Les Carrefours 2023: a special must at HEC Paris
With +800 registered students (Grande Ecole, MBA) and +130 companies present on Campus "Les Carrefours" 2023 represent THE most significant recruitment event of the academic year. Discover why this career fair remains so special and important for the whole HEC Paris community and its new responsible orientation for 2023
Auteur/Author of this article: Frédéric Voirin
Les Carrefours are a must
Les Carrefours took place on January 16+17+18 in the Hall of Honour of HEC Paris and have successfully proven the strength of connections between HEC Paris and its partner companies for over 35 years !
This year, the unmissable student-led annual career fair was organized by a team of one MBA and twelve united and very committed Grande Ecole students. This 3 day-event is the result of one year of preparation for these students with the help of HEC Talents (Career Center) and the Corporate Partnerships Department of the school.
As always, this unique opportunity helps students to affirm their professional perspectives for their career. Nishant Jayaswal, MBA Council current president, explained that
“Les Carrefours are very interesting as a career fair because it’s aiming at Master Students who look for their first internships but also at MBA Students who wish to embrace new career paths!”
"Here, there are also great job opportunities for MBAs in many different sectors like Consulting, IT and Telecommunications, Defense and Aeronautics, Energy or Fashion. Because MBA Students are often aiming at changing their working sectors. And you can also find a job abroad. That’s really satisfying!"
Same satisfaction for the recruiters: It is the perfect opportunity to introduce your company’s activities and to reinforce your visibility among students of an internationally renowned school. Most of the present professionals were unaminous about the great diversity and quality of HEC Students’ profiles.
Mathilde Leroy (H.10 Exed), talent manager senior for LVMH, explained that
“Les Carrefours for LVMH, it is a must and a real pleasure to come back as an alumna. We always meet diverse profiles who are truly motivated by our houses and we answer and guide young students with customed & purposeful paths in their potential journey in our companies”.
EY Consulting Director Pierre Santolini (H.05 CEMS) also testifies « as an alumnus and as a professional, I can say that Les Carrefours are a must. EY has been attending this event for 17 years now, but we’re really enthusiastic this year because of the French-international combined diversity of HEC Students. Their profiles are extremely good and attractive for us. On top of that, this career fair is always very well-organized. All these elements make us come back on HEC Campus every year!”.
So, despite the fact that they’re all different and very diversified, HEC Students and former and newly-arrived recruiters from big or small companies, all agreed on one thing spontaneously: this recruiting forum is a real must !
A growing success-event
The positive result of this uprising attractivity is that in 2023 “Les Carrefours” successfully increased its growth of 20% and gathered +130 companies. Consequently, Les Carrefours also maximized their attendance this year and have reached +800 participating students !
Juliette Carles-Chanoine, HEC Grande Ecole MiM Student and organizing VP of Les Carrefours told us with a big smile : “We almost had trouble getting around because there were so many people for the opening, so we clearly saw the influx of students for both large groups and SMEs and startups, which made the forum really lively and very balanced."
She emphasizes: "As far as the associative challenge is concerned, we managed to overcome some unforeseen logistical problems for this growing audience and
"It is a great source of pride to see more than 130 companies present on the campus for Les Carrefours 2023”
New innovations for 2023: DOs & DON’Ts for the applicants, a digitalized CV & Impactful Jobs !
This year new concrete actions were implemented by HEC Students such as really good and concrete pieces of advise on how to be a successful candidate. It was composed of clear and clever DOs & DON’Ts, available for everyone on HEC Paris’ Instagram here:
This year, the organizing Students also introduced the fast-connecting digitalized CV with a flashable QR-code and through relevant internship and job offers. These initiatives simplify interactions between students and companies, but also avoid wasting time and also printed resumes.
Léa Soulier, operational equity business partner at LaTour Capital Private Equity shared her feedback about this new system:
“We seek to recruit a variety of profiles: from this point of view the Carrefours keep their promise. Thanks to this new recruiting scanning tool, we’ve organized numerous meetings faster and with more diverse profiles, from France & internationa. It’s really an improvement in the recruiting process, and it works very well. It allows us to prepare the meetings in advance. It’s a real time saver”
Stéphanie Pfeiffer (H.15) chief operating officer and Sarah Ohayon (H.17) partner of JAB consulting emphasize that “this digitalized solution is pure genius: it’s super practical, we can really filter profiles according to our needs and then go straight to the meetings with excellent students in a few seconds. We love it ! We’re very proud to be back on HEC Campus, where we had fun a few years ago as student associations’ members. This is a real time-capsule and we feel that we belong to the HEC Community, we love it too! »
On top of this new sourcing tool, Les Carrefours were dedicated to transition, green economy and impactful career orientations, which are growing concerns of students, companies and HEC Paris altogether.
Juliette Carles-Chanoine, HEC Student-VP of Les Carrefours told us that « Schneider Electric is a key company of the Career Fair this year. They made an inspiring but very concrete speech on their environmental policy. They’re very engaged in the green transition, since a long time. For example, they implemented it in their accounting system since years. That means they really measure their green impact in their daily life at work!”
Discover more about the ESG Policy of Schneider Electric via our Knowledge@HEC Podcast:
Focusing on transition and green economy is very diversified and can be perceived from different angles, such as the energy transition or the digital transition, which was very present throughout the various fair stands. Energy-saving policies, green finance, short-distance transportation, e-meetings or fair-trade fashion trends were for example ones of the few recommendations that were discussed between students and recruiters during the fair.
In parallel, there were also some unexpected recruiters, like La Croix Rouge that proposes meaningful health-oriented career paths or Le Choix de l’Ecole that suggested to HEC students, normally expected to do business, to become teachers ! “Being a teacher means choosing a committed profession with a real social and societal impact and a transformative experience on a human level, a true catalyst for managerial and relational skills” (Caroline Raymond, Public relations and Communication for Le Choix de l'école)
So in 2023 once again, Les Carrefours definitely remain a must for the whole HEC Community (students & recruiting alumni) and have proven that they’re still capable of reinventing themselves...for green and for good too !