Desigual wants to "attract and retain the best talent" through its annual Young Talent programme

Since September, a new group of young talents have been working at the headquarters and logistics centres of the Spanish fashion multinational Desigual, which for some years now has been committed to incorporating recent graduates into its team through what is known as its Young Talents programme.

Through the programme, Desigual aims to promote national talent from Spain by teaming up with Spanish universities. It is open to students studying at universities in Spain.

During a year of paid training, the Spanish individuals that are selected, participate in a process that rewards their originality and creativity, allowing them to get to know the different company departments, from product design to logistics and operations, as well as marketing and human resources.

Once the programme is over, the company evaluates the performance of the candidates with the intention of incorporating them into the workforce, on an indefinite basis.

FashionUnited spoke to Patricia Álvarez, Global Talent & People Development Manager at Desigual, who explained the programme in detail.

What does the initiative consist of exactly and what is its geographical limitation?

It is a training and talent attraction programme that allows us to promote young talented recent graduates from Spain by letting them join Desigual for 12 months to perfect their knowledge of any of the company's departments of their choice.

We launched an open call for the programme so that those who have just finished their master's or postgraduate degree can acquire professional experience by working in a fashion company while at the same time bring their vision and initiative to the table.

In this sense, we not only believe that it is a beneficial experience for the candidates, but also for Desigual. This initiative is part of our Open Desigual strategy, where collaboration is our key and differentiating tool.

Through programmes such as Young Talent, Desigual becomes the meeting point for the best creatives, the most relevant trends and the diversity with which to reach different audiences.

For the time being, this programme is only being developed in Spain and for Desigual's headquarters in Barcelona. Although candidates can be of any nationality, they must of course come from one of the Spanish universities with which we collaborate, and we place a special focus on Barcelona.

You told us that you welcome applications to work in different areas within the company. What are the most sought-after positions among the participants? And what are the positions that are most in demand at Desigual at the moment?

The Young Talent programme provides the opportunity to incorporate recently graduated talent in the legal and finance, operations and logistics, product, communication and digital marketing, human resources and sales departments.

We have received more than 800 applications for the programme in total and all areas have generated interest, but it is the Product and Communication department that has attracted the most interest from students.

For the programme, we look for talent, creativity and new ideas, and these qualities can be applied to operations, human resources or marketing.

Given that the applications you receive are from different academic disciplines, how do you go about deciding how many people you select from each discipline?

In order to be able to provide quality mentoring and follow-up with each participant, we have established a number of programme guidelines to select a small number of candidates in total based on our capacity, workload and the needs of each department. The candidates have to go through a multi-stage process where both the People team and the department manager evaluate their profiles.

On average, what percentage of those accepted to participate in the Young Talent Program end up joining the company each year?

Until this year, the programme was slightly different and focused on product areas, so we cannot specify a percentage. Even so, the company's objective is to attract and retain the best talent, so at the end of the twelve month programme and depending on the needs of each department, our intention is that some of the participants can join the workforce.

In previous editions, this project took the form of a competition. Last year, Desigual offered for sale a unisex sweatshirt designed by student Hannamariam Gonzalez from London's Central Saint Martins University of Art, who was a standout among the young talents of her edition.

We are seeing a generalised lack of specialised personnel in the textile sector. Do you consider that the talents coming from certain training institutions are more prepared than others? Which would these institutions be?

At Desigual we review all the applications we receive regardless of the institution the students are from because what we are looking for are diverse profiles that are in line with our company values. Having the best talent allows us to continue building a better Desigual.

We are fortunate to have universities and educational institutions of the highest level in the city of Barcelona and in the rest of Spain and we believe that in all of them we can find extraordinary, motivated people with an innovative spirit. What we need to do as an industry is precisely to promote more of these types of projects, where students can add to their theoretical training and at the same time contribute to the companies by sharing their vision.

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.ES. Translation and editing from Spanish into English: Veerle Versteeg.