“We have to recognise that we are all looking for the same skills in the marketplace, and that it’s rare to find the sum total of skills required in one and the same person,” says Lise Roda, HR director at Banque Pictet & Cie. “What we look for in our candidates,” she continues, “is the ability to learn quickly, to work in a network and to draw on the resources and expertise available within the organisation. A candidate’s level of agility and understanding of the more global issues facing the company are also aspects we look for.”

“We’re looking for employees who are likely to feel at home at the bank, so that they can progress and contribute to our development,” adds Nicole Dochen, Banque de Luxembourg’s HR director. “In this case, we’re not just looking for skills or experience, but for people who have values, who want to build something new, and who want to work in a community where everyone counts.”

“We favour a resolutely human approach,” Dochen continues, “giving ourselves the time to get to know each other through several interviews. We take the time to understand candidates’ requirements and expectations, so that we can provide them with personalised support during the recruitment and onboarding phases. Finally, we make sure that the process is as responsive and agile as possible, as candidates are in great demand. It’s also about respect. The difficulty today lies in the scarcity of certain profiles (multilingual, specialised expertise especially in risk and regulatory matters or in technology).”

“We need to be proactive”

“We need to be proactive in our recruitment approach,” says Raiffeisen’s HR director Laurent Derkum, “using active strategies such as recruiting via social networks and networking events. The main challenges include the shortage of specific skills and competition with other companies, as well as with the public sector.”

“We prefer to talk about strengths rather than talents,” adds Aurélie Ederle, HR director at Société Générale Luxembourg. “The most aggressive competition is in the core functions (legal, compliance or risk specialists, etc.). Société Générale Luxembourg seeks to place the employee at the centre of its concerns. First and foremost, this means providing them with optimum working conditions. In particular, the bank offers great flexibility in the management of working hours. Our aim is also to offer a career path, not just a job, and to look beyond the position for which the candidate is applying, thanks to a mobility programme that enables employees to develop their employability.”

Ederle continues: “Our partnerships with schools and universities enable us to support first-time jobseekers, particularly in developing their skills and capitalising on their academic background. We also have an award-winning International Corporate Volunteer (VIE) programme. Finally, we also have a strong presence at job fairs.”

“Competition is fierce”

“We are facing a shortage of multilingual, experienced talent in the life insurance sector,” says Edith Brunner, HR director at Lombard International Assurance. “The specialisations required limit the number of qualified candidates. Administrative delays in obtaining visas and work permits, combined with high salary requirements, make our recruitment more complex, especially in IT functions. Competition is fierce in the financial sector.”

Magali Maillot, HR director at A&O Shearman, believes that “it is essential to constantly evolve our processes in order to remain attractive. The new generations are more sensitive to relationships and the meaning given to work. So it’s crucial to show them what our firm can do for them. The pool of lawyers is mainly external to Luxembourg and limited, with many competitors present. We therefore face a number of challenges in recruiting the talent we need.”

To achieve this, Maillot continues, “we have worked hard on our employer brand and our corporate culture, focusing on what makes us unique: the prestige of our cases and our clients, the atmosphere and working environment, and the human links. We meet law students at their universities and offer them work placements so that they can immerse themselves in our culture. It’s essential to continue working on making Luxembourg a more attractive place to do business, because we’re competing with European centres such as Paris, Frankfurt and London, where it’s often ‘sexier’ to be.”

“Acute pressure”

“Every recruitment is a challenge in a shortage market as small and highly specialised as ours,” says Delphine Bath, HR director at La Mondiale Europartner. “There is still maximum pressure on certain ultra-technical professions, such as actuarial work, compliance or asset engineering. And the emergence of new needs linked to artificial intelligence will very quickly create acute pressure on these profiles. For us, this means a risk of longer recruitment times or pressure on salary budgets. As an employer, we are careful not to fuel the one-upmanship that is unbalancing the market. Instead, we look for profiles with high potential for development and invest in their development.”

“The difficulties relate in particular to the shortage of certain key skills (lawyers, actuaries, IT, etc.) and the expectations of the new generation,” adds Lalux HR director Marc Parage. “We need to stand out from the crowd with a recruitment culture and strategy tailored to the new demands of the market, and an attractive range of training and development opportunities. Our main competitors in the employment market are the Luxembourg government and local authorities.”

