Here you will find the complete recording and presentation of the 2016 EPSO Translators Competition (EPSO/AD/325/16 DA, EPSO/AD/326/16 GA, EPSO/AD/327/16 HR, EPSO/AD/328/16 LT and EPSO/AD/329/16 MT) Information Webcast.
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You can access the 2016 EPSO Translators Notice of Competition here
Webcast Transcript
2016 EPSO TRANSLATOR EXAMS INFORMATION WEBCAST
Download the PDF Version of the Webcast Trascript here
Transcript Quick Links
Today’s Agenda
Place of Work
Language
Citizenship
Available Positions
Why Is It A Great Opportunity?
Pre-Selection Phase
Eligibility
Pre-Selection
Verbal Reasoning
Numerical Reasoning
Abstract Reasoning
Language Comprehension Test
Question Block 1
Scoring
Translation Test
Assessment Centre
Reserve List
Job Interview
Question Block 2
Hi and good evening. This is András Baneth speaking live from Brussels and I am going to talk about the EPSO Translator Exams in this free information webcast to share a lot of insights and background information with you so that you can make the most out of the competition and you are absolutely clear about what the exam entails, what the rules are and how to optimise your chances.
If at any point you have questions, please feel free to type in to the box and my colleague Lenke who is kind enough to assist me with the technical matters right from Budapest will convey these to me.
And today we’re going to talk about the Translator Competition which has just been announced a couple of hours ago. It may not even be published in EPSO’s very own website but it’s definitely in the Official Journal of the EU so it’s entirely official and it’s open.
So there are a couple of Competitions happening in parallel within the framework of Translators. So there is a Competition for Danish language, for Irish language, for Croatian, for Maltese and for Lithuanian.
The competitions will be running over a couple of weeks so we’ll look at everything you need to know about the deadlines, about the formalities and how to make the most out of it. But before anything else let me share a few technical housekeeping with you.
So in case you miss something, you will definitely receive the recording and some of you might be listening to it in the first place as a recording in full. We’re also making the Prezi – the presentation you see on the screen - fully available along with the transcript. And apart from that maybe a few words about our community. You are part of our community, many of you, but maybe there are other ways where you can learn from others, engage with other candidates and make sure that you don’t be alone in the preparation process and you can share ideas, concerns, rumours or preparation tips with others.
We have on the EU Training website more than 80,000 registered users who have prepared with or are preparing with us right now. Over 43,000 fans on Facebook where we share news, information about our offerings and sometimes very light and fun content in relation to the exams or the kind of skills that you need to pass on EPSO competition. And then the test packages are there to help you, help you make the most out of the exams of the competition. To make sure that you can succeed and we’re proud to offer over 25,000 questions in our database which has grown massively over the years. And our customers, our clients have used over 17 million test questions in the simulations on the website and it is information that we try to analyse and make the most out of so that you get the most relevant questions for your preparation.
This also means that the level of difficulty is tailored to your competition, tailored to your needs to make sure that you are ahead of other competitors, of other candidates who may not be preparing with us or who may not be so dedicated as you are right now.
And then the webinars that we offer help you with methodology. We have over a hundred hours of recording of different webinars with over 5,000 participants who have taken part in these methodology sessions and I’ll say a few words about the upcoming webinars we have specifically in the context of the Translator competition.
Now today’s agenda where I’m going to cover a couple of key points to walk you through. First I’ll say a few words about the day in the life of a Translator. What does a Translator do? And this is something I can talk about from a first person perspective, from my own experience cause even though I wasn’t a Translator; I did something with is a very, very similar job called lawyer-linguist – that’s a special kind of a legal translator, proof-reader and a legal perspective but essentially the heart of the job is very, very similar.
And then I’ll say a few words about the available positions because the Notice of Competition might be a little confusing or a little cryptic for you and one of the purposes of these webcasts that we run is to make sure you have very clear and specific understanding about the competition in question.
And then the main issue that often arises is: are you eligible? Can you apply and what sort of profiles are eligible? Happy to answer questions. As mentioned before feel free to type at any point in the webinar into the chat box and I will try to address as many questions as possible. Or if you are listening to the recording, you can send those questions through to our customer service through our contact form and we’ll always answer those absolutely free of charge needless to say and within a very short time frame.
