Endless summer

“You have to keep an open mind in Brussels. Often you don’t find the job, but the job finds you.” Constantin Gissler, director general at a tech association

Following my internship, I returned to Groningen to complete my thesis. While it was nice to be back with my friends, I felt a strong urge to return to Brussels as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the application letters I sent from the Netherlands had little impact. To be exact, zero impact. I didn’t receive a single response.

Fearing my Brussels dream would die before it had even started, I took matters into my own hands and decided to return to the Belgian capital. Luck was on my side as a spare room be-came available in the “maison de maître” in the cheap area of Saint-Josse where one of my closest friends lived.

My new headquarters from which I planned to kickstart my Brussels career resembled a prison cell. It was less than 10 square meters in size and could barely accommodate a bed, a small desk, and a chair. We shared the kitchen, bathroom and living room with two Polish ladies. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz Carlton, but it was still a step up from the shady basement where a British friend resided. He was completely broke but de-termined to find a job in Brussels after his Blue Book traineeship at the European Commission. A friend allowed him to stay in his basement for free.

We fed ourselves with cheap pitas drenched in hot pili pili sauce from the local Moroccan kebab joint, followed by tea at the community centre. Evenings were reserved for football matches and beer at the nearby bar, the Wild Geese, where we schemed and plotted our entry into the Brussels scene.

We regularly mingled with the lobbyists and the European officials who would come there after work. The fonctionnaires with their blue badges were the demigods of the European bureaucracy. Everybody knew how difficult it was to get a permanent position at the Commission. Thousands of people participate in the “concours”, the competitions enabling you to become a permanent EU civil servant, which procedure could easily take more than a year with fewer than one percent ending up with a job. The chance of passing such an exam felt to me like an insurmountable challenge.

So, my initial game plan was to get a job or at least a foot in the door at a lobbying firm. Armed with a copy of the European Public Affairs Directory, I fired off more than 300 open applications to basically every consultancy listed in this lobbyists’ bible. Later in this book, I’ll delve into why this approach is the worst strategy for finding a job in Brussels. But at that time, there was no book like this one to guide me, so I had to learn the hard way. I expected numerous responses and envisioned busy weeks filled with interviews, so the reality hit me hard. Only two replies arrived! The first was from the esteemed Hill & Knowlton consultancy firm, offering me an internship opportunity. The second response came from a small Irish office seeking a research assistant.

Even though it was not a real job, I opted for the internship at Hill & Knowlton as my first choice. It was one of the major firms and I hoped that one day I would be one of those guys in their smart suits representing important clients from all over the world. Pumped up with energy, enthusiasm and good intentions I went to the interview. This day would be a life-changing event, a springboard to a real career and a new life.

My interview was with the team leader responsible for environment and energy. After making me wait for about twenty minutes, he finally summoned me into 

his office. The fifteen minutes the interview took were quite an eye-opener. While I started off well in English, things quickly went downhill when, after five minutes, the French-born interviewer switched to his native language. My high school French was barely sufficient to order a coffee and a croissant in the morning at the local bakery (I often had to repeat croissant three times because of my poor accent, as it sounded like soixante), but beyond that, I struggled.

He seemed to enjoy making me sweat a little longer, but abruptly ended the conversation after fifteen minutes. It was evident, I was clearly unfit for the job. The rejection left me feeling like a complete failure. After two months, I hadn’t even been able to land an internship, and suddenly the consultancy world felt like an impenetrable fortress. What was I supposed to do now? If I wanted to avoid ending up like my pal David in his basement, I clearly needed to up my game.

Fortune finally found me. At the Irish consultancy bearing the name of its owner, they were much more welcoming and enthusiastic about my CV. Eamonn was looking for someone to assist in drafting their monthly briefing on European environmental policy, and my thesis on the Kyoto Protocol (the catalyst for the European Emissions Trading System) was a good fit. He praised me for not making too many demands, knowing full well that he could easily replace me with a hundred other candidates.

I received a modest monthly salary of around 800 euros, along with a membership to the World Class gym. With my room costing 400 euros a month, I had just under 100 euros a week to feed and entertain myself. While I wasn’t exactly rolling in riches, I had finally breached the barrier. I couldn’t have been happier.

Brussels career, I thought, here I come!