How EURES works and how to use it alongside your profile

EURES is the European Union's official job mobility network - a cooperation between the European Commission and the public employment services of the EU countries plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. It is free, it is legitimate, and surprisingly few job seekers use it well. Here is what it actually offers and how to slot it into your job search.

What EURES is

At its core, EURES (eures.europa.eu) is three things:

• A job portal pooling vacancies from national public employment services across Europe - typically millions of live jobs, from seasonal agriculture to engineering.
• A network of human advisers - EURES advisers sit inside national employment services and give free advice on living and working conditions, contracts, social security and job search in specific countries.
• An information library - standardised country pages covering wages, taxes, housing, registration procedures and labour law basics for every participating country.

Who can use it

EURES is built around free movement, so its job-matching services are aimed primarily at EU/EEA citizens moving between member countries. If you are a non-EU citizen, you can still use the portal's information pages freely - they are among the best neutral sources on working conditions anywhere - and some vacancies are open to third-country applicants where the employer is prepared to sponsor. For the permit side of that, see EU work permits and visas explained.

Useful features people miss

• Targeted mobility schemes: EURES has run schemes (such as EU4Youth-style and targeted job mobility programmes) that partially fund interview trips, relocation or language courses for eligible movers - availability changes, so ask an adviser what is currently open.
• European Online Job Days: free online recruitment fairs where employers from specific countries or sectors interview candidates directly.
• Living and working country pages: before accepting any offer, read the destination country's page - it is an easy way to sanity-check what a recruiter told you about wages, deductions and housing.
• Adviser contact: you can ask a named adviser in the destination country questions before you move. This is also a strong scam check: if an offer or agency smells wrong, an adviser can often tell you whether it matches how hiring really works there. Remember the golden rule they will repeat too - nobody legitimate charges workers for a job offer.

Getting the most out of the portal

A few practical techniques make the EURES portal far more useful. Set up saved searches with email alerts for your occupation and target countries, because good vacancies from public employment services move fast. Use the occupation filters rather than free-text search - vacancies are classified against a standard occupation taxonomy (ESCO), so filtering by occupation catches jobs whose titles differ across languages. Read vacancies with the country page open in another tab: if a Dutch greenhouse job offers a wage, you can instantly check it against the Netherlands living-and-working page. And when a vacancy says the employer is registered with the national employment service, that is a meaningful verification signal - these employers have been through at least basic checks, unlike anonymous ads on social media. If you apply and hear nothing, the adviser network can sometimes follow up on your behalf, which private job boards cannot do.

EURES and Workuro: different directions, same goal

These are complementary, not competing. A sensible weekly routine: keep your Workuro profile complete and current so employers can find you; check EURES for new vacancies in your target countries and sectors; and use the EURES country pages to vet every offer you receive - wherever it came from. Employers on shortage lists often both post on public portals and search candidate registries, so being visible in both directions doubles your surface area.

This article is general information, not legal advice; EURES itself at eures.europa.eu is the official source for its services and current schemes.

Start with the side of the search you control completely: your own visibility. Create your free Workuro profile - free, no credit card, and employers contact you directly while you browse EURES in peace. Create your free profile today.