A few words about why an EU job is a great opportunity? The kind of benefits that you can expect when you become an official and then we’ll talk about the actual selection test. Everything begins with the Pre-Selection test which is then followed by the Assessment Centre though in between there is a Translation Test but in some sense it’s still part of the Pre-Selection tests as such.
And then a few words about the methodology from some core basic tips about how to prepare for these competitions and then a special exclusive offer for those of you who are participating in the live session or if you might be watching this within two days of the live event, we share with you a very, very unique offer with a very good discount on all of our services and products if you are interested in an intensive preparation.
So this is the agenda for today and getting right at it. A few words about what does it mean to be a Translator working for an EU institution? And the very first question you might ask yourself is what is the place of work? Where is the job? In formal terms it could be Brussels, Luxembourg or Strasbourg but in practical terms, it’s the first two: Brussels or Luxembourg. Because Translators work to some extent in Brussels, so those working for the Council of Ministers tend to be based in Brussels, whereas those working for the European Parliament and the European Commission the vast majority of the Translators are in Luxembourg. So this issue is decided at the moment of recruitment. It’s not something you can choose upfront. You might be able to indicate some preference but that is not a binding thing, it’s just something you might show but then it all depends on which institution you end up working for and within an institution which department you might be working at because certain services may want to have their Translators close to them (sometimes in Brussels), but the majority of Translator jobs tend to be in Luxembourg.
Going further, which institution you might work for? It’s all decided at the moment of recruitment. And here is a bit of terminology:
EPSO is the Personnel Selection Office. They are not the recruitment office. So what happens and if you see these seven EU institutions all of them are represented in EPSO’s governing council or EPSO’s higher administrative forum, where they decide about the recruitment needs of the different institution. So EPSO’s an inter-institutional service that caters to the needs of the European Commission, European Parliament, European Court of Justice, Court of Auditors, Committee of Regions, Economic Social Committee and the Council of Ministers but the actual recruitment happens after your name appears on the Reserve List.
Once you are on the Reserve List that’s when you are recruitable by any of the Institutions that you see on the screen. So that is the next step, but EPSO does the selection, they are ones who make sure that you have the professional qualities, you have the right qualifications and you demonstrate the appropriate competencies to become an EU official.
And as said before where you end up at which institution is decided at the moment of recruitment but not beforehand.
So having said that we can look at a couple of competitions but maybe a word still on what a Translator does. Well you are certainly aware Translators are translating but they are not proofreading. So proof-readers tend to be hired separately. Proof-readers tend to be focusing on the linguistic and terminological consistency of a text that had been translated by the Translators. That’s one point. Another point: Translators can work on any field or area. So you may be given a text about agriculture, a text about trade, a text about environment, a text about justice and home affairs. Can be any field or area where the EU has any sort of activity. Translators can translate European Parliamentary questions, a position paper from industry that needs to be translated internally. Translators can work on European Commission communication. Translators can work on any document that the EU deals with on any policy field you can imagine.
This usually depends on your actual background because if you have, let’s say maybe a second degree in Agronomy, chances are where you’re going to work, they would give you more text because they know you know the terminology. Or if you have some experience from your university years or afterwards in the field of environment, you might get those texts but this is not something that they want to predetermine. It’s not something that they will test you on during the selection test.
During the test, they test your translation skills and within that how well can you read, interpret how well can you present the certain text in your first language. So in this situation, in the current competitions, what we have is five competitions but each of these has two options. From the ones that you see on the screen (you’re well aware of this that we just mentioned), there are two options and you can only apply to one competition and one option. Now what are those options? Those options relate to the other languages that you speak. So you need to pick a main language which is one of these (that you see on the screen) and you need to pick a second and a third language. So we look at those roles in a second but before that keep in mind the application deadline being 12th of July, 2016 which is still a couple of weeks ahead so please, please do not leave your application to the last moment. Lot of candidates tend to wait for some reason thinking that I’ll do it tomorrow and that tomorrow happens to be always one day ahead all the way when it’s 11th of July and then on the 12th something happens or the EPSO server crashes or some unexpected thing might come across and that’s not good. So do not wait for it. Make sure you thoroughly properly fill in your application in the deadline. Don’t do a silly, formal mistake that might exclude you from participating in this competition.
