A belated welcome to 2012, which I hope will be kind and warm to us.

Memories of the excesses and fun of the Xmas season are fading and we are all 'down to business' again. Right now, we are on Doctor Alert, searching for Doctors of all specialities for UK. Ana Campos is at the cutting edge of it in Lisbon and Liliana and Carlos are on operation Spain and Italy. The first recruitment session of the year in Porto, a 4 day event was a resounding success, these UK Employers offered a minimum of 11 Nursing positions per day. As Ana Andrade in Porto said: the week started big around here and optimism is mandatory! Big work and optimism paid off. Julie de Mol visited Porto in January to meet candidates for Belgium and Holland. She gave information sessions and met candidates. We look forward to the first candidates heading to the low countries . Iva will smooth their path with Dutch classes and advice. Eileen O'Malley Preparations are well underway in Dublin for visit to Valencia for Phsysios for USA end of Feb. In the meantime office in Porto prepares for a visit from an Irish Employer next week, UK employers mid Feb and interviewing for USA from Feb 20th. As I finish this Danny and Liliana Silva are on their way to Belfast to meet nine new Portuguese Nurses who will arrive at 8pm tonight. As always we welcome them heartily and wish them success and happiness here. ~ Eileen O'Malley We are receiving an ever increasing number of applications from Nurses, who want to go to United Kingdom, looking for the desired job opportunity which will grant recognition and professional fulfilment. A new recruitment event is approaching, and I'm eager to it, since it is a pleasure to help our candidates to accomplish their professional goals and help them taking one more step towards their career development. February will be an exciting month, as we are also engaged with another very interesting project. We are unfolding and making new developments on a recent project for Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists for the USA, for which we will have a new recruitment event by the end of February. Efforts are being made to present this offer also to Spanish candidates. Liliana Costa ~ Liliana Costa

On Jan 17th Sylwia from our Porto office commented as follows to Portuguese press: "Most of applications come through at the end of the academic year, in September/October, yet this year we observe stable high demand even in usually calmer months like December and January. There are more experienced candidates who look for job abroad because they see little chance of career progression in Portugal. We receive on average 6-7 candidates per day in our offices in Porto and Lisbon. We mainly recruit Nurses and now we have a very attractive offer for Physiotherapists in United States. Most of our candidates are young, newlyqualified professionals who struggle to find first or second employment in Portugal. These professionals have better chances to find work as General Nurses in Nursing Homes, in continuous and palliative care. Hospitals would rather look for professionals with previous experience of at least one year in a specific area like Surgery, Oncology, Paediatrics or Theatre. With rapidly aging population all around Europe, the future for nurses is definitely in Nursing Homes, delivering care to elderly and mentally ill patients." La nouvelle anne nous a amen un large ventail des recrutements internationaux pour la Belgique, Royaume-Uni et Irlande. Le mois prochain nous retrouverons pour la treizime fois nos clients anglais avec lesquels nous comptons recevoir quelque 30 candidats en une journe et demi d'entretiens, un vrai exploit ! Par la suite nous nous rencontrerons pour la deuxime fois avec nos clients amricains et nos candidats physiothrapeutes. 2012 ne sera pas seulement une anne de Jeux Olympiques Londres et EURO en Pologne et Ukraine, mais aussi un vrai marathon de recrutement international au Portugal. ~ Sylwia Markiewicz

Sylwia Markiewicz

January has brought new challenges to the Lisbon Office. A great number of Doctors have been requested and we are hard at work to find, gather and prepare these professionals. This is a new area for us, and there is much that needs to be learned. We are happy to be receiving good medical professionals, both Portuguese and from other nationalities, who are quite eager to accept the challenge of starting an international career. Also, a new page has been opened for Best Personnel, with our latest recruitment event for Northern Ireland presenting wonderful results. Portuguese Nurses and other health care professionals continue to be an example of hard work and good academic preparation. ~ Ana Campos Ana Campos It was the second time I stayed in Ireland for Christmas. Even it was not a white Christmas as I expected, but wearing a blinking Xmas hat, singing Jingle Bells with my workmates, it was definitely the best season of a year. After Christmas and New Year, it comes another special day: Chinese New Year. 2012 is the year of Dragon, which represents strong and healthy in Chinese culture. I wish all my friends and colleagues will have a healthy and happy 2012. ~ Lizzie Lizzie

