EADS is on a mission at the show to recruit the best and brightest engineers that the industry has to offer. Jörg Kutzim, head of the EADS Recruitment Center, tells Flightglobal how the company is putting over 1,000 potential applicants through more than 20 workshops at Le Bourget as part of its efforts to recruit another 4,000 permanent staff this year.

Why does EADS place such a strong focus on recruitment at the Paris air show?

The air show at Le Bourget is a unique opportunity in two ways. It's an opportunity for professionals and graduates to get to know EADS and to get to know EADS divisions, people from the business areas and to experience the diversity of the company. At the same time, it's the best opportunity for EADS, the business divisions and the recruitment centre to meet people who are interested in EADS and to get to know and talk to potential candidates and to have in-depth interviews with them and to offer them advice about the wide range of positions available in EADS.

Has this approach been successful at previous shows?

We have done this at Paris, Berlin and Farnborough. We do not hand over contracts during the air show, but we recognise that a considerable number of candidates who have recruitment interviews during the air show join EADS shortly afterwards, and in addition, the contacts made during the air show - with professionals especially - lead to quite a significant number of entries even quite a while after the event. We have to differentiate between professionals on the one hand and graduates on the other, because graduates tend to join faster because they are already looking for a job.

Are you changing your approach this time around?

We are making quite an effort based on the requirements of EADS and we have oriented our offers at Le Bourget based on these requirements. We are going to run more than 20 workshops and we expect more than 1,000 participants for these workshops. For example, we are going to focus very strongly on diversity. We have a diversity day on 21 June, and we have another day for intercultural topics to present the global strategy of the group and to come together with people from other countries to offer international career opportunities.

Does EADS have a particularly large number of vacancies to fill right now?

We have quite a lot of vacancies at the moment. We are going to recruit over 4,000 people during 2011 and we are even creating a lot of additional jobs due to a strong [production] ramp-up we have in some of the divisions. The number of 4,000 permanent recruits we are going to take on this year is definitely quite significant compared with previous years.

Are there more people than usual out there looking for positions?

I would not say that. The industries we are competing with came through the recession quite a while ago. We have quite a lot of competition in the market, but due to the good image and brand and very interesting jobs we can offer, I think we are in a good position to compete in this market. But nevertheless, it's a challenge to find 4,000 good people that we want to recruit this year.

Why do you feel it is important to ensure that senior managers - including EADS CEO Louis Gallois - participate at your recruitment events?

We want to bring people who are interested in EADS really close to the business, and give them the chance to talk to a variety of people. I think it's a question of respect for these people who are interested in us, to say okay, we have top managers at Le Bourget who want to present the company and get in touch with young and professional people and to talk to them. My experience is that it is really appreciated by all potential applicants, to get to know the top management of EADS. Even if they are middle management, I think the talks are very useful for people interested in the company. For Louis Gallois and others it is important to make this time available and to make clear to applicants: "We are here to talk to you, we are interested in you and we are here ready for discussion."

Why are so few women pursuing careers in engineering, with a some exceptions such as EADS in Spain?

I think there are a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is these studies do not attract women to the same extent that they attract men. Fear not - we are working on that. We are putting in lots of effort at university and even at schools to attract more females for these studies. Then of course there is strong competition around females in the market and we try to get more and more females. But it is not only in the area of gender diversity, because we believe that diversity is something that really pays off for a company like ours. It's most important that we have diversity because it is our experience that these teams work much more efficiently, and this is something that we want to tell people about outside.

Are you also seeking more employees to work outside of the core EADS countries of France, Germany, Spain and the UK, particularly where you are looking to set up local joint ventures?

From the recruitment perspective we are trying to get more people on board from outside the core countries of EADS. We are trying to globalise ourselves for a couple of reasons: one of them is that we need to have new cultural characters on board because we are spreading our business more globally, and this is why we say we want to have people from other countries. We are not only recruiting people for the classical core countries, but we are also looking for people to work outside the core countries, not only for EADS but also for respective joint ventures.

Why do you focus your efforts to recruit industry professionals on the Saturday at the end of the show, which is a public day?

Our experience from recent years is that if you want to talk to professionals, they have the best opportunity to join on the Saturday. This is why we are dedicating a full day on 25 June to professionals in order to support the massive recruitment needs we have in our divisions - especially Airbus and Eurocopter.

What skills are you looking for?

For the engineers it is around systems architecture and lean structures, with a particular focus on composites. That is worth mentioning, because composites is the topic for the A350, and for Eurocopter as well, which we have a strong focus on. We are always looking for IT experts as well because more and more of the systems are IT related, so IT is definitely an area of interest as well. EADS has the big advantage that the products we are developing are fascinating for everyone. We have started to go to schools because it's too late to try to attract people when they have already taken the decision about what they are going to study, so you have to start quite early at school to attract people.

Source: Flight Daily News

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