The most important choice that you need to make at this stage is the choice about the languages. Language 1, Language 2, Language 3. Language 1 is a given unless you are an extremely talented person who speaks a multitude of language, an extremely talented polyglot and given the fair uniqueness of the languages of this competition might be fairly rare that somebody would speak any combination of these.
What I’m saying is Language 1 is probably something you’re not going to choose because this is something that you know very well, you’re fluent, that’s you’re mother tongue and you’re probably not going to have any particular dilemma choosing between Lithuanian and Danish, Croatian and Irish because chances are you only speak one of these.
Once you’ve chosen Language 1 that’s when the dilemma begins because you need to choose a Language 2 which must be English or French or German. This is a relatively easy choice for most of the participants but what makes it a little more complex is the Language 3 and the options in Language 3.
So Language 3 has to be different from Language 2. That’s a very important rule and it has to be different from Language 2 and in the case of option 2, it has to be different from Language 1. So what does it mean? For Language 3 if you go for option 1, it has to be English or French or German so a candidate could choose Croatian and then choose English and then choose French or it could be Irish and French and English. So that’s a good combination, very straightforward.
But then if you go for option 2 in Language 3 you can choose from any of the EU’s 24 official languages as long as it’s different from Language 2 and Language 1. So if you are Danish and then you choose English as Language 2, as Language 3 in the option 2 you can choose many languages except for Danish and English.
So the bottom line is the three languages have to be different. And another factor which not necessarily complicates your decision but definitely has an impact on which one you choose (provided you have the liberty to choose because you speak those languages) is the number of places available for option 1 and for option 2.
And it’s a question which is very hard to answer in advance because we don’t know how many people are going to apply for a given language combination. It’s only a guessing game.
So lining up the languages that you speak well enough or at least you have your reading comprehension and writing ability in those languages, lining those up, listing those you may not have the liberty to choose anything else than Lithuanian, German and French for example.
But in a lucky situation when you have more leeway, more flexibility in that sense, you would probably want to consider the chances and the number of places available which has obviously some impact on your own chances of success.
So we’ve mentioned Language 1, we’ve mentioned Language 2 and what takes more of an analysis whether you choose option 1 or 2 depending on your existing skills or your existing language knowledge. And we’ll get back to the numbers in a moment.
A formal criterion you have to have the citizenship of one of the EU’s 28 member state. That’s a given and then for any position again you have the language side and then you have the formal side.
For the language side here are the numbers. The number of places available on the Reserve List which is at the very end of the process. So for option 1 you see 13, 45, 8, 11, 13 and then for option 2 you have a little less, the same number or a little fewer than option 1. So for instance if you’re an Irish speaking candidate then option 1 gives you far higher chances of success. So if you’re an Irish speaking (well chances are you’re also English speaking) and you speak French or German, that’s a very good combination and you have a good chance of succeeding in this competition given the high number of available places on the Reserve List.
Why Is It A Great Opportunity?
And then in terms of why is it a great opportunity? I don’t think I need to preach to the converted but EU jobs offer a lot of good benefits because there are very attractive salaries. This particular competition is for an AD 5 level, which means entry level, which also means you don’t really need work experience that’s probably very good news. What’s more you can even apply if you are still at university as long as you get your degree by the end of this year.
In any case, this is a good starting position and the salary for an AD 5 position, a net salary is around 4,000 euros with a lot of variables depending whether or not you’re married, whether or not you have children, whether or not you are hired from Belgium or you’ve lived more than six months in Belgium or you are moving to Belgium or to Luxembourg for the job. This all has an impact on your salary, but by and large it’s a very decent salary to start with. And then a lot of good benefits because there’s a very generous health insurance, there are European schools for children and various other perks that come with the job.
Moving on from the job benefits, let’s look briefly at the exam and the actual selection process, for the Pre-Selection phase, you need to sit a computer-based test – multiple choice test on Verbal, Abstract, Numerical Reasoning and so-called Language Comprehension test. For the Verbal and Abstract Reasoning test, and we’ll look at those tests in a moment, and I’ll share with you a couple of insights, a couple of tips how to optimise your performance and how to improve your scores.
