Bonjour! I’m Kasumi from Mercari’s new grad talent acquisition team.

In May 2023, I traveled to Paris along with four Mercari members from France, engineers Tim and Antoine and recruiters Clement and Victoria. We held information sessions about Mercari for prospective graduates across three schools, as well as a meetup event for engineers!

The recruitment events became lively spaces for networking, and we succeeded in promoting Mercari to almost 250 candidates.

In this Mercan article, I will introduce the details of each event.

Why Paris, France?

On this trip, we visited three of Paris’s top engineering schools: École Pour l’Informatique et les Techniques Avancées (EPITA), École Française d’Électronique et d’Informatique (EFREI), and École Pour l’Informatique et les Nouvelles Technologies (EPITECH). We had two main goals in France. The first was to recruit students with extensive practical experience and high technical skills. We currently have French engineers at Mercari who graduated from these schools, speak English fluently, and moved from across the globe to join us.

The second was to present Mercari and Japan as a potential career destination to talented French engineers, and to increase recognition of Mercari within the European mid-career recruitment market.

The fact that Mercari currently has more than 20 outstanding French engineers was also a key factor in choosing France as a location for our recruitment efforts.

New graduate information sessions at EPITA, EFREI, and EPITECH

First, we visited EPITA, a French school of advanced information technology. EPITA is known for its hands-on education programs and has produced many exceptional engineers.

At EPITA, approximately 120 students participated in our new graduate information session in-person and online. Senior ML engineer and alumnus Antoine gave a presentation introducing the work of an ML engineer, Mercari’s unique company culture, and our data-driven decision-making process.

Engineering manager Tim also shared experiences from his career, as well as information about working life and culture in Japan, team collaboration at Mercari, and challenges in a multicultural environment. The students were extremely engaged and asked many questions regarding working at a Japanese company.

Next, we visited EFREI, a renowned university in the field of computer science. At EFREI, we held a booth session in the morning and an information session in a classroom in the afternoon.

Around 25 students visited the booth session and enjoyed direct conversations with Mercari’s recruiters and engineers. The students asked many specific questions regarding Mercari’s internship programs and projects. We also received visits from EFREI’s career center staff and professors, inquiring about Mercari’s strengths and recruitment process.

At the afternoon session, we had about 40 participants. In addition to Mercari’s company culture and recruitment information, we also explained the differences in workstyle between Japan and France, as we did at EPITA. Once again, our engineers in particular received many specific questions—so much so that we significantly exceeded the allotted time for the classroom and continued answering questions in the hallway. Speaking directly with the students was a meaningful experience for us as well.

The final school we visited to hold a new graduate information session was EPITECH, one of France’s most famous universities for information technology and innovation.

At EPITECH, 45 students attended the information session. During Q&A, in addition to technical questions similar to those asked at other universities, we also received questions about the company’s future prospects, with topics like future projects involving AI and the related challenges, and competitive advantage in the Japanese market. The students said that the candid responses from our recruiters and engineers, including school alumnus Tim, helped them clearly envision how they could use their skills in a global setting. We also received positive feedback from the school’s career center staff, who asked us to come back and hold more information sessions in the future.

Exchanges continued after the information session via LinkedIn, where we received numerous requests for more information about the recruitment process in Japan.

Meetup event in central Paris

The meetup event was an opportunity for us to interact directly with potential candidates—particularly engineers and IT professionals in France interested in Japanese companies. To allow as many people as possible to attend, we held the event starting at 5 PM after work hours at a rented co-working space in central Paris.

We had around 30 attendees, from SRE and ML engineers to project managers and more with diverse titles and experiences. Even Mercari’s new graduate hires residing in France came by!

The meetup was not just about promoting Mercari’s recruitment, but also about building connections with engineers working in France, fostering interaction among people with diverse backgrounds, and expanding networks.

After the information session, participants freely networked and engaged in Q&A with Mercari’s recruiters and engineers over light refreshments. One of the positive outcomes of the event was that it facilitated dialogue and information exchange between participants. Through communicating with others in the same field, engineers were able to discuss specific skill sets and the engineer recruitment market with each other.
We received many positive comments from participants, who said:

• “I would love to participate in more relaxed events like this,”
• “It was a good opportunity to learn about what it’s like to work at a Japanese company,”
• “I was unsure about about the idea of working in Japan, but this session has turned that into an exciting vision of new challenges to embrace,” “I want to try building a career in Japan,”
• “I want to put my freelance experience to the test in Japan.”

We also received positive feedback in anticipation of future event plans, such as, “I’m looking forward to having more technical discussions next time.”

For those who had never considered a career in Japan before, I believe we were able to provide the seed for exploring new career paths.

Accomplishments and future prospects

Through these recruitment events, we were able to give students and engineers in France a concrete image of what it’s like to work at Mercari.

Above all, I think the greatest accomplishment this trip was being able to show people in France that a career in Japan is a realistic option.

Going forward, we will continue to connect with talented individuals from around the world and create opportunities for them to challenge themselves in new environments. À bientôt!