as value judgments by Elodie, but with much of the love she received from both her parents. The suburbs, far from being perceived as a difficult area to live in, seem to have brought Elodie some contentment. The cultural mix, the popular environment, even in modest circumstances, provided Elodie with an environment that opened her mind to others. “I’m better off now and I’m very afraid that my children won’t have the opportunity to get to know this working-class environment. It is a form of wealth”.
One of the singular points of Elodie’s childhood is an early conviction instilled by her mother. It’s the belief that no matter how modest a household she was in, she could do anything. Feeling “capable of anything”, this conviction carried Elodie through life, and even created the young girl she was. “I know today that if I want to, I can do it”.
3.1.2. Quiet schooling
Elodie had a quiet schooling. “I never had any pressure from my mother to succeed. She certainly wanted me to obtain the Baccalaureate, but above all she wanted me to blossom”. A gifted student, she went to a private junior school which she didn’t like because it was too communitarian. There she was able to acquire a very good level which paved the way to a high school far from home where she was able to combine studies for a while with her passion for the theater. “I wanted to be in the theater and I fought to get into this school”.
This didn’t last, because finally came the time for the final orientation towards her option for the BAC and after some procrastination, it was finally mathematics that she opted for.
3.1.3. Studies
Applied mathematics in university was supposed to be easy to study. Yes, but for Elodie, who until then hadn’t gone to much trouble to succeed in passing her exams, the surprise was great. You really had to work! “I didn’t have my first year and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do”.
No problem though. Caught by the passion of writing, Elodie launched herself into a Journalism DUT1. “I really loved it”. But was it going to last?
Not really yet. Indeed, after this DUT, she had some experience in journalism. It didn’t take long for the interest in journalism to wear off. Doing breaking news stressed her somewhat, doing current affairs bored her. So it was time to do something else…. She then worked in a media consulting agency on the design of projects, communication supports and events animation. This new experience, which lasted a little over two years, gave her a taste for project processes. And again, there was an end, a weariness … What to do? She chose to stop the experience there and start a business with her mother, while restarting her studies.
3.2. Time to build
At this stage of Elodie’s journey, I really wondered what I could still discover. So many very rapid changes, not surprisingly, left me somewhat perplexed. But what did Elodie want? What was she looking for after all?
3.2.1. A student entrepreneur
The essence of the project was to evaluate retirement homes. This project developed with her mother was not an easy one. Elodie’s mother hadn’t given up her job and therefore had time on her hands. As for Elodie, although she was involved in the latter, she nevertheless conducted parallel studies. Elodie, passionate about history, did a bachelor’s degree in history, then a master’s degree in the same field, then a second year master’s, broadening her field of knowledge towards Ethics, organization, CSR, in short, a more sociological field of knowledge.
Elodie, however, became heavily involved in this business with her mother at the same time. “I had done everything in this company with my mother”: business development of the company, project management, organizational audits in health care institutions, consulting, processes, communication, finance, etc. The list would be too long to enumerate. The life of an entrepreneur in fact, especially in a structure where there are only two employees….
But the two ladies, maybe they had different goals. “My mother was interested in retirement homes, and I was interested in project management”. The business was dropped after about three years and Elodie returned to the workforce. “My mother understood it very well, my studies in addition to this company, I was just washed out…”.
3.2.2. Back to employment
After a very short experience at the Revue Fiduciaire, a fiduciary magazine, unsatisfied, she was recruited at the Caisse Nationale d’Assurance Vieillesse on the difficult project at work. “That was real”. This mission seems to me to be one of Elodie’s many experiences, the one that really fascinated her. “I had responsibilities and the atmosphere was excellent”. On this experience, she seemed to have found her way. An alchemy between project management and a sense of what it did. I then imagined, listening to her, that this experience had continued for a few years anyway, at least for more than three years. Indeed, her missions were broad and exciting for a profile as open as hers. Setting up a Tough Prevention Account system, deploying it in the network of regional old-age funds and understanding all of its businesses, their development, the laws associated with them, useful training, etc. are all challenges that Elodie took care to describe to me. I admit I learned a lot.
But she still changed after a year and a half… “It was clear that I was going all the way, I was not saving myself”. Elodie gave everything and I sometimes think that time passed before her. In fact, another reason beyond having mastered her position motivated her departure: the restructuring of the department. “I didn’t like this restructuring. I didn’t fit in”.
And here’s our Elodie now consulting for a new company in the Défense region of Paris. “Being hired as a consultant in a company without having gone to business school was a confirmation for me”. The result: a new social status rewarding her studies, and a much higher salary. “I approached my spouse’s social level and that made me happy for a while. But I quickly remembered that the priority for me wasn’t there”.
This did not last…. Because of her husband’s transfer after a year, Elodie had to head south. She then took the time to reflect on her “fighter’s journey”. From all these experiences, she drew a major lesson: “do today’s companies know how to recruit to meet the challenges of our society?”. After all, she had to face very different situations in her journey, situations that her profile had not prepared her for. She had succeeded in doing so, however, thanks in particular to the open-mindedness of some of the companies that recruited her. In Elodie’s eyes, this is not what happens to a good number of profiles which, if they don’t correspond to a certain format, will be rejected by the company…. It was only one step away from setting up a start-up that had to deal with this problem.
3.2.3. Getting started
Elodie launched everything in 2017 while being pregnant and made sure from the outset to acquire legitimacy in her sector (HR) through corporate proof of concept. The company is called People In.
Elodie’s solution: “People In offers an innovative and relevant recruitment method. It pre-selects candidates via a digital tool that tests a key skill associated with the position. The tool allows us to check candidates’ aptitudes before the interview while opening the search to different but relevant profiles. Better adapted to new recruitment issues. More reliable. More efficient”.
Why: “Knowledge is quite readable in a CV, but not know-how or interpersonal
