Attracting new talent for engineering and consultancy

05/26/2021

Beginning of May, Bilfinger Tebodin successfully presented the company to a group of graduating students of the Delft University of Technology during the so-called ‘Delftse Bedrijvendagen’.  The aim was to inspire these high potentials to connect with Bilfinger Tebodin at the start of their professional career. Due to the current coronavirus restrictions, the session was online which was a challenge well managed using Teams and Miro.

Tim Speelman (Discipline Engineer in the Energy department with a focus on Energy Efficiency, CCUS and H2), Jordi Koes (Consultant Industrial Sustainability), Lucien Zalman (Lead Engineer Mechanical) and Mark Courage (Director Engineering) prepared a presentation and a workshop to share with the students.

After the welcome session, Lucien Zalman introduced Bilfinger Tebodin by expressing the dynamic work environment, broad activity scope and markets under the same umbrella. He briefly shared a practical  example referring to recent value engineering by Bilfinger Tebodin for a customer in the chemical market during the FEED phase.

Since the focus of the workshop was on sustainability in the industry, Jordi Koes presented the general approach, the process and its important parameters. He explained the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy, the drivers, status, and near-future targets.

Tim Speelman prepared a workshop called the “Zero Carbon Challenge” where an existing Cyclo Hexaan Production unit required modification in order to reduce the carbon footprint. We split the students into three teams that gathered in separate breakout rooms to prepare a pitch presentation with their outcome after 90 minutes of brainstorming. The students clearly enjoyed the well-prepared case and managed to prepare their pitch presentations in time.

During the pitches, Mark Courage fulfilled the role of Plant Manager/owner. The Bilfinger Tebodin team put forward some challenging questions, which the teams handled well. The session was quite interactive, despite it being online, indicating the enthusiasm of the students. In the end, the winning team members were awarded the book “Cradle to Cradle: afval = voedsel”. The session ended with feedback on the pitches and a 15-minute Q&A about Bilfinger Tebodin.

Overall, it was a great session in which we created enthusiasm amongst students of a top technical university for our industry of engineering and consultancy, and in particular how much fun it is to work for Bilfinger Tebodin.