companies are singled out by executives looking for work

APEC, the Association for Executive Employment, publishes a survey which reveals strong criticism concerning the methods used by companies during recruitment.

With the need to find skills to face a difficult situation in an increasingly competitive industrial world, executives were believed to be in a position of strength vis-à-vis employers. Businesses indeed have great needs. The survey published by Apec on Wednesday May 28 challenges some preconceived ideas. This study is the result of interviews with white-collar job seekers, as well as an online survey and group meetings.

What emerges is a strong criticism of the methods used by companies, large or medium-sized, to recruit this category of employees called upon to occupy management positions. THE “Imprecisions on the key elements of the position offered”THE “little explanation and clarity on the conditions and recruitment processes”, or the processes “long and energy-consuming” represent as many grievances, in the same way as the “mobilization of candidates without notice”, lack of respect with delays from the manager authorized to recruit, derogatory comments, or late or impersonal feedback after interviews. The list is not exhaustive, the load is heavy.

Recruitment tensions remain very real and higher than the situation before the Covid crisis. In 2023, six out of ten companies reported having difficulty recruiting a manager who meets needs. In 2019, before the pandemic, around one in two reported this difficulty. The reasons given are always the same: not enough applications, or applications unsuited to the needs of the company with salary expectations of recruitment candidates, competition between recruiters, etc.

As if two worlds continued to ignore each other despite tensions in the job market. On one side, demanding executives who want to move, on the other, companies which do not question their recruitment methods. This is indeed paradoxical and revealing. Revealing the limit of the capacities of the main actors, bosses and management employees, to respond to the ambitions of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who wants to achieve full employment in France by the end of his second five-year term in 2027.