How to prepare the EPSO (and other EU bodies) written tests

This book will help you prepare a Written Test (WT) related to the field, Field-Related Written Test (FRWT), or Free-Text Essay on EU matters (EUFTE) for competitions or selection procedures, especially those ones organised by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) or directly by the EU institutions or agencies, to get a job in any of them.

It contains a description about this type of exercises; an analysis of the EPSO written tests and non-EPSO (other EU bodies) written tests; our method to prepare this test and improve your writing skills; our study in detail of a case closely based on an actual EPSO test, including the solutions to the assignment and giving additional tips to build your own responses; and finally our conclusions and recommendations for your training. We have added a second exercise to facilitate your practices with this method.

All this from the personal and professional experience of a successful candidate in numerous tests designed by EPSO and other EU agencies (reasoning tests, case studies, written tests and assessment centre interviews), being an official at the public administration in Spain and having held several positions as a Head of Unit from 2009 to the present, mostly in the areas of human resources, finance, programme management, law enforcement, competition and general administration.

He has also worked as a national expert at the European Commission, gaining additional experience on communication and political affairs at the EU level, provided training to civil servants and coached many candidates for open competitions (numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning, 'talent screener', practical exercises and interviews), helping them improve their abilities and competencies.

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Author's note:

I would like to clarify to all my potential readers, after the review of one of our clients, that the large number of pages of this book is due to my decision to include the full documentation provided as “background information”, even if it is currently available online (in the links given, for a better reading experience), just in case it is no longer available in the future.

As you can check in other books of my collection, the price hardly depends on the length of the books (since the impact of printing costs is less than two euros for doubling the number of pages), but mostly on the demand of the book and the sales platform.

My purpose is to present a systematic approach that you can apply to the preparation and execution of your exercise, regardless the type and length of your background documentation, which may vary a lot, from the classic written tests in the field used by the institutions and agencies to the new written tests included in the most recent EPSO competitions (e.g., just one document with a Commission’s Communication in the field). To face any of them, you only need to apply the same method and strategy that I recommend in this book.

The main value of this work is that it offers not only two different types of exercises from EU competitions, but also the steps to follow for the preparation and some solutions that were “validated” by the selection board, getting the candidate to pass the respective competition, so I am sure that these materials will also help you to succeed in your tests.