La lettre du recruteur BTP

 “It is important to pay special attention and follow what is happening abroad and know how to identify regions where there is growth.”

Interview of Dominique Noel, Founder partner of Archibat Europe

Can you briefly tell us a little about yourself?

In 1985, while I was still studying architecture, I founded Archibat to meet human resource requirements for architects, engineers and building construction workers.

At the time, there was no independent recruitment and temporary employment services company run by people from building construction. I very quickly partnered with Marie-Pierre Blanc who also a Bachelor’s degree in architecture.

What is your general assessment of 2009?

We first realized there was a major recession when we noticed a 50% drop in temping services. The reason was simple: since companies do not have extra-heavy workloads they do not need extra staffing and therefore temps are the first to be affected by the economic downturn.

The temping business held up for building construction workers, and for people to work in maintenance, upkeep, restoration, renovation and property management. These sectors have been untouched while new building construction has been hard hit.

Because of the recession, we started seeing people looking for work who were hard to find in the past few years–project coordinators, engineers, construction economists experience—with rare skill sets and backgrounds and significant experience that are highly sought after companies.

There are less wanted ads and the positions to be filled increasing require wide-ranging job skills and, at the same time, job specifications are more specific and employers are more demanding and looking for people with character; the challenges of the positions are complex and require solid experience, which is bad for the current field of new graduates.

So, it is a good market for firms that are currently recruiting and the most experienced jobseekers have no trouble finding work.

What are your plans and prospects for 2010?

After the office we opened in Shanghai, our plan is now to open a branch office in Beijing as soon as possible in order to bolster our presence in Asia and then after that we plan to move into Singapore. Currently, the building construction market is a global marketplace so you have to follow what’s going on around the world and look for places around the world where there is growth in order to expand your markets to regions with fast-paced economic expansion.

Do you see 2009 as a totally negative year?

For our Chinese subsidiary, 2009 was a fairly good year but we see changes taking place and we are working on the local market. In China, there is going to be a lot of new talent; lots of young Chinese people are studying in Europe and the U.S. and are increasingly qualified.

As things stand presently, it is hard to send applicants to Asia because in China they recruit there but given the fast-growing economic and the new projects that will require supervisory and management personnel and creative talent, international recruitments will probably pick up again at some point.

How do you see 2010?

It is fairly difficult at this point to have a broad overview of what 2010 has in store. I think that there will continue to be pressure in the market but there will be some employment opportunities, especially in the sustainable development field: new jobs are being created in connection with High Quality Environmental standards and new grads who have the required training are in high demand.

Furthermore, the introduction of new standards related to renovation, restoration, thermal insulation and electrical standards in addition to the growing fields of green building all demand specific training, skills and processes and are going to generate jobs in the coming years.

I also believe that it is important to pay special attention and follow what is happening abroad and know how to identify regions where there is growth and offer our services. That will surely help us make it through the recession.