"Skills for business" training for PhD jobseekers

The project originated from converging observations from different players in the region: the region's Economic and Social Committee and Pole Emploi which, following a study, estimated the number of job-seeking PhD students in the region at between 400 and 500.

At the same time, the CDEFI (Conference of Directors of French Engineering Schools) launched a call for projects for engineering schools to set up a training programme for PhD students in order to boost their employability. Centrale Nantes responded to the call and received certification.

The partnership with Pôle Emploi made it possible to identify ten PhD graduates students in human and social sciences, biology or chemistry, between 25 and 50 years old. Some of them already had professional experience, but nothing permanent, others, having spent time abroad had no professional network on their return to France.

"Skills for Business" included 250 hours of training and three months of paid internship. At the end of the course, nine of the participants were in post out of a total of ten trainees. Some of them had moved away from their PhD field and scientific discipline to focus on other activities such as innovation consulting, for example. All of them understood that their PhD career was an asset for the company.

For Maïwenn, a participant in the first edition with a PhD in geosciences:
This programme helped me to rebuild my self-confidence from a professional point of view. I have not only been able to apply my PhD skills within a company, but I have also learned how to make the most of them. The training managers and trainers were key to the success of the programme as they prompted us to constant self-analysis. Today, I know myself better and my job is fascinating. At the end of her internship, Maïwenn joined SCE (Keran Group) on a fixed-term contract as a project engineer, a new post, in line with her skills.

Building on this success, Centrale Nantes and Pôle Emploi pursued the adventure with a second edition of "Skills for business" in October 2018, which proved equally successful.