Business challenge

After experiencing steady growth and momentum, a large retailer decided to strategically re-vamp its talent acquisition strategy. Previously, the retailers’ high-volume strategy was primarily paper-driven. When candidates were interested in a position, they visited a store to complete a paper application. If they wanted to apply for multiple positions and multiple locations, they had to physically visit each store and complete the same manual process. “We were at a place where our talent acquisition strategy truly needed an overhaul,” said the VP of Talent Acquisition. “Our paper-based process gave our Hiring Managers minimum insight into their talent pool and our candidates would, at times, experience a prolonged hiring process. In short, it was just too hard for our candidates and Hiring Managers.”

Because the retailer prides itself on being a best-in-class organization with superior customer service, they aspire to offer the same great experience to their candidates as they do their customers. “We aim to provide our future team members with an engaging hiring experience while distinguishing ourselves to the market as an employer of choice,” added the company's Manager, Talent Acquisition. In order to achieve these goals, the retailer began the search for an innovative high-volume solution that was well-known in the retail market, could reduce their time-to-fill and that would take their current talent acquisition strategy to the next level. Additional selection criteria included a provider that could deliver high-performance professional solutions, could easily integrate with other vendors for screening and assessments and would be intuitive and easy to use for candidates and General Managers alike.

The results

The large retailer selected the PeopleFluent High Volume Solution and began the transformation to create a proactive recruitment and staffing environment. Retail positions are posted to the Careers website at all times for all locations. Candidates apply for positions at their leisure while indicating the job type(s) and location(s) they prefer. The High Volume Solution automatically reviews the candidate’s information against a pre-defined set of criteria for a particular position, creating a short-list of top candidates. When a General Manager in a store opens a position, a list of qualified applicants is at their fingertips ready for review.

“The continuous sourcing model is brilliant, as it takes the hiring burden off our General Managers, so they can strategically focus on running their store. By pre-matching the right candidates to their positions, our managers have a firm grip of the available talent pool as soon as they realize a need, and we are able to hire the most qualified team members much faster and at a lower cost. Once the company implemented the High Volume Solution, the time-to-fill for key positions has been reduced greatly, thereby ensuring our stores are staffed to meet the customer demand.”

In addition to reducing their time-to-fill, creating an engaging candidate experience and supplying Hiring Managers with a professional system was a top priority. The High Volume Solution has enabled the company to create a competitive advantage for attracting top talent by promoting their brand and employee value proposition to market.

“We understand that a compelling employment brand can differentiate you in the race for top talent. It is essential to begin the engagement process early and leverage the brand to acquire the best talent to support our growth initiatives. Our partnership with PeopleFluent has enabled us to better attract a multi-generational, diverse and high-performing workforce, and we look forward to finding even more of the very best team members to support our customers.”