The ENC 2012 Career Event

The ENC 2012 Careers Event took place in Manchester, on 9 December, at a beautiful venue - the famous Manchester Town Hall. It was organised in collaboration with the ENS - Young Generation Network (ENS-YGN), Women in Nuclear (WiN) Europe and the Nuclear Institute (UK). During the early stages of preparation for this event ENS faced a lot of challenges: How to attract the candidates? How could it attract the recruiters? The first interviews with potential partners helped us to prepare a clear planning schedule for the event and to develop the strategy to promote it.

Thanks to the active promotional campaign carried out via the ENS website, in newsletters, by the ENS-YGN and via LinkedIn Groups and Twitter, the ENC 2012 Careers Event turned out to be a great success. Candidates from over 30 countries responded to the job offers. They included highly-skilled people (nearly two thirds - 59% - having completed an MSc, 21% a BSc and 20% a PhD) at various stages of their careers – from those who had just embarked on their chosen career to others with more than 10 years’ experience.   So, not surprisingly, most of them were offered a face-to-face interview with a prospective employer.

Nine leading energy companies decided to become our “Careers Event Partners”: AREVA, ATKINS, EDF, EDF Energy, ONET Technologies, Rolls Royce, ROSATOM, Slovenske Elektrarne and Westinghouse. We divided the partner companies in 2 groups: one that informed people about the available job opportunities and the other that came to Manchester to interview the candidates. The “Interviewing Partners” were looking for experts with between 0 and 10 years’ of experience in different nuclear-related disciplines, such as maintenance, waste management or welding. The “Informing Partners” presented to visitors to their stands the profile of their company and the job opportunities on offer.

On the first day of the event, during the morning session, the 9 participating companies presented themselves, explaining the wide range of nuclear career paths available and underlining the attractiveness of working in the nuclear sector. The afternoon session was set aside for the pre-scheduled interviews, for intensive networking between the candidates and for discussions with potential employees at the partners’ information stands. In addition, WiN Europe organised a “CV Checker” stand, where two WiN members advised candidates on how to edit a perfect CV. The stand was very popular and the candidates very much appreciated the valuable comments that they received about their CVs.

During ENC 2012 Careers Event the ENS–YGN network also organised its own side event. In addition to manning its own stand, ENS-YGN also gave information about their activities and encouraged young people interested in working in the nuclear sector to join the network, and organised a communications workshop entitled: How to deliver your idea. During the first part of the workshop a professional communicator explained how to present a technical subject in a way that makes it understandable by a non-technical public. Afterwards, the workshop participants were asked to get together in working groups, focus on one specific technical issue, and then present it to participants in an interesting and comprehensible way. Participants then voted for the best presentations and the winners received coffee cups - to enable them to stay awake whenever listening to boring presentations!

On the second day of the ENS 2012 Careers Event, the interviews with candidates continued. Candidates were given a great opportunity to visit the technical stands of the 78 exhibitors that presented their products during ENC 2012. This helped ENC 2012 Careers Event participants to receive additional technical information and to ask more questions about the job profiles. Another added value provided for the young professionals was the possibility of active networking with the ENC 2012 delegates.

The ENC 2013 Careers Event was a great success. Its objective was to establish a common platform for the coming together of young people and nuclear companies looking for employees.

Following the positive feedback received by participating candidates and companies, ENS has decided to continue organising the ENC Careers Event in the future, as it will play an important role in securing the nuclear competences that our industry needs to sustain it in the years ahead.

Emilia Janisz, External Relations Officer, ENS