O ano de 2012 comeou em grande e com bastante trabalho. Novos projectos, novos desafios e novas oportunidades surgiram para todos nos, como para os nossos candidatos. Tive o prazer de receber o primeiro grupo de Enfermeiros a viajar este ano, na sua chegada Irlanda do Norte. Na recepo de boas vindas aos recm-chegados, encontrava-me acompanhada pelo Danny e pelos respectivos directores das instituies onde os candidatos iriam trabalhar. Foi uma experiencia agradvel ver as expresses de excitao e esperana na face de cada um, bem como, as primeiras questes colocadas e as primeiras respostas. Liliana Silva Estivemos com eles na sua chegada e tentaremos estar sempre que possvel, na primeira vez de cada grupo, garantindo um comeo o mais agradvel possvel e acompanhamento sem restries. ~ Liliana Silva Why would BPL work together with Belgium? The Belgian market will have in 2012 a shortened amount of about 2200 nurses. Therefore we need to search nurses from elsewhere. Because BPL is specialized in the recrutement of nurses, especially Portuguese nurses, this cooperation was a logical result to the demand-supply theory. Our first visit to the BPL-bureau at Port was a pleasant one. There we saw that our BPL-collegues are very professional, motivated and nice people. After discussion our strategy for the Belgian market, Julie followed some interviews from Portuguese nurses for the English market. We're glad that we can work with such a professional team. We wish you all a nice Christmas and all the best for the year 2012! BPL-agents Belgium/Luxembourg, ~ Philip & Julie De Mol

Philip & Julie De Mol Feliz Ao Nuevo! Empezamos este 2012 con las pilas cargadas e ilusiones renovadas, despus de disfrutar de las vacaciones de Navidad con nuestra familia!. Este ao se presenta cargado de retos muy interesantes, tanto por los procesos que tenemos abiertos como los nuevos que estn llegando, y que siga as! Entramos en la recta final de nuestro segundo proceso de seleccin de Fisioterapeutas para Estados Unidos, y esperamos que este salga igual o mejor que el primero, os iremos informando!. ~ Carlos Perez Carlos Perez Hello everyone, welcome to the new year! No sorries in waving 2011 goodbye, allthough it wasnt a bad year for us. But a new year, like all things new, is full of promises, hopes and ideas. The buzz continues around physiotherapists for USA, nurses for Belgium and Northern Ireland and even doctors for UK. Overall, theres no time to even be gloomy about the worlds current economical situation. In business, like in life, optimist is mandatory if you want to succeed. This year got off to a quick and big start with a 4 day recruitment event for nurses at our Porto office, where we witnessed as almost 50 young portuguese came one step closer to fulfilling their dreams of a new job. To the ones travelling for Belfast this month, we wish all the sucess and the best of luck! ~ Ana Teresa Andrade Ana Teresa Andrade Just about to leave for Belfast Airport with Liliana .We are to meet a cohort of nine nurses from Portugal embarking on a new life for their 'meet and greet'. Busy time of the year with many starting new jobs in the New Year. At the same time recruitment is blazing ahead with five recruitment events over January and February. We are looking at a new project to enhance marketing of our services to the care sector and indeed hospital sector, in the UK. At the same time continental European Recruitment continues afoot and we are studying opportunities in Greece particularly. The Spanish team has been strengthened in Dublin and an event for Physiotherapists in Valencia is only weeks away for them. In other healthcare sectors an interesting project in physician recruitment is gathering momentum, coordinated from the Lisbon office. All in all manic might well describe it. I think Sylwia has suggested we need to perform something like as if we are ourselves competing in the Olympics! Maybe she is not far wrong. Anyway I know we all wish it stays this way as it is challenging and invigorating, here is to 2012. ~ Daniel Roberts Yours sincerely, Eileen O'Malley Director www.bestpersonnel.ie

Daniel Roberts