Have the State and public authorities become employers like any other? ? Not really, according to a study on the attractiveness of public employment published on November 18 by EM Normandie and Actual groupe: “candidates interested in public employment are already there. Conversely, public employment does not seem to be one of the desirable options or even considered by the majority of workers “. And yet, underlines the study, “nearly a third of agents are on permanent contracts (1.2 million public agents out of 5.67 million in total) which puts the public service in direct competition with the private sector for attract and retain talent. Consequence of this lack of attractiveness: the number of candidates per position is melting like snow in the sun, turnover is skyrocketing and “due to a lack of applicants, certain services are forced to lower their requirements”.
Jean Pralong, teacher-researcher specializing in human resources management issues at EM Normandie analysis for L’Express this crisis of attractiveness in the public sector and proposes several avenues to attract a larger pool of future applicants into the fold of the State. “As soon as the public service opens up to permanent contracts, that is to say it positions itself as a private recruiter, it must go to the end of the equation and copy its recruitment practices on those of the private sector”, warns the researcher. Who calls for desecrating the competition route: “Contractual agents are seen as a kind of cheap civil servant. That’s no longer the way to think.” Interview.
L’Express: The average number of applicants per open job, all public functions combined, fell from 16 in 1997 to 6 in 2022. Why has the civil service become so unattractive?
Jean Pralong: There first explanation is that the most visible, the most “known” professions are no longer attractive. This is particularly the case for teachers. We can say that in thirty years, their status has lost its prestige, the school environment being an often stigmatized place. Then, many opportunities are simply unknown. This is due to the fact that recruitment into the civil service is mainly done by competitive examination. However, the competition is scary. You have to prepare it, it’s long, it’s random. The process is opaque for the most part and refers to something very academic. I would add that the job titles in the public service are not very compatible with what exists in the private sector. Put together, all of this creates a kind of barrier. There is therefore a perceived high entry cost to understand what these professions are and how to access them. Finally, basically, competitions are not at all candidate-oriented, where today companies go out of their way to ensure that recruitment is an engaging experience, one that makes you want to and which is a foretaste of what will happen next.
Why does the competitive examination route still remain so predominant in the civil service?
I believe that there is a completely typical mechanism: when we have suffered to take a competitive exam and succeed, we tend to legitimize it. We worked so hard to win it that it is an integral part of the winner’s identity. There is questioning work to be carried out in a somewhat frontal manner – moreover, the opening of the civil service to contractual agents is already in itself a questioning of the competition itself -, because in the teams, we observe a segmentation: the one who passed the competition has a little more prestige because he passed the main test; the one who, next door, has the same job but is contractual, is seen as a supplementary force. However, this is no longer the way to think.
“The public service is surely asking itself today the question of evaluation but not enough that of seduction”
“It therefore remains to invent new imaginaries that are less general and closer to reality,” the study concludes. For example ?
The worst would be to want to re-enchant public employment by rehashing a single discourse on the values of public service and the general interest. “You serve the State, you serve the community, you serve the Republic”: it is indeed very noble, but this kind of message no longer works with candidates. It would therefore be wrong to try to attract with these principles which, in reality, are often just a pretty window dressing aimed at gaining acceptance of lower salaries, poor working conditions, no career, etc.
It is not certain that the public service employer brand still makes sense. Moreover, as you will have noted, “the culture and values of public service” come in sixth place among candidates for public employment. In this regard, I find it rather reassuring that “the content of the work and missions” comes in second place. [NDLR : derrière “l’équilibre vie professionnelle-vie privée”]. If we want to attract candidates, we have to talk to them about the work, about what they will have to do. Show that this work can correspond to their skills and also to their personal interests. However, when we talk about public service in France, we talk much less about its missions and its interest than about its bureaucracy, its burdens, etc. It is not surprising that the candidates do not rush to the gate…
How should public sector agents adjust their discourse and methods to attract candidates?
