In a multinational working environment, language skills fosters flexibility and adept intercultural communication. However, for a beauty retail chain like Marionnaud, hiring competent bilinguals to serve in corporate roles in their various business units across the globe can be tasking with lack of language assessment devices to test candidates language skills.

This is the challenge taken up by Marionnaud's HR international team, which has chosen Pipplet to test candidates.

Created in 1972, Marionnaud is part of AS Watson's beauty chain and 3rd biggest health and beauty retailer in Europe.

Key figures:

• 4,000+ employees
• more than 1,000 stores in 10 countries across Europe (incl. France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, and Slovakia)

Paula Martinez and Sandra Jiménez are part of Marionnaud's HR international team and are in charge of Talent Acquisition and Talent Management for corporate roles. In this article, they talk about the use of Pipplet in the recruitment process, and explain how the tool has simplified their jobs as recruiters.

The Need to Hire Top-Notch Professionals and Competent Speakers

As a major beauty brand in Europe, Marionnaud was faced with the challenge to find competent professionals to fill employee roles in their international teams (finance, marketing, legal…). Hence, the international HR recruitment team strives to facilitate a simplified and trustworthy selection process.

"We have different international teams; HR business, finance, marketing, and legal, all international and based in France. All recruitments in these teams are our responsibilities. Over time two languages ​​have become key criteria for recruitment: English (for finance, marketing , and business roles) and German (for the legal team) can also be important, like Italian or Romanian.

“To provide effective support to the local business units, international teams need to have complete language skills in addition to their technical abilities. We had to find a convenient way to assess those skills during the hiring process.” – explains Paula.

Unearthing Highly-Competent Bilinguals for Corporate Roles

With English gaining traction as a universally-used language of communication, Marionnaud started to use English to test recruits from the very first interview. However, there was the need to also test their bilingual skills to serve language roles in the various business units across the retail chain.

"Although we are based in Spain, all our interviews are in English. So, our first interview is like a first language test. If we see that the person cannot manage in English, we let her go," - reveals Paula.

"After the phone screening stage, there can be two more remote interviews. Then the specific team (like finance, for instance) interview the candidate. And in case they like him/her, we proceed with the assessment of his/her foreign language abilities."

"In the case of the German, sometimes what we do is to ask our business unit in Austria or Switzerland to call the candidate in order to have a short conversation or their first interview. If the language skill is fair, we proceed with the test to evaluate their complete capabilities,” – says Paula. ‍

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An innovative Assessment Tool: Transforming Recruitment Criteria

"Searching the Internet, I looked for an English Test app, found different solutions. I liked Pipplet since it was a French company (so is Marionnaud), and I also liked how Pipplet works: a 100% human assessment of all dimensions of language (listening, reading, writing and speaking) by native language experts, "- Paula reveals.

"Before, we used a service based on in-person interview (by phone), testing the candidate's written skills by asking him/her to write an email). The downside of this method was that it wasn't completely reliable."

The HR team at Marionnaud describes Pipplet as “an effective, fast, and professional tool for evaluating candidates” . Marionnaud especially admires Pipplet's interface as it provides them with usability, transparency, reports, and detailed information on candidates' performance.

Sandra reveals that the language assessment tool makes life easy as a recruiter. For Paula, it's more than this. "It's not just the simplicity and time-saving factor Pipplet brings to recruiters. What makes the tool fascinating is how everything is deployed: the questions candidates are asked, the usability of the interface (for the candidate and the recruiter) and the report we receive afterwards. With Pipplet detailed report, I get a lot of information on the candidate, far beyond the strict language assessment.

The Way Forward For Future Success Stories

If they had a magic wand, how would they improve Pipplet? “I think that, for now, the platform is perfect for us,” - says Sandra.

On her side, Paula has two wishes: "There was one time I waited a bit long for the grading. It would be helpful if the grades come in quickly." “Also, it would also be great to set a deadline to the candidate for doing the test,” – says Paula.

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Pipplet's View on Marionnaud's Challenges

The HR recruitment process can be challenging, especially when language abilities of candidates are a crucial recruitment criteria. Thanks to Pipplet's language assessment tool, Marionnaud international HR team can easily verify candidates' real ability to work in a foreign language (English, German, and also Italian or Romanian), and save a lot of time on a daily basis. The recent expansion of Marionnaud in China is the new strategic move of the European beauty brand. No doubt that Pipplet can play an active role in this new chapter of this epic story!

With more than 30 different languages ​​imputed in Pipplet's widely used solution, organizations can now recruit the professionals they need to interact with their clients and branches no matter the region. Pipplet integrates a seamless interface and technical evaluation to help businesses find competent speakers to serve their customers better.