The law of 5 September 2018 on the freedom to choose one’s professional future creates for the first time the possibility for French companies to open an internal apprenticeship training centre.

In October 2019, the Adecco group officially launched its apprenticeship training centre (centre de formation des apprentis – CFA). The group, specialising in human resources and temporary employment, has 2 600 internal recruiters, including 2 000 in France. Establishing its own CFA will enable Adecco to create a training offer that meets its operational challenges. This new development marks the opening of the apprenticeship training market announced by the 2018 law regulating continuing training.

Recruit differently

‘Until now there has been no professional diploma specifically designed for the recruitment profession’, says Christophe Catoir, President for France and Northern Europe, Adecco Group. Over the next 12 months, 36 apprentices will be trained as recruitment managers while working in one of the group's subsidiaries. In practice, apprentices will be required to design recruitment processes based on innovative methods in order to select candidates based on their potential, rather than only on their CV and background. Apprentice recruiters, selected for their high potential and motivation to learn the sector, will be recruiting the next professionals in the trade.

An innovative approach

Employer-led CFAs are intended to meet insufficiently covered market needs and to offer more advanced training. The new generation of CFAs created by private companies and adapted to their own needs may become centres of excellence (pôles d’ excellence) by opening their training offer to other employers, as well as to different target groups (for example, apprentices enrolled in other CFAs under an apprenticeship contract and young people enrolled in other alternance training programmes such as the professionalisation contract). This is also the objective of the Adecco Group. Its next training programmes will be open to apprentices employed by its customers or other companies. Internally, the training modules created for the CFA will be offered to the group's recruiters and managers to raise their awareness of innovative methods; VET schools have also expressed an interest in the training modules developed.

Next steps

From 2018, any employer or group of employers who are willing to invest in training and are struggling to recruit may create their own apprenticeship training centre – similar to vocational schools and to any other training body. Besides Adecco, Schneider Electric, Safran, Arc International, Groupe Nicollin (waste), have announced their interest in creating an apprenticeship training centre.

 

Read more

Kit | Ouvrir votre propre centre de formation d’apprentis (CFA) [Kit-opening your own apprenticeship training centre] 

Formation en alternance [Alternance training]

L’espace officiel de la certification professionnelle: Chargé de recrutement [the official site on professional qualifications: Professional diploma ‘recruitment officer’]