The Romanian PhD candidate Cristian Botan (25), who created an online platform aiming to bring more transparency into the state hiring process, is now part of Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s team, according to an announcement made on the Prime Minister’s personal blog.

The news came one day after Ponta posted a teaser featuring a photo of himself next to a dark silhouette representing the soon-to-be-appointed cabinet member.

“Not only did Cristian Botan draw our attention to one of sorest points of the system, but he also devised a solution to cure it: an online platform that brings transparency to the system,” wrote Prime Minister Ponta on his blog. “I personally intended for this announcement to reach the online world because that’s where Cristian comes from and that’s the world he speaks to. I wanted to reach the young, those who, just like Cristian, want to make a change to the current state of the Romanian system,” added PM Ponta.

The platform developed by Cristian Botan features job announcements from all state institutions, as published in the Romanian Official Journal. According to Botan’s own proposals for an improvement of the current hiring process, vacancies should be announced in the Official Romanian Journal at least 10 days before application deadlines, while candidates’ family relations with prospective employers within the State system should be disclosed and a public archive of State employees should be available for consultation at all times.

For the time being, co-opting Botan into the Ponta team means taking over his individual project and transforming it into the official go-to-source of information on State administration jobs. “For now, we will take over his web site as the official page for announcements of available public jobs. Later on, we will come up with an interesting development in the legislative area as well. And Cristian Botan, the young man I have told you about, will be part of the team taking up this mission,” said Prime Minister Ponta.

Cristian Botan launched the job recruitment platform www.publicjob.ro in March this year, with an investment of around EUR 500, according to media reports. He also sent an open letter to the Prime Minister urging him to make governmental activities more easily traceable and transparent.

Ioana Jelea