For these particular tests there’s an objective pass mark which means that you need to have a certain minimum score in order to be even considered for the competition. That means that for a Verbal and Abstract Reasoning tests there is a combined pass mark of 50%. So you need to have at least 50% of these combined scores because if you don’t you’re out. For Numerical Reasoning, the pass mark is a little lower so 40%. 4 points out of 10. And again if you don’t reach at least 4 points, you’re not going to be eligible for the rest of the competition.
For the Language Comprehension, it’s a 50% pass mark. Each of one of these. It’s 6 out of 12. The interesting thing in these tests is that the objective pass mark is not so difficult to pass. It’s not so difficult to actually succeed in reaching a fairly good score.
The difficult part is not the objective part, the other one is the relative score. And the relative score means that it is compared to other candidates, because they do a ranking. That’s where the whole idea of a competition comes in that you are being ranked according to your scores and depending on how strong the other candidates were in their performance, the ranking determines whether or not you pass to the next phase.
So looking a little further, let’s check the eligibility. How to actually get these jobs? What are the formal and practical eligibility criteria? And then we’ll get back to the actual tests and a few ideas and tips on how to improve your performance.
Eligibility is very simple and straightforward for the AD 5 Translator Competitions. What I mean is that unlike Specialist Competitions where they might require different degrees and there is a subjective element of checking whether you meet certain criteria. None of this is actually an issue for the Translator Competition. What happens is all you need to have is a 3-year university degree attested by a diploma. Which is very straightforward and one very important thing to underline is that it can be on any subject or field of study. You could be a microbiologist, you can be a physicist, you can be a linguist. Any field of study qualifies. You’re not required to have any formal education in translating or interpreting or even linguistic studies. And no work experience is required either.
For option 1, what they do require is a certain level of linguistic skill. This doesn’t need to be formally proven. You don’t need a language exam. You don’t need a certificate of a Cambridge test or a Spanish – I think it’s called DELE. Doesn’t matter. There is no formal document that they require from you to prove your linguistic skills. That’s why you have the tests. That’s why you have the Pre-Selection and the selection tests.
Option 2 – a similar requirement. The only difference being is that language 1 has to be a very high level, has to be almost like a mother tongue level whereas language 2 could be a lesser, obviously still very well mastered language, but not necessarily mother tongue level.
So going further, let’s talk a little bit about the exams and again I encourage you if you have questions type it into the box, I’ll be happy to answer them live right now but of course later as well if you send it to us through the contact form will be forward next to me and I’m happy to address.
So let’s look at the pre-selection exams, the tests that I have mentioned before and a couple of ideas to familiarise yourself with. A very important piece of information is that the Pre-Selection tests are conducted in your first language – the Language 1 so to say. Which as you recall is one of the languages of the competition - so one of those five.
Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning and Abstract Reasoning are all conducted in that language. As a side note, the Abstract Reasoning its not very relevant which language it’s written in since it’s basically the same question every time saying: “Which one is the next in the series?”
But for Verbal Reasoning obviously it’s very important. Numerical Reasoning a bit important and where the language again becomes very important is the Language Comprehension Test. So that’s in Language 2 and Language 3.
Verbal Reasoning in Language 1. A few words about the Verbal Reasoning as a test. I presume many of you have tried some sample tests on our website or on EPSO’s very own website and you’re well aware of the structure of these tests. There’s always a text passage, there’s always a question, there are four statements and one correct answer. Only one correct answer. It’s something I always underline because if you had taken other similar tests you may have had another approach where there were multiple good answers or different shades of good answers, but this is not the case for EPSO. There is only one correct answer in each of these tests.
Timing you have 20 questions and 35 minutes so it’s a fairly high time pressure exercise because until you read the text and identify the four options and choose the correct one, it certainly takes quite a few seconds or minute.
A few things to bear in mind and this is already about some best practices or tips and tricks that I’m going to share with you. There’s very often outside information in those tests where it’s a little misleading or it might confuse you if you happen to know a lot of facts, figures and information about a given subject from before the exam. For instance if the text is about football, soccer if you’re more American-minded English speaker and now that the Euro Cup is coming up, you might read and hear a lot about what’s happening with the different teams, how they’re preparing, who’s winning, what are the odds of winning, etc. That’s outside information but if the text happens to be about football, knowledge you have from before is very confusing. It’ very difficult to separate what you have just read in the text and what you know from before from outside and the four answer options might trick you with that. Because if the four options say something that they know you probably know from elsewhere, it can be very confusing or misleading because then you will pick the wrong answer because you think you read something in the text but it’s actually not in the text.
