Why work for a Junior Enterprise when you are a student?

According to the CNJE, a Junior-Enterprise is a pedagogical consulting association. It allows students to carry out missions for professionals in return for payment. The Junior-Enterprises call upon the students of their school to intervene on missions which are in adequacy with the competences acquired in course.

HEC Junior Conseil (HJC), the Junior Enterprise of Europe's leading business school, HEC Paris, is a 50 year old structure managed by experienced students. In addition to its 18 administrators, HEC Junior Conseil calls on students from the school to work on the various missions entrusted to it by its numerous partner and client companies. Within this framework, HJC intervenes on various missions: from the administration of questionnaires to market research through the realization of Business Plans. But why work for a Junior-entreprise when you are a student?

The missions given are always in adequacy with the courses followed in school. The National Confederation of Junior-Enterprises (CNJE) defines the purpose of Junior-Enterprises as "to provide a complement, an extension and a practical application of the teachings given in the school".

Thus, the principle of a Junior-Enterprise is to be able to put into practice where the courses give us the theory. The work proposed by a Junior-Enterprise represents a valuable complement to the teaching. For example, for students in business schools like HEC, the course "Financial Modeling - Business Plan" is particularly helpful in making financial business plans. In addition, certain M2 majors are sometimes valued in the context of specific assignments. For example, in the context of missions for start-ups, the administrators prefer students who have had experience with the problem in question during their gap year and, if possible, students who are part of the HEC X-Entrepreneur major.

Relying on previous professional experience and the major allows students to take a fresh and pragmatic look at the problem at hand. It is also a way to put into practice the skills being acquired in M2 in the professional world.

It is therefore possible to discover the concrete and practical aspect of the subjects studied in class. For example, during an assignment carried out in 2019 by HJC for Télédiffusion France, the administrators made every effort to call upon students who had taken the "television in the digital age" course, but especially students who were on a double degree course with ENSAE. Indeed, it was a mission based on a crossing of data. It therefore seemed natural to call upon students with a double degree from a school of statistics and therefore sensitive to the challenges of Data. This choice of profile proved to be very useful to carry out the mission. This mission allowed the selected student to apply her skills acquired in her two schools in a professional context. She also provided useful and relevant work for the client.

Finally, working for a Junior-Enterprise appears to be an almost necessary complement to the training of a Grande Ecole student. Indeed, it is a way to fully understand the stakes of the subjects studied and to know to what extent these subjects are necessary in the professional context.

Read also: The values of HEC Junior Conseil

 Moreover, it is important to emphasize that doing an assignment is a great way to save money, or even to directly meet one's financial needs in the context of generally interesting assignments. What is special about working for a Junior-Enterprise is that no matter what the level of study or the assignment, the student ends up acquiring practical skills needed in the professional world:

For example, if a student has to administer a certain number of questionnaires in a given time, he or she must be organized and strategic in choosing the time/day of administration in order to meet the imposed deadline. Similarly, if a student has to complete a business plan with other students, the ability to work in a team and flexibility will be paramount to the success of the assignment. Having responsibilities in a structure that relies on you to deliver means that you must be able to handle the pressure.

 The members of Junior-Enterprises leave their mandate having developed real consulting skills. Indeed, the members of Junior-Enterprises of the Grandes Ecoles generally have experience in project management for large groups such as Decathlon, ATKearney, Engie or the Montaigne Institute.

These moments of meeting and exchange are vectors of creation of links between students. Moreover, most of the Junior-Enterprises take advantage of their turnover and their influence within the school to support projects that are close to the hearts of certain committed associations or to the school itself. For example, HEC Junior Conseil awards a prize every year to an association on campus that has an innovative project with an impact. This prize allows us to finance part of the project and thus motivate the associations to give more and more of themselves. This commitment of the Junior-Enterprises strengthens the link between the students of the school in question but also contributes to the associative or more general projects of the school. Of course, this is possible thanks to the people who work for the Junior-Enterprises in the framework of very often challenging missions.

Working for a Junior-Enterprise when you are a student is a chance to discover the professional world while applying the theoretical knowledge learned in class. It is also a way to meet students and to exchange with them. The fact that Junior-Enterprises are generally big associations within their school, allows them to support important projects for the school and all this is possible thanks to each student who comes one day to work for the Junior-Enterprise of his school.