent Under Secretary, Simon Fraser, wrote an article on what it’s like to work in the EU, having himself spent six years working in the Commission. The DPM was also keen to tweet on the importance of Brits in the Institutions when the competition opened.

The crowning showstopper in our EU Careers Month has undoubtedly been our ‘Discover EU Careers’ event held in the FCO on March 21. All the space was taken with a full house in the Locarno Suite, speakers including the Head of the European Personnel Selection Office, David Bearfield, as well as British EU officials who gave their take on working in Brussels (and Luxembourg).

The event was also a chance for everyone with an interest in the EU, be it UK based or abroad, to get together, mingle and just get talking about these opportunities that at times can seem very far from reach. The event was attended by a mixture of UK civil servants, university students and careers advisers. Here is what James Penn, a final year student at St Andrews had to say;

At the conference, I wanted to get a picture of what life is really like in Brussels or Luxembourg. All of my  questions and more were answered during the day and it would seem that if international policy-making, the opportunity to make a positive difference to the lives of 500 million people, a multi-lingual and multi-cultural working environment and the prospect of global travel appeals, then a job in the EU maybe for you (and me!) Not to mention ultimate job security, language training, generous pay and one of the most varied graduate jobs available.  It’s a job for life but also a lifetime of different jobs.

The panel discussion introduced a human element to the conference as it brought together three Brits currently working in the EU institutions:  Julien Crampes (European Parliament), Helen Mosback  (European Commission) and Sabrina Schlee (Court of Auditors). All three had got through the notoriously hard ‘concours’ (the EU selection process) first time round and had recently started their careers as EU civil servants. All had refreshingly different backgrounds (recent graduates, working on Intellectual Property law in Spain). I found it interesting to hear that despite living and working in the heart of the EU, all commented that they had never felt as British as when working for the EU institutions. Native English speakers are also often asked to proof-read information that they would not normally be privy to, meaning their influence can grow within the organisation very quickly.

In the challenging times that Europe and the world face today, we need to be putting the best and brightest forward to work in the EU Institutions. It’s not an easy road to take to get there, but if you like a challenge – we’re here to help.

If you are interested in a job in the EU, or just keen to find out more, take a look at EPSO and do get in touch with us at eucareers@fco.gov.uk

Charlotte