Traineeships – Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union

Traineeships offered by the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union

The Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union offers linguistic traineeships for university graduates or students from the Member States of the EU who wish to acquire an understanding of the Translation Centre´s work and gain professional experience.

In accordance with Administrative Decision No 1/2010 on traineeships offered by the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, the Translation Centre is organizing a selection procedure for the following five trainee positions in 2016:

• Romanian translator (Translation Department)
• Latvian translator (Translation Department)
• Czech translator (Translation Department)
• Terminologist (Translation Support Department)
• Linguist specialised in automatic translation tools or computer science student or engineering student with proven skills in foreign languages (Translation Support Department)

1. Selection criteria and planned duration of the traineeship

1.1. Eligibility criteria

To be eligible to take part in this selection procedure, the applicant must, on the closing date for applications, meet the following requirements:

• Have completed at least four semesters of university studies, or equivalent education, in a field of interest to the Centre;
• Level of skills: have obtained some initial experience in one of the areas of work engaged in by the Centre, either:
  • From a specialist component of the applicant´s studies for a university degree, from a dissertation or other research project conducted as part of his/her studies, or
  • Through work experience, or a previous traineeship, of at least two months duration, or
  • Through a language-related traineeship: applicants, in that case, must be able to translate from two official European Union languages into their main language (applicable only to translator traineeships).
• Language requirements: applicants must have a thorough knowledge of one of the official languages of the European Union and a satisfactory command of another official European Union language, to the extent necessary for carrying out the duties to be performed. A good knowledge of one of the working languages of the Centre (French or English) is an advantage.

Applicants from candidate countries must have a thorough knowledge of at least one of the languages of a candidate country and a good knowledge of English or French.

1.2. Selection criteria

In addition to the above, applicants must meet the following specific requirements for the various trainee positions (“principal language” below means mother tongue, or a language of which the applicants have an equivalent command):

• Romanian translator: translation studies, with Romanian as principal language. Duration of traineeship: three months between June and December 2016.
• Latvian translator: translation studies, with Latvian as principal language. Duration of traineeship: three months between June and December 2016.
• Czech translator: translation studies, with Czech as principal language. Duration of traineeship: three months between June and December 2016.
• Terminologist: studies (preferably postgraduate) in the fields of terminology or translation specialising in terminology or in corpus linguistics or in automatic language processing. Duration of traineeship: three months between June and December 2016.
• Linguist specialised in automatic translation tools (computer assisted translation and machine translation): studies (preferably postgraduate).

Field: automatic translation tools (translation memories, terminology software, machine translation software, computational linguistics, natural language processing, databases, proofing tools, corpus linguistic text banks, bitexts and concordancers, terminology extraction tools, etc.).

Possible activities:

1. Identify the steps needed to implement a machine translation tool by taking into account the Translation Centre’s workflows, tools and resources; verify whether and how the tools already developed by peers can be adapted in order to streamline the use of this MT tool.
2. Statistical work in relation with translation memories mainly based on volumes for each language, memory, domain and client to define trends, compared volumes, retrieval rates, differences between languages, averages, long-term forecasts. A methodologic basis will then be defined to make the related work more sustainable, to automate reporting, to publish statistics, etc.
3. Automated identification of referential information and automated retrieval from related corpora

Duration of traineeship: three months between June and December 2016.

2. Application procedure

Applications should be sent by post or by courier:

Please note that, in order to be considered, all applications must be sent within the deadline as attested by the date on the postmark. We strongly recommend that applications are sent by registered mail, with the postmark as proof of the postal date, or by courier against dated receipt by the Centre. An acknowledgement of receipt shall be sent automatically to the applicant indicating his/her candidate number. The application should contain the following documents:

• the Application form, duly completed and signed
• a copy of the diplomas or certificates
• a letter of recommendation from a university teacher attesting experience in the field of the traineeship being applied for.

Please send your application to:

Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union – Human Resources Section

Ref.: Traineeship 2016 (+ title of the position)

Bâtiment Drosbach

12E, rue Guillaume Kroll

L- 1882 LUXEMBOURG

CLOSING DATE: 13 April 2016 (attested by the date on the postmark)

3. Selection procedure

The selection procedure will be carried out in two parts:

• The first part will be based on the above-mentioned eligibility criteria (see 1.1.), and is intended to ascertain whether the applicant meets all the mandatory eligibility criteria and all the formal requirements laid down in the application procedure. Applicants who do not meet these criteria will not be considered.
• The second part will consider the selection criteria (see 1.2.) and the suitability of the applicant´s profile in relation to the traineeship to be awarded. This part will be marked on a scale from 0 to 10.

The Selection Committee will examine the file of all eligible applicants and will give them points in accordance with the selection criteria listed above. The Heads of Department responsible for the specific traineeships will select the applicants with the highest points, based on which the Director of the Centre will draw up the final list of successful applicants.

The Human Resources Section will notify all applicants in writing at the end of the selection procedure. Successful applicants will be given a contract, all information regarding their traineeship and a list of documents to be provided before commencing the traineeship.

4. Traineeship grants

Trainees shall be entitled to a monthly grant amounting to 25% of the basic monthly salary of a temporary agent in grade AD5, grade 1 (which is EUR 1 122.40 in 2016), on condition that they are not entitled to a grant or a financial contribution from another source. Article 3 of the Administrative Decision gives detailed information on traineeship grants and related matters (health and accident insurance, taxation, reimbursement of travel expenses at the beginning and end of the traineeship, etc.).

5. General information General information

Administrative Decision No 1/2010 on traineeships is the document legally laying down the rules governing the selection and employment conditions of trainees.

Protection of personal data

The Translation Centre will ensure that applicants’ personal data are processed as required by Regulation (EC)
No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data (Official Journal of the European Communities, L 8 of 12 January 2001). This applies in particular to the confidentiality and security of such data. For this purpose, you can send your request to the following e-mail address: rh.recrutement@cdt.europa.eu.

Equal opportunities

The Translation Centre is an equal opportunities employer and recruits applicants without distinction as to race, political, philosophical or religious beliefs, gender or sexual orientation and without reference to their marital status or family situation.

Read more and apply here.