Novus event advises the industry’s ‘millennial managers’

Directors at Crossrail and Berkeley Homes were among speakers giving construction graduates a unique employers’ perspective on the skills they will need in the industry at a special Novus event held in London last week.

The Novus: Skills for the Future conference, part of the CIOB Inspiring the Future of Construction conference at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre on 24 November, offered students advice on how to secure employment with insights and feedback from industry employers, recruiters and educationalists.

The speakers included Stuart Powls, area business manager at Crossrail; Peter Smith, managing director for Berkeley Eastern Counties; and Duncan Bullimore, construction director at Hays Recruitment.

The audience was drawn from Novus committee members, young professionals and student members from the universities of Greenwich, Kingston, London South Bank, Westminster, Reading, West London and Brighton, as well as Anglia Ruskin Univiersity, Nottingham Trent University, the College of Estate Management and University College London.

Powls gave an overview of the vast array of jobs at the Crossrail mega-project, spanning from on-site work through to the less well-known pre-construction planning phases.

Novus chairman Jason Margetts FCIOB, who also chaired the conference, said: “Powls made it clear that construction is not just about what happens during the short period on site, but the entire project lifecycle, opening up the idea to students that they could take on an office based planning or commercial role.”

Notting Hill Housing Trust’s Steven Stavrou: “Events like this bridge a gap”

In his speech, Berkeley’s Peter Smith underlined the importance of telling the truth at interview to begin work on a level platform with your employer, highlighting examples of two candidates who lied during their interview and were subsequently unable to cope on the job.

“It was nice for students to hear that that level of honesty is appreciated by employers and ultimately rewarded,” said Margetts.

The importance of securing experience of work on site, either through an open day or direct work experience, was raised several times as crucial for potential employers and recruiters, a theme that continued in the main conference.

Other advice was more basic, but often outside of the scope of what many universities teach, said Steven Stavrou, a building surveyor at Notting Hill Housing Trust and head of Novus East of England, who also helped organise the event. “It is simple things such as how to structure an email and behave in a meeting. Universities can only do so much, and events like this one help bridge the gap and give students the perspective of an employer. The main aim of the conference was to give students something tangible to walk away with and use in interview.”

Margetts added that although construction graduates are finding it easier to secure employment compared to during the recession, many are still concerned about their prospects when they finish university and the specific needs of employers. “We need industry and universities and colleges to work together and communicate more. Industry has a responsibility to tell universities what they require from candidates and universities have a responsibility to research and ask about relevant content to better prepare students for industry,” he concluded.