Back

From April 15 to 17, 2026, IÉSEG School of Management hosted the Career Professionals Development Institute (CPDI)—a leading international training program dedicated to career services professionals. Organized for the first time in France with EFMD, the event brought together participants from all over the world around a shared goal: to make student career support practices evolve in an economic and geopolitical context that is constantly changing. 

This initiative fully reflects IÉSEG’s commitment to staying at the forefront of career development challenges, while strengthening its visibility and embeddedness within international networks.

An international excellence program for career professionals

The CPDI is a specialized training program recognized as one of the few at international level entirely dedicated to careers services roles in higher education. Led by EFMD, it is aimed at career teams within leading business schools and universities, with the ambition of professionalizing and adapting practices on a global scale. 

For this edition, 24 participants were welcomed at IÉSEG from a wide range of geographical backgrounds: Europe of course, but also South Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This diversity fostered rich discussions, enabling participants to compare approaches and enrich collective reflection.

The structured and demanding program combined theoretical input, experience sharing, and expert contributions. Among the highlights, a session led by L’Oréal provided concrete insight into the evolution of recruitment practices and relationships with schools, highlighting a trend toward more targeted and interactive formats.

Another notable contribution came from the CETI (Center for Educational and Technological Innovation) at IÉSEG, which highlighted the links between technological innovation and the evolution of skills required on the job market.

Finally, Johannes Claeys, Professor of Leadership at IÉSEG and Director of ILead, led a session dedicated to the strategic role of career services within higher education institutions.

A strategic driver for IÉSEG

Hosting the CPDI represents a major visibility opportunity for the School within an international ecosystem where accreditations and networks play a structuring role, helping reinforce IÉSEG’s position as an engaged player on employability issues.

This initiative also fits into a broader continuous improvement approach. For the career teams, it is about staying closely aligned with labour market developments and constantly adapting the tools and services offered.

As highlighted by Valérie MARRAGOU, Associate Director – Careers at IÉSEG, “it is essential to stay connected to our ecosystem. We operate in a very fast-moving environment, and this type of training allows us to keep thinking, to step back, and to stay one step ahead in order to better support our students.”

These discussions have confirmed the School current approach, particularly the need to diversify collaboration formats with companies, in response to increasingly heterogeneous expectations: recruitment forums, guest lectures, industry talks, collaborative projects, and more.

For Valérie Marragou, “the real challenge today is to succeed in offering formats adapted to very diverse needs, both from companies and students. We can no longer rely on a single model.”

Finally, the event also showcased IÉSEG’s working environment. Participants praised the quality of the facilities, particularly the Career Center space, as well as the campus as a whole.

Anticipating change and embedding IÉSEG in a sustainable dynamic

Hosting the CPDI is part of a long-term reflection on the role of career services. Faced with rapid transformations in the labour market—changing professions, hybrid skill sets, and increasingly international career paths—institutions must continuously adapt their support systems.

In this context, career teams play an increasingly strategic role at the interface between students, academic leadership, and companies. For IÉSEG, this translates into stronger engagement in international networks and sector-wide reflection spaces. Valérie MARRAGOU’s participation in the steering committee of the EFMD annual Career Services conference, scheduled in Belfast in November 2026, is one example.

IÉSEG also intends to further develop the collaborations initiated during the CPDI: exchanges of best practices between institutions, international mobility for staff, and joint projects. More broadly, this event reinforces IÉSEG’s ambition to remain at the forefront of career development challenges through openness and continuous improvement.

As Valérie MARRAGOU concludes, “it is precisely this kind of initiative that allows us to enrich continuously our thinking, stay connected to what is being done elsewhere, and above all keep evolving our practices to better support our students.”