Faire du sport pour être embauché ? logiques et pratiques de recrutement du personnel commercial chez décathlon

Abstract

Practice sport to be hired ? Decathlon's recruitment policies and logics for sales people Until now, the conditions to be hired in the retailing sector of sport articles have not been much studied. This article aims at analyzing Decathlon's recruitment policies and logics to recruit their sales people. Relying on interviews with 15 of the firm's recruiters, we will show that a sine qua noncondition to be recruited is to practice a sporting activity. Recruiters don't seem that much interested in the sporting qualifications or competencies of candidates. They seem rather interested in the values they associate to the practice of this kind of activities. Evaluating these values being difficult, they at last confront their representation of what a sportive body should be to the bodily behaviors and physical characteristics of candidate in order to formulate a quality judgment on them. This three-fold evaluation of sporting practices of candidates (in written with the CV, orally and visually during the interview) responds to Decathlon's will to implicate/mobilize they employee, to ensure credibility towards clients, and at the end to respond to the economic issues the firm has to confront.