Kirsten Williamson is Managing Director of Petrus Communications, a company which she founded 7 years ago. Petrus Communications is an award-winning recruitment marketing and research consultancy based in Paris. Kirsten’s small team of experts works closely with companies, universities and organizations world-wide on graduate recruitment and employability projects.

An active partner in the EAIE for over 10 years, Kirsten organised EMPLOI’s first course on careers service delivery - ‘Setting up a Careers Service’ - which was held in Paris in 2007 and again in 2008. Kirsten regularly speaks at sessions and workshops for the EAIE and a number of other organisations on themes such as developing employability skills, helping students integrate the global labour market and interaction between employers and institutions. Believing that something innovative was needed to give greater visibility to international careers services amongst UK employers, in 2009 Kirsten organised the first ever ‘Careers Service Speed Dating’ which took place at the Annual AGR conference in the UK.

Becoming EMPLOI Board member has allowed Kirsten to share her experience in the field of work placements. As well as helping many international companies organise and market their internship programmes, Petrus – as a regular employer of interns - was named as the UK’s best internship provider by the NCWE in the small business category. And thanks to EMPLOI Kirsten has learnt a lot about the EU programmes which support international internships and are little known amongst graduate recruiters.

Kirsten has also helped to bring to EMPLOI a new range of contacts among careers service staff and from industry, for example by encouraging representatives from Shell, Toyota and Airbus to attend and participate in recent EAIE conferences.

Besides being a Board member of EMPLOI, Kirsten is also co-founder and Board member of INTAL, the Alumni Relations Special Interest Group of EAIE whose course this year, Managing alumni programmes effectively, will also be hosted by Petrus in Paris. Kirsten is also member of the Institute of Directors, Fedora and the AGR.

kirsten@petruscommunications.com

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