Fires recruiter sentenced for sexual harassment

He contacted young women looking for a first internship on the social network LinkedIn, to conduct job interviews that were anything but professional: a man was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison, nine of which were suspended for sexual harassment. The Paris Criminal Court has asked Armand T. to serve the firm part of his sentence under an electronic bracelet. He will also have to receive psychological care, and compensate the civil parties.

They were six at the hearing last month, and for the majority had discovered the face of Armand T. for the first time. All, on the other hand, immediately recognized the voice, nasal, of the one who had given them an interview by videoconference. He kept his webcam off. Armand T., 34, looked good in front of the court in his dark suit, white shirt, small beard and rectangular glasses. Married, two children, he didn’t seem to fully understand what he was being blamed for.

“He asks me to get up, to turn around”

In 2021, for several months, he interviewed very young women for jobs. Sometimes by presenting himself as a business lawyer or accountant, adapting to the profile of the young women chosen on LinkedIn. Sometimes under his true professional identity: director of Tesla magazinea site dedicated to electric cars, with no connection to Elon Musk’s company.

“I was 20 years old, it was my first real job search”, remembered at the bar Léa (the first names are changed), a law student. “He asks me a few professional questions and asks me to lift my shirt fairly quickly. Then he asks me to get up, turn around » facing the camera. “I was looking for an internship in finance,” Lucie testified. In the middle of the interview, “I hear him screaming with pleasure, very loudly. He told me that it was his trainee who was taking care of him”.

“It’s not a question of interpretation sir”

To a young woman, Armand T. had asked if she was ready “to play with the wrist”, to another if she had “already worked with an egg”. Before responding to his misunderstanding with a photo of a sex toy. Faced with the court, Armand T. him, denied any sexual harassment. And quickly annoyed with his long jargon justifications. “I obviously understand that the interpretation of their point of view apparently made them suffer,” he said, for example.

“It’s not a question of interpretation, sir,” exasperated the president. “Intruding on the sphere of intimacy in the context of work is prohibited by law”. For You’re here magazine, Armand T. had conducted 60 job interviews to recruit two interns. “Doesn’t that seem a little excessive to you? “, noted the president, also recalling the climate of constant sexual harassment described by a young woman who worked there. “I want it to make you wet to be under my domination,” his boss told him.

“I didn’t dare say no”

A working relationship based “on mutual respect” and “purely philosophical” exchanges, according to Armand T. “You will cite your sources to me, I am interested in reading these authors”, had gritted the president. The court also recalled that Armand T. had, in the past, been fired from a large multinational, for having held a job interview in a hotel room. It was “for fun”, he justified under the bewildered gaze of the president.

By recounting their experience at the bar, his young victims had burst into tears each in turn. “I didn’t dare say no”, “I felt stupid”, “I didn’t know if it was me who was making films”, we hear repeated. For most, the job interview with this “twisted” in the words of one of them, was the first of their career. Bitter, they now describe their hypervigilance in the face of potential recruiters. “It’s hard to place the cursor”, said one between two sobs, “on what is normal or what is not”.

source site