Another way the test creators might mislead you is generalisations. Generalisation is to say today is a sunny day whereas the text might say today was a little warm and then it was cloudy. So which one is the more specific description and which one is a more general description? Do these two really mean the same thing? So when you have adjectives, diminutives, smaller or larger or the next box that you see on the screen possibility vs. fact, when you have words like “could be” or “possibly”, these prepositions or adjectives change the meaning of the text or shrink or enlarge the scope of the verbal description and that can be again misleading. And one of the answer options operating with these tricks may not really correspond to what’s written in the text.
And then the last point here and of course we can go far deeper than that and that’s what we do in the many webinars I mentioned. A large part of which is actually completely free of charge and available on our website, I encourage you to watch. But one thing that I’ll mention here is similar wording. Given that this is for Translators so language vocabulary, synonyms, homonyms, all sorts of different forms and shapes of a concept, these could have a major impact whether a statement corresponds to the original text or they are using with some sort of alternative description, a similar word which just simply makes a sentence untrue.
Going further from Verbal Reasoning, let’s have quick look at Numerical Reasoning where you always have a chart, you always have some sort of table with lots of numbers and figures and point there is to calculate, it’s a reasoning exercise so you need to use logic to find the right conclusion. One important thing is never be afraid by the sheer number or by the sheer abundance of figures in a chart. There’s always a way to shrink the information to focus only on a limited number of cells or pieces of information because that will speed up your processing of that information.
So for instance if I were to ask here specifically about France and specifically about area harvested you know that there’s only one or two cells in the entire table that you need to look at. It’s not that you need to process everything in a chart to be able to answer the question properly. So in the Numerical Reasoning, there is always a data interpretation. You say: “What is the kind of information I need to find out?”
Next step is how do I get there? What sort of Mathematical operations do I need to use in order to get the answer? And you say it’s multiplication, it might be division, it might be a percentage calculation but you decide on the reasoning - the path of logic. And then comes the estimation which is a method we very much encourage all candidates to explore because you don’t’ always need to actually calculate. If you’re faced with a situation where the answer options are fairly far away from each other: answer A might be 5, answer B might be 280, answer C might be 2,512 and answer D is 15,000. These numbers are very far away from each other. So chances are you do not need to actually calculate but you do estimate and that saves you time and time is the most important asset that you can have in the pre-selection test, in the psychometric reasoning exercises.
I very often compare preparation for the Pre-Selection test to preparing for a sports activity or sport activity - especially running. Most people who are in decent physical condition they can run hundred meters relatively fast. Say 15 seconds. But the question is that if there is an extreme time pressure, let’s say 10 seconds, can you still do it?
And it’s the same thing with Verbal Reasoning, Numerical and Abstract where you can do it but can you really do it within that time frame? And that’s where the practice comes in. That’s why you need to prepare so hard in order to perform faster.
Going further looking at the Abstract Reasoning, you certainly have seen similar charts to this one where you have cryptic shapes and forms and figures and you need to find the next one in the row.
The difficult thing here is again: time. You have 10 questions and 10 minutes. That’s one minute per question. That’s difficult.
Abstract Reasoning on the other hand does not necessarily have to be so difficult because it has a logic to it. The first step you always do is dissect - take apart the chart or the figure and you’re trying to look at the different elements and find the logic of their movement. Here see the little dot that has a certain logic how it moves. It moves downwards and then backwards. You look at the square and you try to identify the shape or the pattern how it moves compared to the previous chart.
The more difficult Abstract Reasoning Tests have yet another logic where the different elements correlate so they move in comparison to one another. This one is not a difficult one. So here it’s only the dot and the square, they are not linked to each other in that sense. This is to say that Abstract Reasoning after sufficient practice makes pretty good sense. And most candidates after practicing enough they know how to find the logic in it.
