Contract staff are recruited to replace officials and temporary staff members or to reinforce certain services, generally for a limited period.
Contract agents can be employed to perform a number of different tasks. Some contract agents are employed to support organisational change during transitional periods, and provide extra capacity in specialised fields where additional skills are required. Other contract agents can be employed to perform certain manual or administrative support tasks.
Contract agents can be employed to perform tasks in in four different areas:
- Administrative, advisory, linguistic and equivalent technical tasks.
- Executive tasks, drafting, accountancy and other equivalent technical tasks.
- Clerical or secretarial tasks, office management and other equivalent tasks.
- Manual and administrative support service tasks.
The European Parliament occasionally publishes specific selection procedures for contract agent opportunities on its APPLY4EP platform.
In most cases, Parliament recruits contract agents through the EPSO Contract Agent Selection (CAST) database so your first step is to create an EPSO account. If your professional profile matches the specific needs of a recruiting service, you may be invited to sit selection tests and then to an interview.
You can find the list of open CAST profiles on EPSO’s website.