NATIONWIDE TEMPING AND RECRUITMENT AGENCY FOR THE LABORATORY INDUSTRY

By Viggo Mortensen

Although LabVikar only came into being in June 2006, it is already a huge success nationwide. There is a demand for everything from laboratory technicians and dental technicians to pharmacists, dairy process operators and pharmaconomists. And the agency has hundreds of candidates on its books.

LabVikar is busy recruiting staff for permanent positions, but the laboratories are also now beginning to realise the benefits of using temps. And a number of these temps end up with permanent positions, which is of great personal satisfaction to owner Rikke Merton:

- Every time one of the temporary appointments leads to a permanent position, it feels like a personal success, says Rikke Merton, and when this happens, which is not all that infrequently, LabVikar has made the ideal match between customer and temp, which means that we can be said to have done our job perfectly.

When Rikke Merton started up LabVikar nine months ago, she never imagined in her wildest dreams that the business would take off as quickly as it has. But it would seem that the laboratory world has been lacking this kind of specialist temping agency. And the dental industry too is expressing great satisfaction that it can now make do with going to just one place when it needs staff. In Zealand, in particular, they have quickly embraced LabVikar – and with every passing day more and more doors are opening all over. Including in the rest of the country.

Created their own jobs

Many of LabVikar’s candidates have had employment through the agency from the very first day that they registered. Examples of these success stories/cases can be seen at www.labvikar.dk, as well as individual profiles of foreign candidates.

- Within certain specialist groups we are finding it difficult to procure the necessary candidates in Denmark. We have therefore started bringing them in from abroad, and this is a really exciting process, says Rikke Merton, who is not letting herself be beaten by the more demanding cases.

The whole thing actually started with laboratory technicians. Rikke Merton is herself a trained laboratory technician and was getting fed up with the trend for training far more laboratory technicians than were needed. She therefore started LabVikar in the hope of being able to create some new jobs for this group. Now, combined with bioanalyst training, she has established a course in blood sampling and handling. A move that she hopes will help to get some of the unemployed laboratory assistants placed in the many surplus bioanalyst positions at blood banks and similar institutions all over Denmark. And which can perhaps help to build a bridge between these two specialist groups.