Now having talked about these three Pre-Selection tests, let’s look at the language test, the Language Comprehension test which is a fairly new thing. EPSO started using it couple of years ago or perhaps one or two years ago and the Language Comprehension Test the Language 2 and Language 3 in both cases you have 12 questions in 25 minutes. So the time pressure is not so incredibly intense (of course you need to be well aware of the time pressure) and the Language Comprehension compared to the Verbal Reasoning is slightly different because in the Verbal Reasoning you look at logic whereas the Language Comprehension is about really as the name suggests the comprehension. What does a certain word mean? So vocabulary and it also has something to do with understanding the linguistic meaning of a text.
So it’s not about the logic that if this is true can that also be true? It’s really about understanding in a very linguistic sense and not a logic sense what the text actually says. So before I move to the scoring, I see here there is one question.
Question: I am planning to do Lithuanian Translator Competition, what test should I buy? I imagine you don’t have Lithuanian Verbal Reasoning tests. Thank you.
Answer: Unfortunately you’re right. We don’t have Lithuanian test yet and I cannot promise we’re going to have it until the exam, but we are definitely look at expanding our Verbal Reasoning offering and currently we have 16 languages and we’re looking at which ones to add. So your question is well taken into account but unfortunately we cannot promise we’ll have that until this specific competition.
Looking at the scoring, the scoring is fairly straightforward. The Numerical Reasoning 10 and you need to pass mark that we have talked about before 4 out of 10. For the Verbal and Abstract is the combined one so 15 out of 30 is the minimum point. So if you really, really messed up your Abstract Reasoning but you’re really good at the Verbal Reasoning, you can still pass but then again you need to perform very well in comparison to other candidates. And Language Comprehension for both cases is 12 points with a pass mark of 6. So that’s the Pre-Selection and one point is that the Numerical Reasoning is not taken into account when calculating the multiple choice so that’s an important thing because for the Numerical Reasoning you actually it’s enough/sufficient to simply get the minimum point. Because the overall point is not taken into account for the rest but of course you want to do as good as possible to make entirely sure you are not going to lose any points even if you thought you already had 4 points in bag.
And then the Translation Test. Translation Test is somewhere in between the Pre-Selection and the Assessment Centre but you only get to do the Translation Test if you passed the Pre-Selection.
Once you passed those, you have two translations Test A and B. The good news is you can use a dictionary and you always translate into Language 1 because even in the job you’re going to be expected to translate into Language 1. It’s very exceptional that you might be asked to translate into Language 2 or 3. That’s the very reason why you have specific requirements about the languages that in the job everything goes towards Language 1. And then you see the timing for the Translation Test. The scoring it’s a different discussion, I’m happy to answer questions but generally speaking, the way the translations are scored, they would look at did you finish everything on time. How fluent is the translation? How easy is it to read? Does it feel like a translation or it’s more fluent and fluid? Is the vocabulary accurate? Did you really understand everything? Did you translate the meaning properly? All of these are factored in when they award your mark. There’s always two persons independently scoring your translation from each other and if their scoring is very different, the points that they awarded you are very, very different than a third person is called in to re-evaluate the test.
So there is a technicality that if you fail the first translation, the second one won’t be marked but the two tests, you actually sit those tests at the same time.
And then a few words on the Assessment Centre which we have extensive materials and Classroom Trainings and Personal Coaching to help you succeed at the Assessment Centre so if you get there, make sure to get in touch with us.
For now enough to say it’s a classic approach for the Translator competitions the way EPSO does for any other Assessment Centre. Meaning that you have the same 8 competencies that EPSO tries to measure and evaluate you on and you’re given points for each. Altogether you can get 80 points, you need to have minimum 40 and then again there’s a ranking compared to other candidates.
So one second I’ll get back to here, to the Assessment Centre. Essentially there are three exams. Three specific exercises that you need to do in the Assessment Centre: an Oral Presentation. You’re given a background briefing and you need to present that to the assessors.
There’s a Group Exercise where you’re sitting together with five other candidates so altogether you are six and you’re given a background briefing and you need to work as a group on discussing the issue and trying to find some solution. It’s not a role play exercise. It’s an exercise where everybody is equal with a background briefing.
And then there’s a Competency Based Interview which is not a job interview, it’s not related to your CV and professional background. It focuses on the competencies that EPSO assesses such as leadership, communication, working with others, etc.
