Hello,
I would like to know if anybody here once had the case that they got a written job offer, but then it was withdrawn?
I am on a reserve list only valid for 2 institutions and for a very specific profile. A few weeks ago I had an interview and received via email the job offer. I was asked to confirm my starting date and the insitution also confirmed. As I had a written offer, confirmation of starting date, the right institution wanted to recruit me and for the right profile, I resigned from my current job.
I did not see any risk of not passing the medical exam or any other formal procedure. And I did not wait for an official contract as I was told that officials don't get a contract, but only an appointment letter which is usually handed out on the first working day. Furthermore, the service wanted me to start already on 1.11.
The institution now wanted to send me some official offer letter, but when they started writing it they realised that they had made a mistake. It turns out that they only had a specific quota available on my reserve list and this was already used. Only the other institution can hire the remaining people on my list. They tried to negotiate with the other institution, but this other institution refuses to give away the quota.
So now I am in the situation, that I resigned from my job, the insitution who wants to hire me is not allowed to do so and the institution who would be allowed to hire me does actually not have an immediate job offer. They only block this because they might need someone in the next 2 years.
Did this happen to anyone already?
To me this job offer is legally binding. I can't know the internal procedure. Does anyone know what my rights are?
Thank you
What an awful situation for
What an awful situation for you. I can only comment from the viewpoint of the European Commission, but I imagine the rules must be the same in the other institutions as well, as the Staff Regulations are the same. The recruiting unit makes the initial job offer, but it is not legally binding. The only entity who can make a legally binding job offer is the HR department of each institution. This is made after the medical exam results, and after the entire recruiting file has been reviewed. Mistakes are rare, but they do happen. For this reason, we always stress to the candidates that they should not resign from their current job until they have received the legally binding offer from the HR unit. It is very unfortunate that this was not made clear to you. Under no circumstances should the recruiting unit have promised the job to you, or worst case scenario, stress you to resign so that you can start on 1 November (I hope they did not do so). We are aware that people have jobs and often the resignation period is three months. So we just have to wait, so that the process is fair for all concerned.