Carrefour to hire Chinese MBAs

France's Carrefour SA China plans to recruit Chinese MBA students as store managers to support its fast expansion plans in the world's second largest economy.

"Carrefour China will recruit more than 20 store general managers who are MBA students in the next six months to work for its outlets," said Joanna Meng, human resources director and vice-president of Carrefour China.

The event, Carrefour China Day, sponsored by the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, aims to hire the high-caliber students.

According to the world's second largest retailer by sales revenue, after the US' Wal-Mart, all the MBA students from Peking University hired this time will be put into senior management positions at the store general manager level. After being hired, they will receive one-year Mandarin elite training in the company involving the systematic study of 15 courses including marketing, finance and security. During the last stage of the training program, they will have the opportunity to take a business tour of Europe.

In addition, Carrefour China will also try to recruit potential employees from MBA students studying in the universities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu to build up its management team.

"Carrefour provides a good platform and opportunities for the students. It gives them enough room for further training and promotion," said Meng.

"My past work experience was related to retailing. I think I can learn a lot while working for traditional retailing industries," said a current MBA student at Peking University.

As one of the earliest foreign retailers operating in China, Carrefour has been maintaining solid growth. The retail giant opens 20 to 25 new stores in the country each year. As of April this year, Carrefour China already had 206 stores in 64 Chinese cities, employing more than 58,000 people. As many as 98 percent of the store managers and 50 percent of the regional managers are Chinese. In 2010, Carrefour China also promoted a Chinese employee to the position of the country's general manager, a key member of the company's executive committee.

"In order to meet the demand of our fast store expansion, we are having face-to-face interactions with the MBA students at the school and are recruiting the would-be management professionals who are interested in the retail industry, have leadership and good personalities," said Meng.

In 2006, the company signed a contract with China-Europe International Business School and gave it $128,410 to help it recruit elite MBA students.