Twice a year:

• Traineeships beginning in October: applications open in January of the same year.
• Traineeships beginning in March: applications open July-August of the previous year.

You must submit all supporting documents at the same time as the application form.

 Your application is assessed automatically by the system.  

Quotas by nationality are applied to EU candidates to ensure a spread of nationalities.  

A weighting system is applied to determine the number of preselected applicants for a given EU nationality.  

Population size and number of applications from a given country are considered, with safeguards to ensure that smaller countries are adequately represented. Third countries are grouped together in a single quota.  

National thresholds vary for each session, based on number and quality of applications.  

Your supporting documents are verified by a committee of independent evaluators against the information provided in your application.

The highest scored candidates (around 3 000 successful candidates) are included into the Virtual Blue Book (VBB).    

There are 3 times more candidates than places available. 

Once in the VBB, you can apply for up to 3 traineeship positions.   

Interviews may be conducted by phone at the initiative of the recruiting entity.  

If none of your 3 applications is successful, you still have a chance to be selected by any other department whose posts have not yet been fulfilled during the second round of selection.

If selected, the Traineeships Office issues the placement offer. You have the choice to accept or reject it but rejecting it will automatically exclude you from any future offers for that session.    

Any unofficial communication between applicants and DGs/Agencies/Bodies does not constitute an offer.  

YES = Traineeship

NO = No traineeship for this session, no further offers will be sent.

Candidates can submit a new application for the next session(s).