So having said that essentially that’s the competition and if all goes well, which I very much hope and wish for you to happen, you end up on the Reserve List. And the number of places on the Reserve List is what we had seen at the beginning of this webinar - what is communicated to you in the Notice of Competition. The Reserve List is valid usually for one year or if there is no other competition in a year on the same languages then the validity is extended for two years sometimes even beyond. And while the Reserve List has its validity you can be recruited. Recruited to one of the EU institutions in Brussels or in Luxembourg.
The very end of it is when you get a phone call saying: “Hey, we are interested in hiring you.” you go for a job interview. Which is pretty much like a classic job interview, with the caveat that you have very few other candidates who are competing for the same job because they can only invite those who are already on the Reserve List.
So a few things of what do you do. What you can do to get these jobs?
Practice. Practice a lot. Again if you recall my comparison to sports, no athlete would ever go to a major competition without practicing. And some people have very good physical build and they can run fast and they can do things and they don’t need to practice so much. Other people have less. It’s the same thing for the EPSO competition. Some people have very good Mathematical skills but less strong Abstract Reasoning skills or Language Comprehension skills. So practice is a very subjective thing but a very, very important thing. Prepare regularly. And whether you prepare every day for 30 minutes or you prepare twice a week for one hour, doesn’t matter just make sure that it’s consistent. That you’re preparing on a systematic basis.
Learn methodology. There is a way to optimise your performance. There is a way to improve your performance. There are ways to resolve a Mathematical formula faster. To understand a Verbal Reasoning question better. There are ways to do that.
We have enormous amount of information on our website, tips and tricks articles, e-books, webinars, webcasts, all sorts of formats. It’s a gold mine of information for you to learn methodology.
Be persistent and not to have a roller coaster way of preparation. You prepare super intensively for two weeks then nothing for three weeks. Persistently work towards your goal. And do lots of simulation, we’re happy to provide many of these tools on our website and you can also do a study group with some of your peers and colleagues.
You have Verbal Reasoning tests, the interface looks hundred percent like EPSO’s. We have modelled our system on that and we’re constantly refining the quality of the questions, the interface and the way the practice simulation works. This is for Abstract Reasoning.
Our new website ready for you. And then the Verbal Reasoning test, the one I mentioned, we have it in 16 languages so most of you would find practice tests there. So we have Danish, we have Croatian, we have several other languages. The Abstract Reasoning we have in English, French and German. And then we have Language Comprehension Tests as well in English, French, German, Spanish, Greek, Croatian, Italian, Romanian. So the offering is increasing and we’re working on new languages but for now this is the offering we have which is unique because nobody else offers such a wide range of languages for preparation.
So just to highlight the webinars, we have free, completely free “Beginner” webinars for the Abstract, Numerical and Verbal Reasoning and then we have “Pro-Tips” webinars on the same topics if you want to go further and improve and advance your skills.
We even have one webinar called Math Refresher. A very, very popular one which we did specifically to help those whose Mathematics knowledge might be a little rusty and many of you may have studied Mathematics only several years ago in high school and that could be a useful tool to refresh those muscles.
And then resources as free e-books, tips and tricks, and a lot of free demo that you can use with a revamped design interface.
If you’re interested I also have my book which some candidates like to use as a written material for the preparation so Administrator Edition would be the one for the Translation tests.
And last but not the least, the offer that I mentioned at the beginning, 19%, a unique fantastic 19% off from all of our products whether it’s webinars or classroom training, online simulation or anything else. It’s valid only for 48 hours for 2 days. And the offer expires on Saturday evening. I encourage you to take advantage of this and use for your preparation.
Again if you have any questions, type it now into the box. I’m happy to answer those.
Question: Do you have Croatian verbal reasoning tests?
Answer: And I see that there was a question from Martha asking whether we have Croatian Verbal Reasoning tests. And I mentioned before, indeed we have lots and lots of Verbal Reasoning test in Croatian as well.
As I highlighted at the beginning, we’ll send you the full recording very soon along with the Prezi and within a few days the transcript and I see that there is one more question coming in:
Question: Are you aware if performance in previous competitions will be taken into account in later competitions even if a candidate does not make the Reserve List (i.e. if I fail the first stage of tests this time will it have a negative impact on my chances of succeeding in later competitions, or will my earlier test scores not be taken into account)?
