Want a Job at L'Oréal? Young People Are Competing 'X Factor'-Style for a Chance to Get Hired

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For some young jobseekers, getting hired by a major company means going well beyond the usual CV and interview. At L'Oréal, young participants can take part in pitch competitions, face judges, and potentially create a route into employment with the company.

Yumi Liberman went through it herself. In 2024, she faced a panel and an audience of around 300 people in London. 'It reminded me of when I used to do competitive sports growing up, and the pressure would get heavy,' Liberman says. 'But somehow you just get into flow mode.'

From Business Pitch to Job Offer

Liberman and her teammates made it to the UK final of L'Oréal Brandstorm, the company's global innovation competition for young talent. Their idea centred on a haircare app designed to use technology to help consumers make better beauty and haircare choices. Their team, Matchmakers, won the UK final and moved on to the international competition.

Matchmakers finished third globally. Members of the winning team were offered full-time jobs, while Liberman impressed senior L'Oréal figures enough to secure a place on the company's marketing management traineeship with a full-time position at the end.

Brandstorm has been running since 1992. L'Oréal says the competition has now reached more than 800,000 participants worldwide. The 2025 edition attracted 242,000 participants, with teams from 64 countries competing at the global final. In 2026, participation rose to around 380,000 students across 64 countries.

Tough Job Market Turns Hiring Into a High-Stakes Competition

From April to June 2026, 739,000 people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed, putting the youth unemployment rate at 16.2%. That compares with an overall unemployment rate of 4.9% among people aged 16 and over.

A competition that offers access to senior executives and a potential route into a career may look appealing to young people navigating a crowded job market and submitting countless applications. However, turning recruitment into a contest has also raised questions about fairness.

Melissa Alcruz, who now works in marketing for a US real estate company, experienced a similar process while working at MTV, where she competed for a promotion. Candidates had to develop sponsorship and marketing campaigns before presenting their ideas to seven people. Alcruz says the process was called a 'bake-off'. She also had to complete several substantial projects outside her normal responsibilities in her spare time.

Former recruitment consultant Katrina Collier argues that such competitions can create 'economic discrimination' when applicants are expected to devote substantial amounts of unpaid time to challenges. 'Not everyone can take time, possibly months, to participate in the challenges for the chance to secure one of a limited number of roles,' she says.

Does It Favour the Boldest?

Competition-based recruitment could favour more extroverted candidates, psychologist Amanda Potter suggests, potentially putting quieter applicants at a disadvantage. 'Does this approach encourage all types of people to apply, or would certain types of people avoid these assessment methods?' she asks. 'This could result in an organisation full of ambitious, competitive people who want to win, possibly to the detriment of others.'

Jamie Kohn, a senior director analyst in Gartner's HR practice, says competition-based hiring is likely to persist because employers can use it to evaluate candidates more easily than through traditional interviews.

Liberman, who has dyslexia, says traditional recruitment processes and assessments would have been more challenging for her. She says the experience contrasted sharply with that of some of her peers: 'I have a lot of friends coming from extremely reputable backgrounds, extremely educated people who have applied to over 1,000 jobs, and have been jobless.'