EU cancels recruitment exam results, nearly 10,000 candidates forced to retake exam

The announcement by the European Personnel Recruitment Office (EPSO) on April 11 has caused many angry reactions from candidates.

An error occurred during the setup of the online testing system by an outside contractor, allowing test takers to select more than one option in multiple-choice questions, contrary to instructions that only allow one correct answer.

“This resulted in many candidates submitting more than one answer, despite the instructions clearly stating that there was only one valid answer,” EPSO explained in an email to candidates.

EPSO said it was aware of the impact of the unfortunate situation and had apologised. However, the apology was not enough to assuage the frustration of candidates – many of whom had spent weeks studying and arranging their work schedules to take the exam.

One candidate shared on social media that she studied for an hour a day for several weeks to review sections such as verbal reasoning, verbal logic and mathematics. She said studying was difficult when balancing a full-time job and family obligations.

A number of responses have emerged on candidate forums following the announcement of the re-examination. Some candidates have expressed concerns about the fairness of the decision, saying that those who followed the instructions correctly were still required to retake the exam and that their personal work would be affected. Some have also questioned the organisational process and the stability of the examination system run by EPSO.

The exam is for candidates wishing to work in EU agencies as translators in eight official languages. A total of 9,663 people took the exam last month.

European Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari said EPSO and the contractor were still discussing the financial implications of the incident. He also said the Commission had been in a “transition phase” using a new IT tool since the start of the year and acknowledged that some of the question bank content had been built using “controlled AI”.

This is not the first time EPSO has had problems with its exams. In 2023, thousands of candidates had to postpone their exams after warnings that holding the test in English only could breach EU language rules.

Recently, the U4U union, which represents staff working in EU agencies, also wrote to Stephen Quest, the European Commission’s chief human resources officer, asking for the cancellation of some internal exams for staff seeking promotion. The reason given was that the exams had unclear questions and inconsistent structure. In the letter, the union said this was a serious problem that needed to be addressed promptly.