The pub of the future

100 volunteers from the entrepreneurial world meet 600 unemployed young people
It is unique of its kind because it helps each young people have a face to face conversation, for an hour, with a company manager, an executive, or a human resources administrator, in a place which is both convivial and warm.

The "Café de l'Avenir" (Pub of the Future) was created by a small group of volunteers which were aware of the major discrepancy between studies, lives, and the market of employment. The members of that team are from different generations, and work in various domains, such as syndicalism, public governance, communication, journalism, and so on.
In order to make their entering the working life easier, the young graduates have been benefiting, since June 2006, from the unpaid help of those head executives that are eager to end up with pessimism, and to respond to their worries. The meetings of the "Café de l'Avenir" take place in a real pub, which is rented to the association for free.

The objective of the association is to give young people the opportunity to come out of their isolation, and to try and give them their self-confidence back: some of them never even got to the first interview step.

Our administrators - all volunteers - come from small companies, or from bigger corporations, such as Bouygues, Microsoft, Carrefour France, Fnac, SFR, Crown Europe, Safran, Bred, Decathlon, L'Oréal, TF1, Natixis, Axa, EDF… All domains are represented, including Law, economy, of data processing.

Those head executives are here on their own, to help young people put themselves into question, improve their ability to sell themselves and widen the range of their searches, even if it implies taking another pathway. They are here to allow "their young one" to get a job that is going to satisfy both his' or hers' motivation and the companies' expectations. They favour his success, and his integration, without any discrimination.

In a nutshell, the administrator analyses the history of the youngster and corrects, with him, his resumé and his letter of support, and then the two of them set up a genuine strategy to make his search for a job more efficient. He is committed to the youngster until he enters the working life. By the end of the interview in the pub, a charter of mutual commitment is signed. Moreover, they have the opportunity to take part in group activities to discover the methods of recruitment and interview, along with new jobs.
In order to make an appointment, the young people must sign in by sending their resumé on the website of the association, and wait for an email confirmation.

The "Café de l'Avenir" is not a recruiting agency, and it does not offer interviews for jobs. It completes, throughout an original approach, all the structures that currently help people in their search for work. The "Café de l'Avenir" has developed two privileged partnerships with the universities of Paris VII and Paris IV (the well known Sorbonne). It makes contact with young graduates throughout prestigious schools, local missions, and thanks to the APEC network.

The goal is not to legitimize a system, but to work so that methods and mentalities change. Within 18 months, more than a quarter of the young people who went to the "Café" found a job. Obviously, the "Café de l'Avenir" is only, for the moment, a Parisian association, but it is likely to spread all over France, and perhaps to inspire new foreign associations.

For the members of the entrepreneurial world, the "Café de l'Avenir" is a way to see young people in a new light. Many thanked us for allowing their meeting with people they may not have spotted in their own company. Here are their commentaries:

"We wanted to create an open space, something casual that could enable another kind of dialogue, a dialogue that would be efficient and direct, with the professionals of recruitment and members of the entrepreneurial world. This process is really different from the one of advisers from official corporations. Our bet was to give them the Highway Code they lacked to put forward their skills and their experience." Françoise Lefebvre, head of the association of the "Cafés de l'Avenir".

"The idea from which the "Café" was born is a simple and efficient one : As there are obviously not enough paths between School and Work in France, let's create a direct link between young people and the agents of the entrepreneurial world. No in-between, so that the gaps and prejudices everyone bears are forgotten. It is a way to combine business with pleasure." Stéphane Roussel, SFR.

"The "Café de l'Avenir" is all about enriching encounters a sharing out of values, and the satisfaction of being part of a rebound of life." Gérard Guérif, BRED.

"It is an original place to meet people, and those encounters are full of good sense, added to that the feeling you are actually helping and accompanying those young people in their search, and letting them access our networks." Valérie Barlois-Leroux, Bouygues.

"I met very uncommon profiles: Once, a young girl claimed that graduating in HEC was "a mistake" for her! Right from the beginning, she tells me she wants to be a prima ballerina, or at least work "in relation to that" in small structures, even if it implies small wages. I gave her professional newspapers to help her find offers, suggested that she'd better not evoke her prestigious diploma when she meets craftsmen. I obtained a meeting with the manufacturer of the bible paper of the collection "la Pléiade" (a famous collection from Gallimard)… on that very day, she was to find a job as an administrator for a small restorer of works of art." Hélène Demaison, BRED.