What CAST Permanent is
CAST Permanent, sometimes written CAST/P, is the standing selection procedure the European Personnel Selection Office runs for contract agents in the institutions, bodies and agencies of the European Union. Unlike an EPSO open competition of the AD or AST kind, CAST has no deadline. A candidate registers in the CAST database at any time, the institutions search that database when they need to recruit, and only candidates whose profile matches a live vacancy are invited to sit the tests. CAST is the most accessible entry point into an EU career: secondary reporting from EPSO’s own communications puts more than 111,000 candidates and roughly 190,000 applications on file by the end of 2024, spread across the four function groups the procedure covers. Because eu-careers.europa.eu was unavailable to the network at the time of writing, the volume figures and procedural details on this page are drawn from EPSO preparation providers and secondary coverage and should be re-verified against the current CAST call and the EU Careers site before relying on them.
The function group system
The EU civil service is organised in three permanent staff groups (AD, AST and AST-SC) and one contract-staff family that CAST fills. Contract agents sit in four function groups, bundled by responsibility and by the education they require:
- FG I covers manual and administrative support service tasks and requires compulsory education completed.
- FG II covers clerical, secretarial and office management tasks and requires post-secondary education or a secondary education giving access to post-secondary study plus at least three years of relevant professional experience.
- FG III covers executive tasks such as drafting, accountancy and technical implementation, on the same qualification profile as FG II.
- FG IV covers administrative, advisory, linguistic and specialist tasks and requires a completed university degree of at least three years in the field the profile asks for.
Not every function group is open at every moment; EPSO publishes the list of open profiles by function group on the EU Careers portal.
How the sequence runs
The candidate creates an EPSO account and completes a structured profile covering education, languages, professional experience and the function group or groups they wish to be considered for. The profile sits in the CAST database until an EU institution or agency has a vacancy in that profile and searches for a match. Shortlisted candidates are invited to sit computer based reasoning tests: verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning, taken remotely on the EPSO platform. For FG II, FG III and FG IV there is a second multiple choice test; for FG I the competency test is reported to be replaced by a job related test. Under the current rules, a CAST test pass is valid for ten years, which means one successful sitting can lead to several recruitments in that window without re-testing.
Language regime
Language 1 must be at C1 level in any of the twenty-four official EU languages. Language 2 must be at a satisfactory knowledge (B2) in English, French or German. Some profiles ask for a further language or a specific combination and the current call is the authority on what a given vacancy requires.
Eligibility
A candidate must be a citizen of an EU Member State, must enjoy full civic rights, must meet the language requirement, and must meet the education and experience profile of the function group they are applying for. There is no upper age limit and, as CAST is a rolling database rather than a single sitting, there is no formal cap on the number of times a candidate can be considered.
Recruitment, contracts and postings
Recruitment happens institution by institution. A shortlisted and tested candidate is interviewed by the requesting institution or agency, and the contract that follows is a fixed term contract signed with that employer. Most CAST posts are in Brussels or Luxembourg; a smaller number are in other EU cities and, for some profiles, in EU delegations worldwide. The grade inside the function group and the exact contractual terms sit in the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union rather than in the CAST call itself.
Preparing the application
Registration is filed through the EPSO account on the EU Careers portal. The site’s age-calculator tool is useful for checking the age condition against a specific profile’s reference date, and for planning against the ten year validity of a CAST pass. There is no photograph or signature to upload at registration; identity is verified at any test session and at the recruitment stage by the hiring institution.
On test day
For a remote proctored session, connect from a quiet room with a working webcam, microphone and stable internet connection at least thirty minutes before the start time on the invitation. Carry an original government photo identification that matches the name on the EPSO profile. Second monitors, phones, smartwatches, headphones and any device or material not authorised by the proctoring rules are prohibited, as is the presence of any other person in the room. For the current list of open profiles, the exact rules of a given call and any procedural updates, use the EU Careers CAST Permanent page and the EPSO help centre entry linked in the officialLinks above.