Eline Posthumus (25 years old) has always been fascinated by big water construction projects. She’s now following her dreams as a trainee at Boskalis Nederland. “Gaining experience, surrounded by like-minded people. What else would you want?”
“I’m from a small village in Groningen”, Eline starts. The ‘Dag van de Bouw’ – a yearly event where you can take a look on building sites throughout the Netherlands – has always been a special day for me. It’s not every day that you can get a close look at impressive projects. In 2018, I visited one of Boskalis’ deep sea quay projects with my niece. ‘If you enjoy being here that much, why don’t you ask them for a job?’, she asked me. And just like that I started working on the project as an assistant for the entire summer. Without any experience, purely driven by my fascination.”
During that summer, Eline realized she was learning a lot more than she did at school studying Civil Engineering. Tough exams were suddenly a piece of cake. Eline: “That’s when I decided I wanted to gain more experience in the field. Not much later, my former project supervisor called me to ask if I was interested in a traineeship at Boskalis. That proved to be the perfect step between school and my future career.”
Eline started at Boskalis Nederlands’ tender department, where she mostly worked on (3D) visualizations for a new quay wall at the Europaterminal in Antwerp. “After that, I grabbed another opportunity”, Eline continues. “I showed my interest in a big land reclamation project near Rotterdam. It’s great to be working in planning now. If I can get a position in implementation after this assignment, I’ve ran through the entire process from tender to delivery.”
“That’s what I love about Boskalis. As soon as you speak out about your ambitions, they’ll do everything to get you there”, Eline smiles. “And you’re surrounded by like-minded people. It’s clearly a certain type of people that you meet here: open, ambitious and above all, proud about the job. I met an international trainee during the introduction weeks. We were looking at a ship together during our break and - as if it was normal - started discussing what kind of ship it was, what it was built to do and so on. Those are not the type of conversations I have with my friends from Groningen.”
Long days, outside with her boots in the mud. That’s what Eline’s ideal job looks like. “I definitely see myself staying with Boskalis after this traineeship. Dike reinforcements, harbors, the big work. The good thing is that they really invest in you here, by taking good care of you. I see a great future ahead of me.”
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