Category: Press

On 14-15 September 2017, Yury Mikhailov, Head of CONSORT Group’s St Petersburg office, took part in the discussions within the framework of the Federal IT Forum of the Russian oil and gas industry “Smart Oil & Gas: Digital Transformation of the Oil and Gas Industry”.

This large-scale industry event was held for the third time already, having proved to be a unique platform for discussing and exchanging best practice experience on major issues of IT and industrial automation in Russia’s oil and gas sector.

Yury was a speaker at a special session called Killer Robots that was devoted to the question of what could be done about those employees who would be gradually replaced with info-bots and automation systems.

The session participants tried to take a look into the future and offered their vision on the following issues:

• Was it possible to completely substitute humans in certain jobs with robots and info-bots

• How could people and robots coexist comfortably in a business environment

• Were special acts and regulations on the work of robots required or should they obey human laws

• Who would be held responsible for the robots’ mistakes (especially those that led to serious consequences)

• What could be done with the employees in non-complex jobs who would be replaced by robots and who were not capable of a more skilled work

• If the predictions that within the next decade robots’ IQ score would increase to 1,000 or more (as compared to 100 for an average human or 200 for a genius) were true, would not people become an oppressed minority

The speakers agreed that in the near future it will be possible to digitize and robotize those processes that can be easily algorithmized and represent a set of simple actions that are not based on deep analysis but rather provide general information or do a quick analysis to set key criteria. Where the role of thought processes for making comprehensive and weighted decisions was still great, and understanding of customer/consumer psychology was of paramount importance, digitalization would take place at a slower pace, and so, perhaps, despite the emergence of various chat bots and Vera personnel search bots, the recruiter’s position was not yet threatened with extinction.

On 18 April 2017, the office of Superjob.ru welcomed CEOs of Russia’s leading recruitment firms who met to brainstorm an issue of how to further develop the Association of Personnel Search Consultants (APSC).

APSC — the oldest association of professional recruiters in this country — was created in 1996, and since then has done a lot both for establishing the recruiter profession and making the domestic labor market more civilized overall. AKPP’s major achievements have been formulating “Recruiter’s Professional and Ethics Code”, organizing training across Russia, creating professional standards and getting them approved at the state level, and much more.

Michael Bogdanov, CONSORT Group’s Chairman and CEO, acted as one of the founding fathers of APSC, was elected its President for five years, and for a long time was Chairman of the APSC’s Expert Council.

The meeting unanimously agreed on the need to continue APSC’s activities. The brainstorming session results will be used to develop soon a new strategy and approaches that will reflect the interests of a wider range of employment agencies under the new conditions of doing business that changed dramatically in the past few years.

Dozens of experts, who took part in compiling the 15th rating of The Russia’s TOP-1000 managers, ranked Julia Balakina, CONSORT Group’s Business Development Director, number 1 in 2014 Commercial Director (Professional services) category. This is the highest mark of recognition ever received by any member of CONSORT Group’s team throughout the years of the rating (since 2002).  

It is no coincidence that Julia Balakina’s professional activities have been so highly appreciated on the market: under her leadership, CONSORT Group won two thirds of the many search tenders announced by corporate clients.    

Michael Bogdanov, CONSORT Group’s Chairman of the Board, took 4th place in 2014 Top Manager (Professional services) category. The rating’s experts have included him among the market’s “best of the best”,  putting him ahead of all other search industry competition.  

CONSORT Group’s IT Director Andrey Vengerov has also kept his position in the rating.

 The Russia’s TOP-1000 managers rating is conducted annually by Russia’s Managers Association and Kommersant Publishing House. This ranking is by rights considered the most objective survey for evaluating professional reputation of the leading Russian top executives.