“New dynamics”

“The coexistence of four generations--baby boomers, generation X, millennials and generation Z--brings new dynamics and new demands to talent management,” says BDO HR director Matina Korma. “This generational diversity demands a flexible and collaborative approach, which is driving us to reshape our talent strategies to effectively navigate the war for talent using methods that didn’t exist ten years ago.”

“The war for talent means that candidates are more demanding and recruitment times are longer,” says Christopher Frères, HR director at the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. “We are faced with very stiff competition, some of it international. Another of our challenges is that, as the only stock exchange in Luxembourg, it is difficult to find candidates who already have convincing experience in our activities.” As a result, he adds, “our main weapons are a strong employer brand and an agile process. Our biggest factor of attraction remains our uniqueness and the possibility of discovering unique activities in Luxembourg. There’s only one stock exchange here!”

“We are focusing our efforts on increasing opportunities for internal mobility and developing our employees’ skills to enable them to deploy in new roles,” says ING Luxembourg’s head of talent and learning, Julian Troian. “Becoming an employer of choice, thanks to our brand and employee experience, will help us to outperform our competitors in the search for rare talent who are not yet with ING.”

“Shortage of applicants”

“Like the private sector generally, we are facing major challenges such as access to housing, mobility, growing expectations on the part of employees and competition with the civil service,” says ABBL HR director Myriam Sibenaler. “Furthermore, preconceived ideas about the banking industry force us to constantly remind people of the essential role played by banks in the competitiveness of businesses and the prosperity of our fellow citizens.” At the same time, she adds, “the Luxembourg banking sector benefits from a particularly attractive collective agreement, recently revised to strengthen the employability of employees.”

“Certain specific positions, such as those in data processing, IT, sales or the distribution of mail, parcels and newspapers, remain difficult to fill because of strong competition in the market,” explains the Post’s HR director Isabelle Faber. “To meet this challenge, the company has developed an effective recruitment strategy by organising specific recruitment events and taking part in international trade fairs to attract the talent it is looking for.”

“The market is undoubtedly a little less tight this year, but certain profiles remain hard to find, adds SLG HR director Fabrice Encelle. “I’d say that differentiating employer branding and inspiring leaders are the winning combination. Encelle says that he relies on “a top-notch recruitment team, simple and rapid processes for candidates, and a candidate experience that is essential. I would add leaders who make you want to join them.”

“The war for talent is pushing us to recruit faster, with more personalised and competitive approaches,” says Dussmann HR director Christelle Noel. “We are also very careful to look after the experience of candidates and the image of our company, while looking for varied profiles to bring new perspectives to the team.”

“The scarcity of qualified profiles makes recruitment more time-consuming and costly. For example, certain technical professions (bricklayers, engineers) have a shortage of applicants,” says Julien Bossu, CDCL Group’s HR director. His recipe? “Tools such as employer branding campaigns and partnerships with schools are essential, as is keeping up to date with your sector network.”

“As we work internationally, we need our candidates to speak several languages, and we are faced with competition from the state, which offers more attractive prospects than the private sector,” comments Chantal Trausch, HR director at Rak Porcelain Europe.

“The paradigm has been reversed”

The war for talent, explains La Provençale HR director Liliana Alves, “means that candidates are increasingly demanding, particularly in terms of flexibility and pay. Our difficulty also remains finding certain profiles that are still rare on the job market because of a less attractive profession. What sets us apart is the opportunity to build a career within the company, whether or not you have a degree.”

“Our sector is no longer as attractive as it was a few years ago,” says Cocottes HR director Léa Piot. “Applicants have a lot of prejudices, and recruiting is becoming more and more complicated. We’re doing our utmost to convey a positive image of our company, and this is reflected in an increase in unsolicited applications, and in the satisfaction of new recruits who are positively surprised by the way we operate and the atmosphere we convey, which is different from the idea they had of the restaurant business.” How is Cocottes making itself more attractive? “We have decided to introduce round-the-clock working in most of our outlets in order to offer a better quality of life, as well as four-day working in our Belle Étoile foodhall. Candidates can therefore find a pace that suits their private life, while still being in the restaurant business.”

