World Youth Skills Day 2022 takes place amid concerted efforts towards socio-economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, interconnected with challenges such as climate change, conflict, persisting poverty, rising inequality, rapid technological change, demographic transition, and others.

Many young people that graduated in 2019, 2020, and 2021 have struggled as the job market was “hyper-competitive” with graduates competing with university leavers from 2019 and 2020 who lost out when many companies suspended their graduate programmes.

Graduates play a significant role in the modern job market as they bring a lot of value, from new ideas, skills, and a willingness to learn. Bouygues Energies & Services have an incredible graduate programme, where they have the option to do a 2 year rotational or an industry specific programme, on top of this, they also have their apprenticeship programme. They see the value in graduates and what they can add to their team. 

Katell Moncomble, Project Engineer at Bouygues Energies & Services, joined the company straight after graduating from university. She joined as the pandemic hit, a time when many companies stopped recruiting graduates or any new staff. 

"Time passed very quickly. It will soon be three years since I joined Bouygues Energies & Services. I was appointed on a permanent contract at the end of my engineering studies in September 2019."

She joined the company at an unprecedented time when many companies would not consider recruiting or investing in new talent. Now here we are 3 years down the line, and Katell has contributed to a more sustainable future. She has been given the opportunity to work on projects she is passionate about and at the same time help to provide an environmentally friendly power solution for the company’s clients.  

"I participated in the realisation of 5 photovoltaic power plants with sizes varying from 1MWp to 10MWp (1MWp is approximately equivalent to 1 hectare of the project area). So far, I have managed ground-based power plant projects.  Even though each project has its specificity, in reality, they are all very similar."

A great example of believing in your team, as a newly graduated individual, she has been given a lot of respect, trust, and opportunities as she explains: 

"Two months ago I have taken over the monitoring and management of a floating power plant. For now, this is completely new for me. The technical solutions and the working methods are really specific and complex. I am discovering and learning about them at the same time and I am delighted to see that after 3 years, I have to deal with so many novelties – the fact that the plant is installed on the water brings a degree of complexity that we do not usually have."

Furthermore, she has also been able to explore different ways of producing energy, a new reliable solution to turn the body of water into solar power plants:

"Floating solar is a major challenge for our business. There is less and less land available to install solar farms, and it has been a long time since we cut forests to clear land. Floating solar makes it possible to install beautiful projects on old quarries or mines that have been filled with water for safety reasons at the end of their operation. It is important for me to bring innovative solutions that preserve the environment. Floating is a solution in full swing. I am pleased to be a part of the project team and work on the three new projects between 2022 and 2023" explained Katell

Katell didn’t always want to be an engineer, she developed a passion for it by understanding the difference she could make. 

"The engineering profession was not the one I had in mind as a child, but as I grew up, I looked for a useful job related to the preservation of the environment. I graduated from an engineering school whose specialties are geotechnics and the environment. During my studies and an internship programme, I discovered the profession of a  project engineer. It's more of a role than a person who inspired me to become a project engineer."

Bouygues Energies & Services have offices in France, UK, Germany, Italy to name a few if you’re interested in joining view our vacancies from apprenticeships to director level VIEW NOW