Context
The project ‘Transparency and Competence in the Public Sector’ was a collaborative effort led by the National Agency of Civil Servants (NACS) of Romania. Recognising the need to modernise the civil service and address challenges such as an ageing workforce, NACS partnered with stakeholders across government, academia and civil society. This project was co-financed by the European Social Fund through the Romanian Operational Programme Administrative Capacity and built upon a previous project that established a groundwork for human resources management reform. It aimed to implement these reforms and prepare the ground for future investments under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Objectives
The project’s core objective was to revamp the civil service recruitment process in Romania. This involved establishing a new, merit-based system that focused on candidate competencies rather than rote memorisation. To achieve this, the project aimed to develop and implement a unified set of human resources management tools and policies. A key goal was to pilot a national recruitment competition for both entry-level and senior-level positions. This pilot would test the effectiveness of the new system and pave the way for a broader rollout.
Implementation
The project implemented a three-stage recruitment process. The first stage focused on job analysis and competency definition. NACS collaborated with universities and psychologists to develop testing tools that assessed general and specific competencies required for civil service positions. This stage also involved creating a civil service recruitment plan based on projected human resource needs.
The second stage, the recruitment phase, involved a national competition with a preliminary and advanced assessment. The preliminary stage used online tests to assess general knowledge and skills. The advanced stage used different methods for junior and senior candidates, focusing on competency-based assessment through online testing (junior) and observation of behavioural indicators (senior).
The third stage, the selection phase, happens outside the project’s scope and falls under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Here, individual institutions select candidates from the pool that passed the national competition, using additional tests specific to their needs.