Dear Mr Salles,
Even though I represent a private company, I took the liberty to address this open letter to you on the occasion of your recent appointment.
We have been helping candidates prepare for EU and EPSO exams for 15+ years. I hope that our perspective, informed by tens of thousands of clients, can contribute to your mandate of fixing the significant weaknesses we have witnessed over the past few years.
First, congratulations on your appointment to lead EPSO. Your experience and fresh perspective come at a critical moment, when trust among thousands of candidates—and EPSO’s reputation itself—is at serious risk.
As you are certainly aware, the latest translator competition fiasco was more than a technical mistake. Over 9,000 candidates have to retake their tests because EPSO's current external contractor allowed multiple answers where only one was correct. The consequences weren’t merely logistical—it damaged candidates' trust, wasted their preparation time, and called fairness into question.
This issue is not isolated. European Commission internal competitions have also been heavily criticised for ambiguous questions, poor formatting, and tests of trivial knowledge rather than competencies relevant to the specific job roles. Staff unions openly termed these tests a "fiasco", indicating systemic issues. When roughly 3,000 current EU staff doubt the fairness of their own career progression, it signals a deeper crisis.
With the imminent launch of the Generalist AD5 competition, admittedly the most significant exam of the past 5 years, EPSO’s reputation as a reliable, professional service needs to be asserted. Candidates need to know that their time, efforts, and career aspirations are respected. Any alternative risks deterring qualified applicants, prompting legal challenges, and diminishing the EU's attractiveness as an employer at a time when the European project needs the best and the brightest.
EPSO’s choice of and reliance on external contractors warrants careful consideration, especially now that the public procurement to choose a new exam provider is about to be concluded. I hope your office will implement far stronger quality checks, proactive contractor oversight, and serious contingency planning, including redundant systems and crisis plans, to handle errors promptly without unfairly impacting candidates and tarnishing EPSO’s reputation.
On top of this, the selection system must be fine-tuned. Subject matter expertise or EU knowledge, while important for future EU officials, is ill suited to rank candidates on as it does not measure their ability to perform well in the job in any psychometrically reliable way. With the abolition of the Assessment Centre, an important “selecting-in” tool was lost and it is not clear how satisfactorily this has been replaced.
Your tenure offers a chance to address these problems directly. Candidates will be hoping to see the development of a cohesive strategy that is predictable, systematic, consistent, transparent, and most importantly, professional.
Make EPSO a leader of public service selection service (just as it received the “innovation in recruitment” award at the UN Career Development Roundtable in 2017) by taking immediate action on current problems and creating a clear, strategic vision for long-term improvements. The EU simply cannot afford repeated failures in selection and ultimately, recruitment, at such essential functions.
Beyond fixing current flaws, there is a fundamental question to ask: is the current selection procedure the most suitable system to find the best professionals who will carry the European project forward? I believe that with a solid vision, effective leadership, and a few necessary adjustments, it can be.
Best regards,
András Baneth
EU Training, managing director