Dior, Hermès, Chanel, LVMH, Gucci,… Fanny Bahsa is a recruiter who swims professionally in luxury. Nearly 70% of the missions of Fitjob, the firm she heads, are carried out for the major groups in the sector and their distribution networks, for support functions (finance-accounting, human resources-payroll, legal department, assistantship or purchasing – customer relationship). Luxury is recruiting en masse, driven by very strong developments. Unfortunately, if the missions accumulate, the candidates themselves are rare and particularly finicky. This leads to hiring delays that can exceed 6 months…
How to qualify recruitments in the luxury sector at the start of 2023?
Fanny Bahsa: “This sector is growing with significant recruitment needs, particularly in the sub-sectors jewellery, leather goods, sales or hotels. Tensions are even higher there. This has implications for wages. A management controller that I placed in this sector in 2020, with 4 years of experience, received around 50,000 to 55,000 euros gross per year. If I place him today, still in this same sector, his emoluments will be around, in March 2023, 60,000 to 65,000 euros gross per year. This is still an increase of 20% in 3 years”.
Despite gold salaries, luxury also has difficulty recruiting.
How do you explain this salary increase?
FB: Several reasons combine and all go in the direction of a scarcity of candidates coupled with an increase in staffing needs. First of all, the luxury sector is doing more than well economically. This is the first reason. Hence the projects that are being made and the need for new employees that add up. Second, luxury develops in an economy with a low unemployment rate, with tensions also existing in other sectors. It therefore finds itself in competition with other branches of the economy which are also looking for collaborators.
Are candidates reluctant to apply?
Take for example a senior accountant position that a very beautiful luxury company, very famous, very sexy, in very strong development with a flagship product excessively present on social networks asked me to research. It was in July 2022. The employer offered a comfortable salary of 38,000 euros gross per year with a evolution planned for a position of responsibility to manage the team to be created. It was added a profit-sharing of the order of 1 to 2 months’ salary in addition, a changing room of 8000 euros, that is to say the possibility of clothing for this sum…, a gym. In short, a more than interesting package. The position was finally filled in January 2023… That is 6 months. It was complicated because the tension on these stations is general, whatever the sector, because Fewer and fewer young graduates are going into the accounting professions. I also note that candidates are much more demanding today and expect more from the company. They are looking for “meaning” and want the company to meet this expectation before joining.
How to succeed in recruiting despite everything?
If we add the Covid which pushed people to leave the Paris region, this market has become a market of candidates with employers who must make efforts to seduce them. With candidates who have the choice between 5 positions at the same time, who sometimes say that luxury is too muted, with a complicated management, lacking in benevolence and recognition. Everything is then played on the speed that the employer has to hire the candidate but also the meaning of the work or the minutes of public transport to reach his work… It is then necessary to know how to go quickly. In this case, it may work. A management controller candidate wanted to change jobs quickly. I notified my client. On Monday, he managed to put together the hiring appointments for a week. I passed on the references of the young woman in stride. She received a proposal on Friday. It started on March 6, 2023. You have to know how to go fast today”.
What are the advantages of the luxury sector?
Luxury is a sector that has the means to invest in order to find good candidates. He therefore offers good salaries, training and high standards. One of the market leaders offers, for example, 17 months’ salary with 10,000 euros in profit-sharing and a bonus. The sector can thus retain its employees who would lose remuneration by leaving the sector. In addition, the sector knows how to acquire high-level IT tools to do its job well. It also allows interesting internal mobility, easily develops telework, training, quality CSR policies and creates an environment through management training that promotes well-being at work”.
Marine, 30 years old: “a formative and enriching sector”
Marine (she prefers to remain anonymous) holds a Master 2 from a management school ranked in the top 10 in France. She was an apprentice for a well-known perfumer and began her career in human resources for a large luxury house. “It was a matter of opportunity. Not a calling. But then I encountered an extremely formative and enriching company and sector. My employer brought me the attention to detail, innovation and respect for the customer placed at the heart of his concerns. It is also a company that allows you to evolve in terms of business and location. It opens up the field of possibilities in a very simple, very authentic atmosphere. A dynamic box that allows you to take risks. It’s daring with a beauty of events set up. To follow my spouse, I had to leave the Paris region and my employer in July 2022. I changed sector and region. I now receive 37,000 euros gross per year. I earned, in luxury and in the Paris region, 40,000”.