EPSO does not disclose which recruiting service shortlisted candidates for testing. If successful in the reasoning tests, candidates will be contacted directly by interested recruiting services regarding the next stages of the recruitment process.

Sample questions and guidance materials can be found in the EPSO testing section of our website. Please note that these examples are provided for information purposes only and are not training materials. EPSO does not offer preparatory courses and does not endorse any external publications or training services. Some EU Member States may offer support or training for candidates. To find out whether such opportunities exist in your country, please contact the relevant national authorities directly.

For open competitions, detailed information about the tests is available in the Notice of Competition.

References to the source materials used to develop the EU Knowledge Test will be published on the EPSO website approximately two months before the date of the respective testing session.

See also: EPSO Testing - AD5 Graduates

Candidates can take the tests from anywhere in the world, as long as the environment requirements set out in the instructions for online testing are fulfilled.

Please note that the timing of the tests cannot be modified, so candidates in different time zones may have to take the tests during the night.

Candidates in other time zones must also ensure that their computer’s date and time settings match their current time zone, in order for the TestWe application to display the correct timing of the tests.

For contract staff selection procedures:
You will receive the invitation to sit the reasoning tests in your EPSO Account approximately 2 weeks before the test date.

For open competitions for permanent staff:
You will receive the invitation to sit the reasoning tests in your Single Candidate Portal approximately 10 days before the test date.

You can upload your new ID document in the My CV section of your Single Candidate Portal (SCP) account.

To update your ID document in your account:

1. Go to My account.
2. Select My CV.
3. Add your new ID document and its expiry date.
4. Attach a copy of the document using the paperclip icon.
5. Click Save.

If you also need to add the new ID document to an application you have already submitted, you must do so before the deadline for uploading supporting documents.

The new ID document should be added to the ID document section of your application, in addition to the document already uploaded.

1. Go to My account.
2. Select My applications > My submitted applications.
3. Click on the unique ID of the relevant application.
4. Scroll down to the ID document section.
5. Click on your ID document entry and attach the new document using the paperclip icon.

Documents added to your application are saved automatically.

No. All candidates are invited to sit their tests on the same day and at the same time.

The exact date and time of the tests are published on the relevant competition page as soon as they become available. Please note that it is not possible to change the date or time of your tests.

In the context of EPSO’s selection procedures (competitions) a subject matter expert, or SME for short, is someone whose job is to participate in the process of creating certain types of written tests, such as field-related questionnaires.

SMEs are officials from the EU institutions and bodies served by EPSO. They take on this task for a limited period of time, in parallel with their usual work. Officials become SMEs on a voluntary basis, following a dedicated call for interest. They are nominated formally by their organisation of origin and must have a relevant profile in terms of knowledge or expertise in order to participate in the process of test development. They must have no conflict of interest as regards their competition in order to be confirmed as SMEs.

Nominated SMEs are trained by EPSO on test development methodologies before they take up their duties and continue to receive specific support from EPSO throughout their assignment.

Every test development process is analysed by EPSO’s team of psychologists in order to detect any possible bias. EPSO ensures that the process follows the agreed standards for large-scale selection procedures such as the ones organised by EPSO.

Please check the Notice of Competition or Call for Expression of Interest of your selection procedure for the number of questions, duration and pass scores for the tests.

All EPSO tests are organised online. Please see Online Testing – What you must know. Detailed instructions for the online tests are sent together with the invitation to the tests via candidates’ accounts.

If you are no longer interested in sitting the tests, you may simply choose not to sit them.

For contract staff selection procedures, choosing not to sit the tests will not affect your eligibility, and your application will not be blocked.

You may still be pre-selected again by recruiting services in the future.

EPSO tests will only assess your knowledge of language 1 (L1), which can be any of the 24 official EU languages. It will be tested through the verbal, numerical, and abstract reasoning tests in a form of multiple-choice questions. Your knowledge of L1 must be at least at level C1 (proficient user).

Your knowledge of language 2 (L2) (to be chosen from among English, French and German, but different from L1) will be tested by the recruiting services. Your knowledge of L2 must be at least at level B2 (independent user).

Further information on the above tests is published on our EPSO testing page.

Recruiting services may organise additional language tests.

The online tests require a third-party external contractor to take control of your computer while you take the test. Among other things, this prevents candidates from browsing the internet or running applications outside the scope of the tests.

In order to enable online selection tests to run on a corporate computer — including those made available to staff of EPSO’s institutional clients (e.g. the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and others) — multiple security controls would have to be disabled, relaxed, or changed by an authorised administrator.

Corporate stakeholders must ensure that risks to their digital environment are minimised, which is why candidates usually cannot use their corporate PC for remotely proctored tests.

Open competitions for permanent staff:
Your test results are only valid for the specific competition in which you took the tests.

Contract staff selection procedures:
Under certain conditions, your test results may be taken into account in other contract staff selection procedures.

All competitions are run via online tests. EPSO started this transition during the pandemic, and the vast majority of candidates have welcomed the flexibility provided.

Online testing via EPSO’s external contractor allows candidates to sit the tests securely in a remote location using their own computer.

When taking an online test, candidates are continuously monitored using various monitoring tools, including video and audio recording.

The Competency Framework defines the competencies that are considered essential to perform effectively in any given job within the EU institutions and bodies that EPSO serves.

Some of these competencies are assessed by EPSO during the selection phase, while others are assessed by the EU institutions and bodies themselves during the recruitment phase.

For more specialised profiles, the EU institutions look for candidates who are highly qualified in their field of expertise.

Information on field-related competencies, as well as on the tests assessing both general and field-related competencies, can always be found in the Notice of Competition.

Please consult the general competencies and their respective anchors (“anchors” are the elements taken into consideration when assessing a given competency).

The main objective of EPSO’s reasoning tests is to assess key reasoning abilities required for future EU officials, not to reduce the number of candidates.

Based on well-established scientific studies, these tests have a high predictive value for future job performance compared to purely knowledge-based tests.

Although candidates within the same competition do not receive the same questions, the level of difficulty of the individual tests delivered to each candidate is identical, thereby ensuring equal treatment.

The validity and reliability of multiple-choice computer-based tests have been confirmed by the case-law of the European Court of Justice, which has also confirmed that these tests comply with the principle of fair and equal treatment.

At the same time, computer-based tests allow EPSO to assess large numbers of candidates in a very short time in an efficient and user-friendly manner.

EPSO’s tests are carefully developed and monitored by its team of in-house occupational psychologists together with carefully selected Selection Board members from across the EU institutions.

EPSO continuously monitors the latest developments and innovations in test design based on scientific research and has, in recent years, introduced online testing in its selection procedures.