Syntec Numerique, France’s largest professional organization representing the tech sector, will launch on January 17th a wide-reaching campaign to attract French youth to tech careers. The primary target of the campaign will be 15-18 year-olds and will center around a 6 video web-series on You Tube called “Les S’Nums”, a prehistoric group evolving in a world mixing the stone age and modern technology. Sounds like a bit of an odd concept, but if it’s promoted properly, is sure to get noticed. Although a bit cheeky, the ad agency that developed the web-series has stressed that the videos are focused on concrete subjects relevant to working in tech such as “salary, the notion of community, the new types of jobs that have evolved out of the IT revolution, working abroad, and digital creation/innovation”.
In addition to the web-series, Syntec Numerique will also launch in April a mini-site on Facebook. The goal for the site is to be interactive and provide a space where youth can create and post their own content around the S’Nums concept. They will also offer a quiz whereby users can test their knowledge about tech careers and learn more via a redirect to Passinformatique, their general tech career site.
For Syntec Numerique this campaign is a matter of urgency. Although 35k tech jobs are recruited each year, very few of these post are filled by new graduates/young people. Not to mention all the tech jobs that are going unfilled in France and elsewhere. As France expects the tech sector to continue to be one of the fastest growing sectors, particularly in terms of job creation, and older employees begin to leave the workforce, it is imperative that there’s enough tech talent to fill these roles, It’s a good thing that someone’s taking the initiative to increase awareness among France’s youth early on about the great opportunities a career in tech can offer.