As I said, without doubt recruiters – who themselves have passed competitive examinations – still view contract workers too much as a kind of auxiliary force, second-rate agents. We must therefore encourage them to acquire the hiring methods that we use in the private sector to attract candidates. The public service is surely today asking itself the question of evaluation but not enough that of seduction. However, recruitment means aiming for a consensus between the recruiter, the candidate and the person with whom he or she will work. If we do not set this consensus as an objective, there is inevitably one of the three who will not agree with the other two. We must therefore give public recruiters the codes of what works with private sector candidates, that is to say, talk to them not about the great public service mission, but about the context, activities, objectives, techniques to use and what will be expected of them, etc. Which is already done in a certain way in part of the public service, in EPICs for example (Public establishments of an industrial and commercial nature in France), which operate at this level as in the private sector.. These practices should be broadened: National Education is too structured around the dogmas of civil service and entrance exams; being contractual would be an airlock while waiting for the “prestigious” route of the competition. However, as soon as the public service opens up to CDD or CDI, that is to say it positions itself as a private recruiter, it must go to the end of the equation and it models its hiring practices on those of the private sector.
“Applications have become so rare that the public recruiter now has a very limited choice to select the final candidate”
“58.57% of interested candidates were already civil service contract workers,” indicates the study, which points to the endogamy of public recruitment. How to get out?
Yes, and if we caricature a little, we can say that all the candidates for the public are already in the public. This study was a real surprise for me. On the one hand, this shows that those who have returned there (out of attachment to public service or because they come from a family of civil servants, for example), feel good there. But on the other hand, this also means that private sector workers are unaware of public sector jobs and what the public service can bring them. As if the public and private recruitment markets were watertight. This watertight bulkhead must be brought down. How ? By finding ways to talk to candidates who are currently in the private sector to let them know that there are positions to fill. To do this, the hiring process must be entrusted to good knowledge of the job market: players such as recruitment firms who know how to combine evaluation and seduction.
According to the study, three types of individuals represent nearly 65% of candidates interested in public careers. Among them, we find the “stable optimists” (who attach great importance to work-life balance and the content of missions), who are most likely to be in tune with the reality of public employment . What should we conclude from this? And shouldn’t we try to attract more “talented optimists” (looking for stimulating missions, wherever they may be)?
The “talented optimists” do not differentiate at all between private and public. What is important for them is the exciting side of the missions, the skills to develop and not at all the legal framework. Perhaps more is needed indeed. Where it’s a little less encouraging is that they are very volatile and will get bored very quickly. However, in any public or private organization, there are professions whose activities are recurring – accounting, for example – which is not always exciting. We therefore also need candidates who are there for stability, for sustainability, to carry out work well on a daily basis with diligence rather than seeking stimulation at all costs. With this, the “stable optimists” are the most in tune.
“Selectivity has been halved in the state civil service since 2007,” we can read in the study. That’s to say ?
This means that applications have become so rare that the public recruiter now has a very limited choice to select the final candidate. And due to lack of choice, we employ people who have a slightly lower level because we have to have staff. This is not very serious when it comes to functions for which a diploma guarantees skills – nurses for example. On the other hand, it is more difficult for less regulated activities or activities where behavioral skills are important. However, recruitment is a question of comparison: evaluating is difficult, comparing is easy. If there are many candidates, not only can the choice be possible but above all we have a comparison sample to better detect the best profiles. If there are fewer candidates, the recruiter will still be able to retain the best (or least bad) candidates, but the comparison framework will be much less precise, which will reduce the overall effectiveness of the selection process.
What does the increase in turnover in the civil service reveal? Is there a management problem?
As you probably know, in the public service we do not talk about “management” but “supervision” or “steering”. Perhaps because “management” is an Anglo-Saxon term and it refers to the private sphere. But also because, in many services, there is the idea of coordination but not of power. This is the case of the principal in a high school for example: he has a coordination role, but he does not recruit, does not reward, has no leverage over salaries, etc. It’s not management…
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