The often used French equivalent for EU recruitment exams, meaning "competition", referring to the competitive nature of EPSO's selection procedures.
The competitive nature of the selection process comes about because of two factors that are considered when drawing up the Reserve List:
- Each exam has an objective pass mark which is usually 50-70% of the total score of the given exercise to pass, otherwise the candidate is ejected from the exam (e.g. a verbal reasoning exam may have 20 total points of which 10 must be obtained at minimum)
- The second benchmark is a list of the best achieving candidates of whom only the top x will be invited to the Assessment Centre or will be placed on the reserve list of eligible laureates.
Given that the pre-2010 EPSO system had been based on the French administrative examination system, even English-speakers would refer to the exams as "concours".
See also:
EPSO | EU Competition | Pre-Selection Tests | Assessment Centre | Selection and Recruitment | Reserve List
Related links:
EU Concours | The EU Recruitment System A-Z | Article: The New 2022 EPSO System Overview