Answer: Are you aware if performance in previous competitions will be taken into account in later competition even if the candidate doesn’t make it to the Reserve List? No, the short answer is no. Whatever your performance is in a given competition, it doesn’t prejudice your future scores. It doesn’t have any impact on your future performance. It doesn’t have any impact on the way EPSO judges or evaluates your scores in a new exam.
So you could have done five EPSO competitions before whether you failed or you didn’t fail, it doesn’t have any impact on your application in a current competition. So that’s probably good news and even if in your EPSO profile, there is a digital trace of you having applied to other competitions, the scoring is a completely stand-alone exercise and it’s always judged on the merits, on your performance in that given competition.
Question: If I buy the basic package (translator), can I buy additional tests later, if necessary, and what would be the price? After buying the Basic package, the only option would be to buy a bigger package (Pro)? Or can I buy another basic package with different questions from my first received package?
Answer: I see that there’s another question. If I buy the basic package (translator), can I buy additional tests later if necessary? That’s correct. So you can always top up any package on our website whether you just want 10 more Verbal Reasoning tests or hundred more Numerical Reasoning tests, you can always do that because the system is very flexible and allows you to customise your packages.
So that’s right and if you buy a new package, are we going to receive different questions? It’s always indicated transparently how big the question database is for a given language so let’s say we have 600 questions in a given language, if you’ve already used up all those 600 and you want to buy new ones, the system will show you that of course you can buy it but be aware that there will be repetition.
And I see that one more question is coming in I really appreciate your interest in all these issues.
Question: Do you know when the pre-selection tests are likely to take place? And then the Assessment Centre?
Answer: Do you know where the Pre-Selection tests are likely to take place and the Assessment Centre? Well there is no hard information on that. Nevertheless, if we make a little bit of a calculation (and this is entirely my personal view on this so EPSO might come up with a different roadmap), but based on our previous experience, I would think that the deadline to apply is 12th of July. It’s 99% sure they’re not going to have any test during the summer because August is a very, very silent month in the institutions. So my guess would be that the Pre-Selection test will likely take place in October maybe even November. I don’t think the Pre-Selection will happen any time before that. The Assessment Centre usually happens around 3 or 4 months after the Pre-Selection or let me correct myself; in this case, there is also Translation test so the Translation test will likely take place either at the very end of this year or the beginning of next year and then the Assessment Centre probably next spring.
Again this is my personal take on the timeline and we need to see EPSO’s foreword planning and we need to see the communication that they send out but roughly this is what I would expect to happen.
Question: How many Language Comprehension tests you have?
Answer: Another question, how many Language Comprehension Test you have? I think currently we have 6 or 7 languages but how many tests inside those packages, I’m not entirely sure, I need to check. So if I could ask you to send an email through our contact form, my colleagues will be happy to check it for you and let you know.
Question: I am not really good at Abstract Reasoning. Can I also find the explanation of the good answer in the package?
Answer: And here’s another question, I’m not really good at Abstract Reasoning, can I also find the explanation of the good answer in the package? Yes. So we are keen on having detailed explanations for each of the answers in our system. And I think the vast majority of our tests come with detailed explanations of why a certain answer is the correct one or another one an incorrect one. Actually, let me be more specific, all the tests on our website come with an explanation of the correct answer and many of them, which we have added in the past two years come with an explanation of the incorrect answers as well. So it’s not just one explanation about the correct answer why is that the correct one, but the others are also detailed why those are incorrect.
Alright it seems that we have no more questions coming in at this point and I really appreciate your questions. Do send them along if you have more anytime - whether it’s tomorrow, whether it’s in two months or two years that you might be watching or listening to this webcast. And I wish you lots of luck, lots of success for the EPSO Translator Competitions and I’m sure you will succeed because you have all the tools that you need to prepare and I’m sure you have a lot of motivation and determination to make it all happen.
So thank you very much for your attention, for listening and watching this webinar and we’re exactly on the clock one hour as promised and we’ll send you the recording and then in a few days the transcript as well.
This is András Baneth from Brussels, 9th of June 2016. Thank you very much and have a nice evening