Hiring by pitch contest: what the stage screens out
L'Oréal drew 380,000 applicants to a competition that ends with candidates on stage. Recruiters and psychologists warn the format sorts for confidence and spare time as much as ability.
The format is simple enough to copy. Candidates are given a brief, they build a proposal, and they pitch it to a panel with an audience watching.
L'Oréal's version is called Brandstorm. Yumi Liberman and two friends pitched a haircare app at the UK final in a London auditorium in 2024, in front of judges and 300 people.
They won the UK round and came third at the global final in Paris. Only the team that finished first was automatically given full-time jobs.
Liberman, now 24, was offered a place on the company's marketing management traineeship instead, with a full-time position at the end, after impressing senior staff.
The scale is the point for a large employer. L'Oréal received 380,000 applications worldwide this year, up 58% from 240,000 in 2025, and told the BBC the contest widens the pool to young people who would not otherwise apply.
For a small company the arithmetic is different. Almost everyone who enters loses, and a founder running the format inherits the reputational cost of turning down hundreds of people who did unpaid work.
The internal version is harsher still. Melissa Alcruz competed for a promotion at MTV in a process staff called a bake-off, building sponsorship and marketing campaigns and pitching them to a room of seven people.
She got the job and still disliked it. She says she was expected to complete several substantial projects in her spare time while holding down a demanding full-time role at the company.
That is the first screen founders should think about. Katrina Collier, a former recruitment consultant now working as an author and recruiter trainer, argues that unpaid competition work risks economic discrimination, because not everyone can give up weeks or months on the chance of one of a few roles.
The second screen is personality. Psychologist Amanda Potter warns the format favours extroverts and can leave a company staffed entirely with ambitious, competitive people who want to win.
It does not disadvantage everyone. Liberman, who lives with severe dyslexia, says a conventional recruitment process and its assessments would have been harder for her, and she went straight into her field from university.
Jamie Kohn, senior director for talent acquisition at Gartner, expects the format to persist because employers find candidates easier to judge this way than in a standard interview. Her caveat is that organisations should limit what they ask and give feedback to the people who lose.
The practical version for a small firm: keep the brief to hours rather than months, pay for the work if it is real work, tell candidates up front how many jobs exist, and give every entrant written feedback.
The labour market makes the ethics sharper. UK unemployment among young adults stands at 16.2%, against 4.9% overall, so an unpaid contest is being offered to the people least able to refuse.