The Talent Days Fair: More than 1400 students meet with companies

 

In keeping with the objectives of the Together programme launched in 2020, Career Services introduced a number of improvements designed to make the event more environmentally friendly (water fountains to replace plastic bottles, recyclable packaging, eco-responsible goodies).

As always, the event remains focused on bringing together students and participating companies. Take the case of Bastien, a second year Grande Ecole student in the Circular Economy department: ‘Last year when I was in my first year, we talked about it a lot but I hadn't been to Talent Days. I thought that it would be a really good idea for me to attend this year, and anyway it's advertised all over ESSEC so it's hard to miss. I find it really useful because I can get answers to questions that I wouldn't necessarily be able to find on company websites.’

From the companies’ point of view, it allows them to meet students from a variety of backgrounds, as Constance Chédauté, Campus Manager at Accenture and head of relations with ESSEC, explains: ‘There are certain students that we won't be recruiting right now but rather in one or two years. The aim is to familiarise them with the company now so that they remember us and will want to meet us again. We hire people with a wide range of skills and experience because we work in many different sectors and on a variety of projects. One of Accenture's strengths is that we have a very diverse range of people working for us. We don't necessarily have a specific skill set in mind because the idea is to have people capable of doing different things.’

Yang Yan, a first-year Grande Ecole student was able to get more advice on the position she was interested in at LVMH: ‘I came for LVMH and I have already spoken with their HR Campus Manager. I gave her my CV and she gave me some advice because I would like to pursue a career as a product manager. I saw they had openings available.’

One of the new features of the event this year was a photo booth at the Dôme, which was open to everyone and which enabled them to take home a souvenir of their day. In collaboration with PrepaStrat which offers training and coaching for consulting interviews and Prepera, a platform,Career Services set up a Career Corner to allow students to meet consultants directly and ask all their career questions. 

On January 25, the event went online. 

This hybrid format enabled: 

• Students unavailable the day before to meet and talk with recruiters

• Students looking for international opportunities to meet companies with operations abroad. 

During this day more than 60 companies and 300 students participated in the event.

As in previous years, the Career Services Department devoted a week to help students prepare for the event, the so-called Prep Week. During this week, students got the chance to attend Masterclasses, workshops to fine-tune their salary negotiation skills, meetings to improve their CVs or LinkedIn profiles, and Crack the Case sessions to work on case studies. For the past year, a professional photographer and a make-up artist have been on hand to take professional photos for the students' CVs or LinkedIn profiles.

It has been an intense ten days, but further career events are planned, including the Working Abroad Week and the Impact Career Forum on 9 March. 

We would like to thank all the companies and students who participated in this 2-day event, our sponsors Accenture, Bain & Company, Cap Gemini, Lacoste, as well as our principal partners Accenture, BNP Paribas, Cap Gemini and LVMH.

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