“It’s vital to make recruitment processes leaner and smoother, so as not to lose talented candidates along the way,” says Marine Cardé, HR director at Delhaize Luxembourg. “The candidate experience needs to be simplified, fast and positive. What’s more, good HR marketing, combined with a solid and consistent social reputation, is an essential prerequisite for attracting the best talent.” In its recruitment, Delhaize organises Internal Job Days, “an effective solution for combining diversity, visibility and speed in the process.”

“It used to be that, when recruiting, I’d ask: ‘Why should I hire you rather than another candidate? What do you have to offer our company?’” says Ann De Jonghe, HR director at Sodexo Luxembourg. “But today… it’s the opposite. The paradigm has been reversed. From being buyers who select, our recruiters have become more like salespeople who have to convince.”

“Global scale”

“The University of Luxembourg is constantly on the lookout for highly qualified academic and administrative profiles,” says HR director Claire Audollent. “This means looking for candidates on a European or even global scale in certain fields such as IT, by attracting excellent professors, researchers and high-level experts in highly specialised disciplines. The difficulty is that, as competition is international, candidates may receive several offers, not only from other universities, but also from the private sector, which may offer more competitive salaries. In addition, the visa and international mobility processes can add logistical complexity, slowing down recruitment processes and therefore attractiveness.”

Karine Rollot, HR director at the Robert Schuman Hospitals Foundation, points out that “since the health crisis, the war for talent has increased specifically in the health sector. This is a worldwide problem. Candidates are coming from further and further afield and the administrative procedures involved mean that recruitment takes longer and longer. And rare profiles are aware that they occupy a position of strength in this increasingly tight market.”

For the CHL, HR director Olivier Schmitt says that “our recruitment perimeter extends beyond European borders. At the same time, research and teaching are pillars of our institution. We train more than a hundred doctors every year, as well as almost a thousand carers, by investing massively in cutting-edge training and the transmission of knowledge, so that we can build a shared future with our talents. The sense of commitment to serving the patient is an essential value to which we are particularly attached.”

Tatiana Escure, HR director at Stëmm vun der Strooss, adds: “In our recruitment process, which is socially oriented, we don’t really have a war for talent at our level. But we do have difficulties finding certain jobs because of the recognition of diplomas or language requirements. This can take some time, for social workers for example.”

“If we could change any regulations, it would be those relating to professional qualifications,” says Dorothée Schneider, HR director at the Luxembourg Red Cross. “In regulated professions, we need to be able to speed up the approval process for foreign diplomas, and incorporate greater linguistic flexibility, to make it easier for people who are multilingual but not Luxembourgish-speaking to be taken on.”

“20,000 CVs”

Talent shortage? What shortage? In 2024, the Luxembourg Red Cross claims to have received 20,000 CVs… for just 650 vacancies. “Our challenge is to find candidates with the professional attitude and passion that we are looking for… especially as we have decided not to actively seek out employees from other players in our sector,” says HR director Dorothée Schneider.

What changes would you like?

“For our support functions, relaxing the rules on teleworking would offer greater flexibility. For our in-store functions, we would like to see a change in the law to allow us to occasionally work more than ten hours a day, so that we can experiment with a four-day week,” says Cardé (Delhaize).

Noel (Dussmann) has the same wish: “To allow greater flexibility in working patterns by adapting the laws so that teleworking, even from abroad, and hybrid working hours are simpler and better supervised.”

“Greater regulatory flexibility, particularly for cross-border teleworking, would be a valuable asset,” adds Frères (Luxembourg Stock Exchange).

“The main problem remains the cost and accessibility of accommodation, and any help would be invaluable,” adds Encelle (SLG).

“Ideally--and this is perhaps utopian--the civil service should be less attractive and closer to the private sector, in terms of pay and holidays, so that we can fight on equal terms,” says Trausch (Rak Porcelaine Europe).

This article in French for the  supplement in the issue of , published on 29 January. The content is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the website to contribute to the complete Paperjam archive. .

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