Project reference · Oil & gas
Hiring for an exploration venture that was still being built.
An international energy group was setting up an onshore exploration programme in Ukraine. Its local company had a small core team, a pipeline of roles that hardly existed on the Ukrainian job market, and work sites far from the capital. From 2011 to 2013 we took on close to sixty of its role briefs, from geologists and permit engineers to community liaison officers, and carried one of its specialists on our payroll until the client could hire directly.
Close to sixty role briefs
Volume
Six functions, one client
Breadth
Every brief in two languages
Bilingual
Rotation and permits costed
Expatriates
The briefs
How the hiring moved from the office to the field
Each dot is one role brief, placed by quarter and by function. The first requests were for finance and office staff. From 2012 the briefs moved to wells, permits, health and safety, and the people who would represent the company in the regions.
The brief
What the client actually needed
At first, single hires for the back office: accountants, an assistant for the country manager, a technical translator. As the programme moved from licences towards drilling, the briefs changed. The client needed people who could obtain drilling and land permits, run health and safety on a rig, explain the project to local communities and brief regional officials, and it needed them before the first wells.
Many of these roles had no real market in Ukraine at the time. Permit engineers with drilling experience, liaison officers who understood regional politics, a health manager able to run medical support for field crews: the people existed, but mostly in other industries, in state bodies or abroad.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
Roles without a market
Some briefs stayed open for six months. We mapped the country’s oil and gas employers, searched state agencies and neighbouring countries, and brought in candidates from industries with skills that transfer.
Several agencies, one candidate pool
The client used several recruiters in parallel and kept stop-lists of candidates already submitted. Every shortlist was checked against the latest list before a CV went out, or the work did not count.
Field roles in a sensitive project
Regional roles needed people who knew the local authorities and communities, at a time when public opinion on new exploration was divided. Candidates were briefed with the client’s own questions and answers before they met anyone.
Contractors on rotation
For specialists from abroad on 28 days on, 28 days off, we costed employment through our company, work and residence permits, the social-contribution class for hazardous work, and the central-bank registration a foreign agency contract needs.
Quotas and compliance
One brief was a post reserved under Ukraine’s employment quota for people with disabilities, which narrowed an already difficult translator search. Contract and outsourced positions had to fit the Labour Code too.
A payroll bridge
One specialist worked for the client on our payroll, with bonuses, holiday and a clean handover when the client could hire directly. The transfer was agreed in a supplementary agreement, not improvised.
What we did
Back office, scale-up, field roles
- 2011 · First briefs. Finance and office roles, recruited under the client’s search-and-selection framework with a replacement guarantee.
- 2012 · Scale-up. More than thirty briefs in one year, from geologists to legal counsel. Umbrella employment and permits costed for expatriate contractors on rotation.
- 2012–13 · Payroll bridge. One specialist employed by us and working for the client, then transferred onto the client’s own payroll in early 2013.
- 2013 · Field roles. Permit engineers, HSE specialists, community and government relations for the regions, a health manager and drilling supervisors, with a weekly status call and one account contact.
In 2014 the programme slowed and new briefs stopped. The client’s HR team kept our contacts, and the candidate briefings stayed on file.
How we work
We do not show you another company’s name
The client, its owners and its people are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Building a team for a new operation in Ukraine?
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