In the classes préparatoires set-up, then at the level of the Grandes Écoles who are partners, the Cercle offers personal tutoring to those identified students who are far removed from the business world. The tutors are executives from the partner companies who, on a voluntary basis, have been specifically trained by the Cercle Passeport Télécoms association to fulfill this mission.

The objectives of the tutor are the following:

• Provide information about the company (social codes, mode of operation, organization, development...) and about the different jobs, in particular those offered upon graduating from a business or engineering school.
•  Help to design the students professional project, giving them a broader perspective, having them confront the reality of the job market and getting them ready for it.
• Allow a privileged access to the company (internships, trainings, meetings with key experts...) and help them to gain access to the professional network.
• Reinforce self-esteem, bring a different perspective and grow the level of ambition.

As a complement of its tutoring actions, so as not to focus only on those students personally mentored, the Cercle offers group workshops involving all students of the classes préparatoires.

These workshops are the following:

• Workgroups to discover various professions, involving all the tutors, who give an overview of their field of expertise and background.

• On-site visits offered in the facilities of the partner companies.

• Financial workshops allowing the students to prepare the financial planning of their education (the objective is to help them to find out about the financial aid possibilities so as to be able to afford the registration fees asked by the institutions among the most prestigious ones).

• Workshops to prepare for oral exams run by the partner companies HR speakers.

The role of the Cercle is instrumental in so as to help the students overcome certain obstacles:

• Exam fees: the most underprivileged students have no choice but to limit the number of exams they take, due to the costs involved (registration, trip and lodging). To provide equal opportunity, the Cercle offers financial aid in the amount of 250 € and offers lodging for two nights in a Formule 1 Accor hotel.

• Level of English: the English level required in order to obtain an engineering degree or a business school degree constitutes a real discrimination factor for the ones the Cercle is looking after. To face the problem, the Cercle offers the students to practice their English, by phone, relying on a specialized agency or a network of 30 volunteers of Alcatel-Lucent who are based in the United States. These conversations are in no way to replace class attendance but they help to put formal knowledge into real life perspective and to reinforce the students’ self-esteem.

• Education financial planning: beyond the psychological obstacles, we still observe some persistent material blocks. The mentored students who enter a partner school have been granted a bank loan from Crédit Mutuel, since 2007, in the maximum amount of 12,000 euros, with no bank guarantee requested from the parents and with a differed reimbursement upon graduating. The particularly of this loan is that it is guaranteed, at the early stage of classes préparatoires; therefore the students can apply for the exams of any partner school, knowing the possibilities for financial will be in place upon passing the exam, whether they decide to take advantage of these aids or not.