NEWS: EPSO strives to increase the diversity of its talent pool and thus help the EU Civil Service be fully representative of the diversity of the EU citizens it serves. Therefore, it has launched a pilot diversity survey to better understand the diversity of the existing candidate pool and improve its outreach to future potential candidates. Find out more about the survey
The EU institutions – where talent counts!
Our vision and mission
Here at EPSO we believe in equality & diversity. To ensure that the EU institutions offer equal opportunities to everyone and reflect the diversity of today's world, we uphold the following principles and objectives.
- EPSO ensures equal opportunities, treatment and access to all candidates regardless of their sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation;
- EPSO respects inclusion in the selection procedures and provides all candidates with an equal opportunity to fully demonstrate their competencies by identifying and eliminating their blocking factors, possible biases and risks of discrimination;
- EPSO promotes equal opportunities and engages with various stakeholder groups and expert organisations in order to reach out to a more diverse talent;
- EPSO wishes to increase diversity in the talent pool and help the EU Civil Service to be representative of the diversity of the EU citizens we serve.
- How do we turn principles into practice?
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Discover the concrete steps we have taken to turn equal opportunities and diversity into a working reality.
- We ensure that your test questions are neutral by performing systematic statistical analysis and monitoring;
- We base our selection methods on standardised and objective competency-based assessments;
- We perform anonymised CV screenings and markings on objective criteria only;
- We provide reasonable accommodations for you if you have a disability or specific needs;
- We implement the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities;
- We systematically perform equality and diversity screenings/audits of selection processes and tests. We identify blocking factors and barriers that might affect your selection procedure and adopt corrective measures;
- We perform regular accessibility screenings in order to continually improve accessibility of our communication, selection procedures and tests. When necessary, we produce adapted formats accessible to assistive technologies and individual assistance. We also integrate accessibility requirements in any new IT developments;
- We train selection board members in charge of assessing your competencies on how to select and recruit in the most biasfree, objective and professional way respecting equal opportunities and treatment;
- We aim to have balanced boards of selection members to limit any risk of bias and discrimination. When appointing selection boards we strive for members from diverse backgrounds and look at ensuring a balance in terms of gender, nationalities, languages, staff committees and administration;
- We collect systematic feedback from candidates allowing us to continually improve what we do;
- We do our utmost in our communication to attract talent from all EU member states by adopting targeted ways of reaching key audiences. This includes EU Careers Staff Ambassadors who blog about living and working in the EU to show potential candidates what an EU career is about. But also, we have an active on-campus presence through the EU Careers Student Ambassadors, as well as through targeted participation in careers events, fairs and other activities.
- In order to tackle gender equality, EPSO has adopted different actions such as an on-going psychometric action plan with the objective to continuously improve the management of tests, in particular psychometric and other tests administered at the preselection phase. Furthermore, selection board members in charge of assessing candidates’ competencies at the Assessment Centre are trained on how to ensure equal opportunities and treatment in interviews and other exercises.
The key goal, at any selection stage, is to minimise gender impact and offer the same opportunities to women and men to demonstrate their abilities.
EPSO has therefore undertaken detailed research and actions to avoid discrimination between women and men and to ensure that equal opportunities are provided to both genders to demonstrate their skills and potential.
- Disability/ specific needs
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Your disability or medical condition should not be an obstacle to your participation in a selection procedure.
EPSO has a well-established reasonable accommodations procedure based on international best practices in this field. This allows us to identify barriers and obstacles due to a disability or a medical condition, and allow candidates with specific needs to demonstrate their abilities on an equal basis with any other candidate.
Need special adjustments of selection tests?
Discover our step by step flyer on how to request special adjustments of selection tests.
If you encounter difficulties accessing this document with assistive technology, please refer to this accessible version.
Check out EPSO’s new Guide on reasonable accommodations and find details and some tips and tricks on how to request special adjustments in EPSO’s selection tests.
You can also watch our video on special adjustments available below on this page.
For any additional information, please send an email to epso-accessibility@ec.europa.eu
- What type of special adjustments can I expect?
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Based on your disability or medical condition and the difficulties it may pose in a testing situation, you will be asked to inform us about the type of adjustments that would be useful for you. Indeed, EPSO considers the candidate to be the best expert of their disability or medical condition.
On a case-by-case basis and taking into consideration your supporting documentation and EPSO’s expertise built in the field of reasonable accommodations of selection tests to candidates with specific needs, you will be offered accommodations per type of test you will need to sit. Therefore, the final accommodations you will receive may differ from what you requested.
Some examples of possible adjustments:
- ensuring accessibility
- additional time to sit the tests
- enlarged texts or magnifying software
- print outs in Braille or Braille keyboard
- Screen readers
- Sign language interpretation
- adapted lighting height-adjustable desks
- individual assistance and much more…
Find out more in EPSO’s overview of possible accommodations in the selection tests.
Please note that assistive technology is for the moment only possible at the Assessment Centre phase in Brussels. EPSO is currently working at enlarging the scope to allow the use of assistive technology at other stages of the selection process and for different types of tests. In the meantime, we will continue to analyse your needs and offer you assistance and ad-hoc accommodations to allow you to take the tests in the best possible conditions. All other accommodations are possible at different stages of the selection process.
Are you pregnant or breastfeeding?
Discover this brochure for more information or read EPSO’s Policy for female candidates requesting reasonable accommodation(s) in staff selection procedures related to pregnancy and childbirth.
Difficulties with accessibility?
Accessibility is very important for EPSO and we are intensively working on continuously improving accessibility of our communication and selection procedures. Regular accessibility screenings are performed in order to check how accessible we are and how we can enhance accessibility for all. Accessibility requirements are integrated in all new IT developments; we produce accessible formats to assistive technologies of documents which are not 100% accessible and we are currently auditing our website to reach AA level of WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
Are you still encountering difficulties accessing some parts of our website and/or documents? Or would you like to give us your feedback and help us out in enhancing accessibility of our website and selection procedures? Please feel free to contact us and we will come back to you as soon as possible!