Inclement weather on Wednesday in Paris didn’t dampen the mood of visitors to the final date of the “You and Me” recruitment tour organized by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
“We are very happy to finish in Paris, with rain and warmth in the heart,” said Chantal Gaemperle, executive vice president of human resources and synergies at LVMH, in a short opening speech alongside Parisian officials, noting that the tour had found a warm welcome at every stop and met a “diversified public that went from 16 to 62 years old,” with an abundance of profiles looking for reskilling opportunities.
“A group like ours is built on the talent of women and men, on the experience of its craftspeople, and professions that are transmitted through time and over time,” she added.
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And visitors were certainly hungry to learn more about what this could entail. Small crowds gathered around the four stations that led from discovering what kind of career could spark their interests and seeing demonstrations from craftspeople, to speaking with school representatives and getting coaching on résumés and interviews. One visitor was heard commenting that it was a more hands-on experience than other job fairs where “people stood around chatting, waiting to hire or be recruited.”
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“In a country where too many of our youths experience difficulties finding their way, their future and what they want to do, the simple fact of giving [them] an opportunity to discover these careers is precious,” said Paris’ first deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, noting that these skills that “made the excellence of the [LVMH] group also made the excellence of Paris.”
With 60,000 views on the dedicated “You and Me” website and more than 2,500 visitors in the first four cities, the tour confirmed the popularity of the group’s annual outreach toward junior high, high school and university students, which has grown to include other types of profiles.
For Gaemperle, however, the real win wasn’t the 1,200 positions to be filled. “It’s about sparking vocations, making these professions known. Once you finish, you have a qualifying training and that’s the basic step to having prospects,” she said, later noting that “having this kind of training and then the option of working in a group — ours or another — [was] an important message” of the operation.
Tailoring each stop’s partners to take into account job opportunities but also the heritage of its region, such as winemaking around the Northeastern city of Reims, also helped smooth out any concerns, remarked the group’s director of development of the métiers d’excellence Alexandre Boquel.
Since its inception in 2014, the Institut des Métiers d’Exception has grown from a first group of 28 apprentices in three specialties, to a cohort of 1,400 people trained across 30 different vocational tracks and six countries.
Mathilde Goffart, training assistant at the Institut Français de la Mode, one of the 11 schools on site, lauded “very well-oriented and -informed candidates…who asked the right questions on practical aspects and the apprenticeship system itself.”
Retired basketball star Tony Parker wrote that he had been struck by the curiosity and quick understanding of the ecosystem displayed by the young would-be recruits he met at previous tour dates.
“Too often, we hear that youths are detached from everything, lack direction or interest. But it’s our references that falter and don’t speak to them,” he said in an email, adding that the format of the event had “removed shyness and hang-ups to turn [candidates] into actors of the launch of their projects.”
Beyond the figures and success stories, Gaemperle also hoped that the five-city tour had proved that despite a perception that “LVMH as a group that is a bit inaccessible,” it offered plenty of opportunities for a wide range of profiles, even to those seeking to change careers or who have left traditional educational paths.
“We wanted to go meet young people where they study and live, and we met a diversified public [that] included them, their parents but also those looking for an opportunity to reskill,” she said. The latter category amounted to 50 percent of the visitors overall, according to Boquel.
“One of our desires is to see these skills live [in people] aged seven to 77 years old,” he added, highlighting that the group was extending its educational programs from building awareness among school-aged children to internal programs for employees.
The “playful meeting” and partnership with former NBA player Parker, who “spoke to the heart of [the IME’s audience]” also helped, according to Gaemperle, who revealed the partnership would continue and that the group would also support his Tony Parker Adéquat Academy.
“The virtue of working in an ecosystem with schools, the Pole Emploi job agency and partners that help us beam our message is very important. We keep telling young people ‘we don’t succeed alone’ and we’re living this ourselves,” she said.