it is possible to find a job while playing sports

by time news

It is barely 9 a.m. and there are already people in front of the gates of the Jean Bouin stadium, in Blanc-Mesnil, in Seine-Saint-Denis (93). Jogging outfit and sneakers on her feet, Fatiha, 37, comes to look for a job. This morning, it is not around a table that she will meet her potential future employer, but on an athletics track. This former specialist educator, unemployed for six months, will be integrated into a team of ten people made up of job seekers and one or more recruiters, who will advance masked.

Fatiha will not know who the employer is until anonymity is lifted in the early afternoon. “I’m going to feel like I’m being spied on. The game will be to find out who the employer is. It is possible that we discover it quickly, if there is one with a bureaucratic side a little stuck, it will be unmasked directly! But we can always be surprised by appearances she jokes.

Less formal than a traditional interview

She feels more comfortable with this method of recruitment: “I like it much more than traditional interviews with questions about your qualities and your faults”, she confides. Like the hundred or so jobseekers present, she was contacted by Pôle emploi, which is organizing the event in cooperation with the French Athletics Federation, the National Sports Agency and Paris 2024 – the organizing committee of the Games. Olympics. His profile was studied upstream to check that he corresponded to the prerequisites of the position.

“Employers tell us each time that they might not have recruited such and such a person in the context of a traditional interview”, explains Olivier Meneux, regional attractiveness and youth manager at Paris 2024, who financially supports the operation. This initiative, organized a hundred times a year, is of interest in Seine-Saint-Denis, the second French department most affected by unemployment, with 10.5% of inhabitants having not worked in the last quarter of 2021, according to INSEE. .

Don’t be unmasked

Candidates must run in relays. “To go as fast as possible, you have to use your arms”, coach advises. It is barely ten o’clock and it is already over 30°C in the municipal stadium. Some participants are struggling. But they will not be evaluated on the quality of sports practice, recalls Olivier Meneux.

The idea is also to allow employers to flush out skills in candidates, beyond purely professional skills. «I analyze behaviors but you must not say it too much otherwise I will be unmaskedexplains in a low voice Angélique, a recruiter who tries to remain incognito. We see those who encourage, those who stay behind, those who can’t do it but who try anyway not to let the team down… It’s super interesting», she details.

In all, eleven companies are present. And 87 positions are to be filled for 120 candidates, especially in sectors that have difficulty recruiting, such as mass distribution, construction, health, transport or community services.

After lunch, it’s time for revelations. «Can the employer among you come forward?» A man dressed in the Atlético de Madrid jersey stands up. ” But no ! We didn’t think it was you at all! », exclaim his teammates. “I think I infiltrated well, I hadn’t been spotted”, the interested party has fun before explaining on the microphone that he is recruiting bus drivers for the RATP. In some groups, less surprise, the candidates had already identified the employer.

CVs are not forgotten

Long queues form to be able to talk to the recruiters. The majority of candidates brought their CV, even if they weren’t supposed to… A man in his forties has just finished his interview, he is mixed: “It’s okay, it went well. But I was asked for a cover letter,” he says, a little discouraged. “It’s normal, we told you that it was just going to be the first stage of recruitment”, reassures him a Pôle emploi adviser.

“What generates a bit of frustration is that we don’t recruit right away. There is then a more formal interview», explains another recruiter. On average, 60% of job seekers still get a job after these meetings, according to figures given by Paris 2024.

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