Critical Skills Shortage – A Solution

Barry Kelly, Director, ICDS outlines the organisation’s new campaign to recruit workers for construction internationally and how it may benefit your company

The Irish Construction Industry is experiencing a severe shortage of qualified and experienced Site Engineering and Project Management professionals, highlighted again recently by various reports including the ESRI. Over the decades, ICDS have supplied CIF members with candidates from Ireland and the Irish Diaspora across Europe and the World, but currently this pipeline is limited. 

As a solution, ICDS are currently recruiting internationally, pre-screening and interviewing candidates across the EU and Non-EU locations, where we successfully recruited highly-skilled personnel during the 2000’s. Many remain and became Irish citizens, making a positive contribution to our industry and society. Current campaigns include our EU programme in Romania, which saw 30 candidates shortlisted for interview in Q4/2018 and is set to make further progress in Q1/2019 initially targeting Site Engineers, Setting Out Engineers, Finishing Forepersons, Site Managers and BIM professionals.

When it comes to the Non-EU side of things, we are confident that as a result of recent lobbying with relevant government departments, the following vital construction professions will be reinstated on the “Critical Skills List”, thus accelerating the granting of Work Permits/Visas.

When this happens, our planned itinerary will then include campaigns targeting qualified persons for many other roles such as QS, Estimator, Project Manager, Safety Officer, PQS and Planner, across South Africa, Philippines, Malaysia and other locations across the world.

Our worldwide campaign to attract skilled members of the Irish Diaspora will also remain ongoing.

ICDS pre-screen, interview and assess candidate’s suitability to the Irish Construction Industry prior to the employer meeting them. We also provide the following options for employers to make the process more streamlined:

1. Employers may fly out for a meet’n’greet with the candidates in their current location.
2. Candidates may fly to Ireland to meet’n’greet you the employer.
3. Employer may conduct initial Skype interviews.
4. Or we can provide a combination all the above steps.

We are currently inviting employers to express an interest in such recruitment drives, so that we can then “tailor” a campaign to suit your current and future needs.

For more information please contact me (Barry Kelly) by phone: 086-232-5706, email: [email protected], or see our website: www.icds.ie