They are ten – Pierre, Paul Antoine, Michel, Robert, Claude, Benjamin, Ivan, Eric, Nicolas, and Jean Christophe – all executives from the IT sector and all job seekers in the Nice region.
Gathered together for a course organized by ANPE Cadres de Nice, these high-level “unemployed” individuals have set up a website that compiles their resumes in order to reach as many companies as possible via the web.
The website www.cadresinfo.com thus presents the career paths of each member in the world of computing and has been sent to numerous companies in the region, including to Sophia Antipolis, the famous Azurean technopole that houses the largest IT companies in the area.
Nice Première met with three of them to find out their views on employment in the region and their solutions to energize what are sometimes very tedious job searches.
Introduce yourself?
Ivan: I’m 37 years old. I share my life with my partner and her 12-year-old son in Nice.
I pursued university studies at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, until obtaining a DEA in imaging. I then worked in academia as a non-tenured researcher (PhD and postdoctoral). My research focused on 3D medical imaging.
Later, I decided to move towards a career in the industrial world. I found a job at the company binuscan, in Monaco. This company specializes in image processing software for the graphic arts world (photographers, printers…). I was part of an economic layoff at the beginning of 2005, which reduced the R&D team from 7 to 1 person.
I am currently looking for a job. My core business, R&D in image processing, is quite restricted. I have just finished touring the companies in the region that work in this field. Without result. Today, I am ready to orient myself towards computer scientist positions. Having considerable experience in C++ development, I will orient my search in this area.
Pierre: Pierre Chaperon, 33 years old
9 years of experience. Engineer ESIEE and MBA from CERAM. CV available at www.cadresinfo.com
Looking for a project manager position in (new) information technologies.
Claude: 46 years old, married, 2 children, laid off following the liquidation of AUDIT-INFORMATIQUE at the end of 2004, I am currently looking for a project manager position. After 22 and a half years within the same company, I am back on the job market with a lack of knowledge in new development technologies, which appears as a barrier to any hiring. This explains why I have had no interviews to date; I am not in tune with the work world.
Tell us about your site www.cadresinfo.com?
Ivan: We are a group of IT executives following a service provided by the ANPE through the association ACOPAD. The purpose of this service is to set up a project that allows us to make ourselves known to companies. We chose to create a website that contains all the group members’ CVs. To make the existence of this site known, we decided to carry out a mailing to the HR directors and technical managers of all the companies we could list. We are also putting together a media plan, which has already borne fruit since Nice-Matin published an article on our approach.
To date, one person out of the 10 in the group has been contacted. We need to continue our efforts.
Pierre: Cadresinfo.com was born from the desire of a group of IT professionals seeking employment.
They met thanks to the Inser2i service from ANPE, which ultimately aims to have 70% of its participants employed during the 5 months that the service lasts.
The site www.cadresinfo.com brings together the profiles of a dozen executives who have decided to join forces in their search and create a group dynamic. Publicity for this site is made through mailing to recruiters to encourage them first to visit the site and then to contact the job seekers directly.
Claude: It’s the expression of expertise that suits IT professionals very well. This diverse offering will more easily entice HR or decision-makers than working alone, but do they need it?
How do you judge the employment world in the department?
Ivan: It is certain that executives, even though this notion is becoming obsolete, must show initiative and dynamism. However, it seems normal to me that job seekers should be helped in their efforts. However, perhaps because I am in a too specialized niche, the only information I have been able to obtain was through my network. What seems most shocking to me is still the difficulty one can have in listing companies. It seems paradoxical that this primary information is, at best, difficult to access and, at worst, hidden. Another major difficulty is the multiplication of job offer sources. What a waste of time to travel from one internet site to another and sort through the ads, often redundant!
Pierre: My feeling about the world of employment in the 06 is as follows:
The 06 is mainly oriented towards tourism. Apart from Sophia Antipolis, there are few technological hubs capable of employing a large number of IT professionals. Moreover, since the departure of Nortel, Lucent, and others, there are no longer large companies setting up in the department. Sophia is running out of steam, and the recent HP social plan does not make me think otherwise.
In general, although the department could play a pivotal role between Marseille and Genoa, I rather feel like we are at the end of France, isolated.
Claude: The ads that suit me best are not plentiful in the region but rather outside PACA and especially in Île-de-France. The succession of social plans (yesterday THALES, tomorrow HP) will make competition tougher in a department where large companies are emptying. After my layoff, I went through a retraining agency (cabinet ESSEL in AIX-EN-PROVENCE) which made few proposals, even though these people are on the lookout for all offers proposed by companies.
What do you think would be the solutions to improve job searching locally?
Ivan: A fundamental tool would be an interface between job seekers and employers. This would mean: a listing of job seekers (a database of CVs), a listing of companies in the region and their field of activity, a single source of job offers, and a space for contact and discussion between the parties involved.
Pierre: Improving the search locally will not be an easy task.
For the moment, I feel that job searching is a solitary experience. Very few initiatives, to my knowledge, are there to assist in job searching.
One of the first difficulties is finding available positions. For hidden offers, extensive knowledge of the economic fabric and a large network of contacts are necessary to be at the right place at the right time.
For published offers, the difficulty is making a quick and effective selection, which is not made easier by the proliferation of media offering offers…
Response to each advertisement can take time, nothing is standardized – for each agency, for each company, a new form needs to be filled out even though my experience remains substantially the same.
I sincerely believe that these first phases of job searching could be standardized, grouped together, automated, and especially made available to job seekers from the first day of their registration with ANPE.
After that remains the interview, but in my opinion, direct contact with the employer remains necessary and mandatory to properly understand the problem the company is facing and to be able to assess whether the candidate matches the profile. Plus, it gets you out of your isolation. For each interview, I feel like I’m coming back to life…
Claude: The best job search is to go into contact with companies, but since it is difficult to go door to door, a regular, high-quality job fair (every 2 months if nothing more) would be an excellent solution.
And finally, what are your plans for the coming months?
Ivan: 1. Find a job
2. Find a job
3. Find a job
Pierre: For now, I have only one goal: to find THE position made for me.
The position in a dynamic and innovative company.
The position where I will feel like I am evolving compared to my previous positions
The position where I can highlight my new knowledge without forgetting my past experiences.
In short, where I can thrive!
Claude: Having worked on a temporary contract for 4 months at BPCA (through networking), I submitted an application to Fongécif for a Java training course. I got 80% funding which lets me look forward to the future with more serenity. I hope to expand my network during this training and thus position myself as an employee or independent worker. It’s not won yet since I’ll be criticized for my lack of experience in Java, but it’s up to me to demonstrate my adaptability and quick integration into this world that I’m going to discover.
