Bakalilou Yabi had spent 7 years headhunting IT profiles and recruiting in Europe. With his associate, they needed to undertake a business on his behalf. Along with his associate Seynabou Thiam, they have launched an HR consulting and high-level profile recruitment company in Geneva, named BK Search, in 2014. Now more than ever, both partners intend to put people at the heart of their new challenge.
He was a formidable head hunter that discovered this profession in 2007. She is a human ressources expert who worked for many years in extracurricular services as Director at Paris City Hall. In 2006, they crossed paths together in Paris. Ever since then, they have worked continuously to search, evaluate, select talented individuals, from Paris to Dakar via Geneva. They put them in contact with their customers on behalf of large companies or SMEs. The emphasis in their recruitment agency is on following up candidates during their recruitment process and in the following stages. BK Search’s particular approach is characterised by a human approach combined with comprehensive support.
An encouraging first year from all points of view
Following several visits in Senegal, a platform for the recruitment of executives and managers emerged to meet the needs of certain companies and diaspora talents ready to take up professional challenges in Africa. “The African continent will undoubtedly be the next relay for global growth, it was therefore important for BK Search to be physically present there,” explain BakalilouYabi and Seynabou Thiam whose service offer involves different areas such as recruitment, human resources consulting, interim, training without forgetting coaching and personal development. “Our strategy, during the first few months, was to immerse ourselves in the environment to better understand our clients’ issues and set up an adapted service offer”, they confide, all smiles, with the conviction that they have successfully taken their first steps in the field with the opening of key account clients and successfully completed HR projects.
Positioning BK Search at the forefront
Once they have settled in Dakar, Bakalilou Yabi and Seynabou Thiam are well aware of the challenges: making of BK Search one of the leading HR and recruitment consultancy firms in Africa while carrying out professional integration missions.
In addition, Bakalilou Yabi and Seynabou Thiam recognise they operate in a technology environment favourable to their business. “With the right use at our service, the tools that we have available allow us to move fast further and have access to an almost inexhaustible pool of candidates according to the expected profiles”. Recruiters nowadays can draw upon increasingly more sophisticated recruiting solutions which incorporate artificial intelligence in order to automatise tasks such as profile searches or CV sorting to “speed up processes and allow us to devote more time to tasks with higher added value”, explain the two partners, who are convinced that “the HR function has the ability to adapt and adopt the new tools at its disposal as part of a continuous improvement process”, they explain.
BK Search at the service of its clients and partners confronted with Coronavirus
As Seynabou Thiam says, the growing trust and loyalty of customers is generating other desires. Today, the two partners, in this time of Covid-19, are committed to the benefit of students, young graduates and job seekers by conducting web-conferences on the theme: “professional integration in times of crisis”, while inviting the ecosystem to make proposals. In other words, COVID is not going to hinder their ambitions.