Bonum Certa Men Certa

Job Applicants at the EPO Disappointed, Reference Made in Interview to Slavery

Glassdoor



Summary: Working conditions at the EPO, as well as recruitment standards, have taken a plunge under Battistelli and Bergot as head of Human Resources (HR)

LIFE at the EPO is hard; salary may be better framed as "compensation" because for many workers there's neither pride nor thrill in the job. It isn't scholarly but more like a production line and stress levels are very high. Notoriously so; and it gets worse over time with growing 'production' pressure.



Someone has just left the following comment in Kluwer Patent Blog:



Please accept as new year gift one more Russian word for your list:

gulag.

This is how we feel. Emprisoned and powerless in our (golden?) cages. Blindly undergoing useless restructuring (for example, in the next 3 months everyone will be moving office room at the EPO), scared to speak out for fear of retaliation (every month a list of colleagues who “end service” for no reason is published on our intranet ). Everyone wanting to listen and possibly publish our incredible stories having been silenced anyway.

Counting the days left (180) until “le roi” is gone. Hoping that we don’t end up with an “o rei” at his place.


Like we said before, it's hard to believe in "instant impact" when Campinos comes; much of the same management and policies shall remain in place. Undoing these policies probably won't even be on the agenda.

We have meanwhile heard from a reader about declining recruitment standards at the EPO; the HR department, led by Bergot, is struggling. Standards deteriorate as people lose interest in joining the EPO and many talented workers are leaving. This isn't a theory/hypothesis but something that many insiders privately and publicly (albeit anonymously) talk about.

One such person told us: "Here are some of the last reviews that some applicants gave on the site Glassdoor.de (a job hunting site) about EPO after they had their experience. This is at present all the information I’ve got: they try to recruit and to keep an attractive profile as an employer, but their culture is too crooked to not show for what it is at some point."

The reviews are largely negative. Most of the relevant answers are in English.

"In the links to further answers you can find also people showing surprise for the negative descriptions," the person added, "but some other (more) actually confirming they have no surprise about that type of behaviour from EPO. Most answers and reviews are in English; only the site (in my case at least) has most descriptions of paragraphs and entries in German. You can set the language..."

Here are three in English, starting with the old one:

Application

“The procedure took more than 2 months. It took plance in January 2008 at EPO Munich

Interview talk

Intial interview was asking how I would interpret a chemical structure, is it new or not. If a knew a few pharmaceutical ingredients. Read a text in French/German and understand it. My french was a bit weak, but got a second HR interview. This was also ok, usual questions. Then had to wait 1.5 months, until I phoned them, then they said on the phone no.....strange!


Maybe at the time they could afford to turn people down. But now, in late 2017, here are the two reviews that are listed:

Application

Procedure took 6 weeks, talk held in EPO Munich.

Interview talk

The EPO selection process has 3 stages. Online test for personality and logic. Apparently personality does not really matter at this stage. Then skype meeting to discuss patent with your future coworker. Then you skype with an external worker which test your personality. Beware if you are a little bit creative of have a little bit too much of personality. They are looking for malleable people to follow their direction.Finally you get to meet the people in persons. This is when they almost harassed me and I was saved by another person who was in charge to check the interview process was fair. This job has nothing to do with innovation, you will get to scroll down and read a certain number of patents per day. They also are looking for very diligent people who will stay forever with them and follow whatever direction they are told. In my case I was applying for a certain technical field for which I got accepted and got the technical interview in another technical field. I had prepared the technical interview for weeks by learning the relevant vocabulary in the 3 languages and had a technical interview which had nothing to do with that. They suddenly to change the field without letting me know in advance. To me this was truly unprofessional. I had the same feeling of lack of professionalism when they invite me to come to the interview a week in advance but gave me half of the money to pay a plane ticket. I had to request more money and it worked and I can imagine some shy individual would not do so. Please ask for them to reimburse the full cost of the interview. In my case I would have paid about 1000euros out of pocket to come.

Finally the real live interview was shocking with references to slavery as a joke about the job and pushy personal comments.


Read that last sentence again.

Also this:

Application

I applied personally. The procedure took more than 3 months. Talk held in March 2017 at EPO The Hague (The Netherlands).

Interview talk

Quite long, although admin at the interview stage was adequate. Well...maybe if they didn't come and pick me up from the gate as security didn't inform them of my arrival. Interview panel of three people of which one was staff association. Chairman at the end started eating (this is how much respect a candidate gets). Questions unrelated to the job, at least for an HR post would expect most competency…


Competency in HR? Led by a person who leaped many pay grades presumably owing to family connections?

The EPO has a pattern of threatening people to remove texts the managers don't like, so we've preserved the above (excluding what's in German as this isn't a German-speaking site, unlike the original). The responses to these seem to include actual EPO staff, maybe even the HR department (for example here). Words like "fake testimony" are being brought up; welcome to Trumpist 'logic'...

Recent Techrights' Posts

Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
 
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day
LLM Bots vs Techrights
Slows things down a bit
New Publication Sheds Lights on Abuse of Workers at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Put in simple terms, they're killing the Office, harming remaining staff, try to hire rubber-stampers
Links 21/07/2025: Hardware, Health, and Imperialism
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2025: "When Buying Isn't Owning" and "CMS Special Edition"
Links for the day
Links 21/07/2025: Indie Web and Toxic Politics
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft Lawyers Throwing Stones in Glass Houses
threatened me with bankruptcy
Google "AI Overview" is Not AI and Not Overview
do not be misled; what Google does isn't smart, it's just ripping off the sites it already crawled for as long as 27 years
Making the Case to Dump Microsoft and GAFAM for National and Digital Sovereignty
"Sovereignty is difficult"
The Tactics of the Opposition (Microsoft Lunduke): Associate With K00ks, Throw in Vaccines to Muddy the Water
Who stands to gain from this?
Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) and Largest Patent Monopoly Office Needs More Transparency, Not Less Transparency
In the EPO, what good are elections when one candidate literally bribes all the voters?
How Not to Report News About Microsoft
This pattern of misreporting is so widespread that it's hard to believe it's not intentional
Computer Science is Under Attack, They Want Everyone to be a Consumer
If people can no longer acquire Computer Science education and real Computer Science experience, they will not know how to control their own digital destiny or emancipate the very same universities that now control the syllabus and instead of teaching Computer Science encourage the outsourcing of systems
The Best Tools Are the Simplest Tools
There's a hidden message here about the merits of sticking with X
Ofcom Online Safety Group Speaks of Protecting Women Online, Will Brett Wilson LLP Ever Listen?
They've essentially became like the Taliban's "burka police"
Social Control Media Relies on Advertisers, So It'll Always Be Hostile Towards Free Software
Sales, sales, sales
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 20, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 20, 2025
Fragmentation of Data
Life is too short to "hoard" data
In Defence of "Spinning Rust"
Just because something is "old" (or older) doesn't mean it ought to become extinct
Using Free Software to Prepare Legal Documents
LibreOffice is openly complaining about OOXML as an obstacle
Tech and Technology Are Not the Same Anymore
"Are you into tech, Sir?"
Our Articles About SLAPPs Receive Recognition and Interest
This week we shall continue writing about the 3 lawsuits we filed