Frontex Standing Corps Selection: How the Four Stages Actually Work

The European Border and Coast Guard Standing Corps recruits differently from an EPSO competition, and candidates who prepare for it as if it were an EPSO competition are preparing for the wrong thing. This guide describes the selection as set out in the official recruitment notice for RCT-2025-00108, the EBCG Officer — Team Member call at function group IV, published by Frontex.

That particular call closed on 15 December 2025 and its selection is in its final steps. It is documented here because the structure is what Frontex uses for the Standing Corps, and it is the best guide available to what a future call will look like. Always read the notice of the call you are actually applying to.

What is on offer

The call advertised 255 posts, a figure the notice itself describes as indicative, based in Warsaw, as contract staff under Article 3(a) at function group IV, with a reserve list valid until 31 December of the year following its establishment. Frontex stated it planned to recruit up to 400 officers for the Standing Corps across 2025 and 2026.

The selection is conducted in English

This is the single most important practical fact. The notice states that candidates "shall be selected through the recruitment/selection procedure, conducted in English", and that as English is the working language of Frontex, candidates must prove very good linguistic skills in it. Below CEFR B2 in English is an elimination threshold, tested at the start of the process.

Stage I: language and knowledge

Two tests, taken online.

• English proficiency — eliminatory, as above.
• Knowledge test — multiple choice, at least three options with one correct answer, time-limited. Scored 0 to 10, minimum 3 to continue. Its scoring rule deserves your attention: an incorrect answer deducts half the value of a correct one, while a blank scores zero. Guessing has a real cost here, unlike most EU selection tests.

Topics are set out in the notice: EU legislation on Frontex and on border, coast guard and return activities; the functioning of the EU institutions and bodies; fundamental rights in law enforcement; professionalism, integrity and ethics; and the ICT knowledge needed for Standing Corps duties.

Up to 2,200 top-scoring candidates proceed to Stage II. This is a ranking cut-off, not a pass mark — clearing 3/10 does not carry you through if 2,200 people scored higher.

Stage II: physical, swimming and psychometric

• Physical aptitude tests in Warsaw. Each exercise is scored 0 to 5. You need at least 6 points overall, and a zero in any single exercise excludes you.
• Swimming tests in Warsaw. Each exercise scored 0 to 2.5; a zero in any exercise excludes you. Separate physical and swimming sessions are organised for female candidates.
• Psychometric tests — verbal and abstract reasoning, multiple choice, each scored 0 to 10 with a minimum of 3 on each; the final score is the average of the two.

The stage score is weighted: (knowledge + psychometric) × 60% + (physical + swimming) × 40%. Up to 900 candidates proceed to Stage III.

Stage III and IV

Stage III is a psychological assessment conducted as an online interview — a personality questionnaire, a situational judgement and a psychological interview, all eliminatory — followed by a competency-based interview worth up to 5 points, assessed on motivation, handling information, working under pressure, teamwork with public authorities, and working in a multicultural environment. Stage IV is a pre-recruitment medical examination and an in-person check of original documents.

The final ranking is the sum of the weighted points from Stages I, II and III. Note also: "Candidates shall be invited to each test once… Requests for rescheduling will not be granted."

What this means for preparation

Three things follow directly from the structure:

1. The knowledge test is the gate that eliminates most people, and it is the only one you can prepare for entirely at a desk. With a 2,200-candidate cut-off, the goal is not to pass it but to score well on it.
2. The negative marking changes your technique. On a test where a wrong answer costs half a right one, a genuine blank can beat a wild guess. Eliminating options and answering only when you are better than even is a skill worth practising deliberately.
3. The physical and swimming tests are 40% of Stage II and cannot be improved in the last fortnight. If you intend to apply to a future call, that preparation starts long before the notice is published.

How PassEPSO prepares you for it

We are an independent preparation platform with no affiliation to Frontex, EPSO or the EU institutions, and we cover the desk-based part of the selection:

• 68 Frontex-specific questions on the knowledge-test topics, plus 79 EU knowledge questions filtered to border, Schengen and institutional material relevant to this selection rather than the general EU knowledge pool.
• Verbal and abstract reasoning practice for the psychometric stage — 322 verbal and 469 abstract active questions, with difficulty recalibrated nightly from real candidate performance.
• A timed full simulation: 60 questions in 95 minutes across the sections.
• The Frontex-specific material is in English, because the selection is: Frontex runs the whole procedure — application form, knowledge test, language test, interview and basic training — in English, and states so in the vacancy notice. Your verbal, abstract and EU knowledge practice stays available in all 24 languages.
• One honest limit: the Frontex-specific set is our newest and smallest. We would rather tell you that than let you discover it after paying.

We do not train the physical or swimming tests, and no online platform can.

Practise the Frontex knowledge and reasoning material free.

PassEPSO is an independent preparation platform. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Frontex, EPSO or any European Union institution. Official information about Frontex recruitment is published only by Frontex on frontex.europa.eu and its recruitment microsite.