For many students entering business school, the world of Junior Entreprise seems shrouded in mystery. Whether it's fantasy, rejection or simple ignorance, there are many grey areas surrounding these professional student associations. The aim of this article is to answer, at least in part, the questions students may have, by detailing the reasons why they should join a Junior Entreprise.
An opportunity to discover the world of work
Perhaps it's the most obvious reason, but it's worth remembering that what Junior Entreprise offers you first and foremost is training, a framework and professional experience. After spending 2 or 3 years taking exciting, stimulating and varied courses during your preparatory years, you'll no doubt be looking for a much more concrete form of training.
This is the first call HEC Junior Conseil comes to answer, right from the training you'll receive during your first month with us. During an intense but exciting month of January, the members of HJC will train you so that you can then carry out assignments for various customers. Customer satisfaction, quality control, mastery of professional software, canvassing, association management- there's a wealth of subjects to discover or learn more about, giving you a technical background that goes far beyond the simple framework of a student association.
Let's not forget that the aim of this training is to prepare you to be as "plug-and-play" as possible when you enter the job market, and in particular to carry out consulting assignments for a wide range of customers.
Joining HJC means learning to work as part of a team on a wide range of missions that overlap with those you will have to carry out in the course of your professional life.
To face concrete problems of the business world: strategic issues, communication...
After your time at JE, you'll know all about quantitative and qualitative research, market studies, business plans, documentary research and strategic appraisals. As you work on assignments from A to Z, you'll discover the different issues involved, from compliance with legal standards, deadline management, graphic mastery, quality of writing, management of project managers, dialogue with the client, signing of documents and so on.
You'll also have to deal with complicated situations (which you may encounter in the working world) that will enable you to develop your ability to react and adapt, which will be useful throughout your life. Carrying out assignments also means working on your customer relations, learning how to communicate effectively, being responsive, available and attentive, because communication starts with listening.
Giving yourself all the keys for your entry into the job market
Your experience at HJC will also give you the opportunity to beef up your CV by highlighting your role in various missions that have left their mark on you. In fact, mentioning this prestigious institution and evoking various missions testifies to your determination and professionalism.
In the course of your many assignments, you'll be working with some of the world's biggest CAC40 companies, as well as promising start-ups, giving you plenty of material to demonstrate your experience and qualities at the interviews you'll have to attend to get into the internship or job of your dreams. Of course, having completed assignments for HEC Junior Conseil gives you an unquestionable edge over other students in the eyes of consulting firm recruiters.
But this is also true for the vast majority of sectors, because the strength of HEC Junior Conseil lies in the fact that we carry out assignments for clients from a huge variety of sectors. Would you like to land an internship with a prestigious Haute Couture house? Describing the role you played in an assignment for a major luxury house will certainly come in handy.
Discover the others
After this overview of what HJC can do for you professionally, it's worth remembering that HJC is also an association of students and friends who work and live together, forming a close-knit team. During each of your assignments, you'll be working in pairs with another HJC member. You'll need to learn to work effectively as part of a team, but also to learn to trust others.
At the heart of this magnificent association, you will also have a functional position that will give you responsibilities on subjects essential to the smooth running of HJC. The emphasis is on team-building events throughout the year to strengthen the cohesion of the mandate.
Self-discovery
This last point may not be the one that comes to mind first when thinking about the I and yet it is undoubtedly the most important.
During your time with HJC, you'll work on a wide variety of assignments for customers with very different profiles. From private individuals to large CAC40 companies, innovative start-ups and SMEs, HJC's customer panel will enable you to discover the areas that interest you.
Do you think you might be interested in the world of consulting firms, but don't know what the day-to-day life of people working in this field is like? Would you like to get to grips with the constraints of the consulting field and test your personality? HJC lets you find out if this is the world for you, while exposing you to a huge diversity of backgrounds through its various assignments.
That's the strength of JE: you're immersed in the world of work within an academic framework. For many students, for whom the world of work and business often appears opaque and distant, this experience within HJC is both a way of discovering their preferences, and of demystifying the world of work by replacing the dreaded plunge into the unknown at the end of their studies with gradual, enriching integration.
What's more, HJC also allows you to discover the functional role that's right for you. Are you more attracted to prospecting, external representation, relations with administration and alumni, or are you more sensitive to cash flow and internal operations? Joining HJC is the ideal opportunity to answer these questions, without waiting to join a company. By giving you an associative role, HJC teaches you to manage responsibilities, to trust others and, above all, to trust yourself.
