Interview with Vincent, intern recruiter

At Bluecoders, we want to invest long term with the students we welcome on internship or apprenticeship. They benefit from the same training as our permanent employees.

Vincent joined Bluecoders for his end-of-studies internship, and he's continuing the adventure with us in his first permanent role! We asked him a few questions to get his feedback on his internship and on what convinced him to continue with us.

Hi Vincent, can you introduce yourself and your background?

Hi, my name is Vincent, I'm a recruiter, I started with an end-of-studies internship at Bluecoders and I've been on a permanent contract for 1 month.

Before joining Bluecoders, I got a high-school diploma in economics and social sciences then a bachelor in business school with a management track. My training was mainly sales-focused. I had already done a first internship as a Business developer because I've always been drawn to client relationships.

Before my internship, I had never worked in tech — for me, Python was a snake! I was trained on the topic when I joined Bluecoders.

What made you want to join Bluecoders?

What attracted me was mainly the double-sided sales aspect of the role: selling a project to a candidate and a profile to a company. I wanted to keep this client relationship aspect, but I found it interesting to add the candidate relationship part too, which is very close in the end.

More broadly, I wanted to discover a new domain and be trained in it.

Joining Bluecoders was also the opportunity to be directly in contact and autonomous with the biggest Parisian startups. It was an opportunity I didn't think I'd have access to as an intern!

Bluecoders is a highly ambitious company and I was able to discover this through the various stages of the hiring process, particularly during my interview with Christophe. There's a strong growth ambition and I wanted to be part of this project.

Finally, I wanted to join a dynamic company with a good atmosphere, which is the case at Bluecoders — the team is young and we all get along very well.

What did your internship bring you?

The first thing I think of is that it gave me a huge amount of knowledge about the tech sector. When I arrived, I knew nothing about it and I was trained to support candidates and clients.

On top of that, I was taught to master a discourse on the sector and was able to improve my sales skills, particularly negotiation, which I hadn't really done before. Closing steps are very important in hiring and I was able to learn to handle them from my internship onwards. I picked up a lot of methodology on the recruiting side, particularly on getting a candidate to listen to the market and convincing your counterpart.

I also improved a lot in terms of organization. When you have to manage several clients and candidates at different process steps, you need to know how to manage your time, and I leveled up by joining Bluecoders.


What were the things you preferred during your internship?

What I preferred was the kindness and rapport between all the employees at Bluecoders.

There's a huge amount of mutual help and there are always people there to answer your questions when you arrive. It was really good to have expert recruiters to train you and give you advice. Everyone gets involved to grow your skills and to integrate you into the company, so it's really motivating.

I really like my team because there's a great atmosphere, and the results are there because we widely exceeded the goals set this quarter. Our work together is fluid, we all get along well, and we help each other a lot. Hélène, our business manager, is really attentive and always available to give us advice. We have regular check-ins and she's there in case of need.

About my missions, what I prefer is the closing step, when I present the offer to the candidate I'm supporting — it's a really stimulating moment. When the hire is sealed, you can put on your deal music in the open space, and that's even better!

What makes you want to continue with us?

I received a job offer following my internship and I decided to stay at Bluecoders for my first permanent role. I spent six months interning here, and I didn't want to leave now because I feel like I still have a huge amount to do.

By staying here, I'll be able to continue being trained as I have been so far. The internship made me realize how much I had to learn, and I know that I'll be able to keep growing at Bluecoders.

I'll have lots of evolution opportunities within the company and I really loved the project we all work on together.

Another reason I stayed is obviously the team — there's a really great atmosphere and I really didn't want to say goodbye to my colleagues!

How do you project yourself going forward with Bluecoders?

To start, I'd like to keep evolving and move up to the next level. I'm keeping the goals I hit during my internship, so I hope to be able to move up to intermediate in a few months.

More broadly, I want to continue growing my skills by working with the team. When new people arrive, everyone gets involved in their training, and even though I don't manage yet, I'm happy to start helping them and answering their questions. It's thanks to that I can see we progress very quickly here!

After that, I'd like to start mentoring then managing an intern, a junior, and why not later a team. A person on my team arrived a year ago after graduating, she's going to manage her first intern starting next month. I'd really like to be able to do the same later!