Retail recruitment is a term used for finding and hiring the right job candidates for your company. The retail sector encompasses stores that sell goods to the ultimate customer, who buys them for personal use and not business uses. It includes all kinds of stores, from small groceries and kiosks to supermarket chains and large department stores.
Challenges in retail recruiting
Retail recruiting includes many challenges, for example, seasonal hiring, high volume hiring, and attracting the right type of candidates to avoid a high turnover rate.
High volume hiring
Around 15 million people work in the retail sector, and that number is expected to grow in the future, as retail sales worker occupations make up the second job growth projections in the country. This means that the retail industry needs to fill a massive number of job openings regularly. Not to mention the seasonal “hiring frenzy”.
Attracting the right candidates
Technology has changed the retail sector. Consequently, the retail job positions are changing too. Applicants to a retail job must possess different skills to obtain and excel at their job. As a result, some employer of record in Dubai have a hard time finding appropriate candidates. According to studies:
- 70% of retail employers have difficulty finding in-store candidates with the appropriate technical experience.
- 82% of retail employers struggle to find candidates with the appropriate cross-functional experience.
High turnover rate
According to statistics, retail is among the top 5 industries with the highest turnover rate. Some of the statistics on retail turnover are the following:
- Retailers averaged 67% turnover for part-time employees.
- 26% of retailers said their employee turnover costs have increased.
Generally, the high turnover is associated with high costs. Some of the strategies to attack these challenges are the following:
- Use modern recruiting software.
- Apply recruitment marketing.
- Build talent pools.
Tips for recruiting retail professionals
Recruiting the best professionals can be a difficult task. However, if you leverage the latest innovations in retail recruiting, this process will be much easier and faster. Some of the tips that will help you effectively recruit your professionals are the following:
Write precise job descriptions
The first thing you need is to write precise job descriptions that will attract the right kind of candidates for the positions you need to fill. Be sure to highlight the cross-functional experience and technical skills that you are looking for in your ideal professionals.
Build your employer’s brand
One of the most important things you need to do is give your potential candidates a reason to apply to your open job position. Differentiate your company by building a strong employer brand and show why they should choose your company instead of your competition.
Highlight your employee value proposition
In addition to showing a great employer brand, you need to define your employee value proposition. To create an employee proposition that attracts candidates, you need to highlight certain components. For example:
- Benefits: Holidays, time off, insurance, family, etc.
- Compensation: Raises in promotions, salary satisfaction, compensation system satisfaction.
- Career: Ability and chance to progress and develop, stability, consultation, evaluation, and feedback.
- Work environment: Autonomy, work-life balance, personal achievements.
- Culture: Leaders and managers, support, collaboration, team spirit, understanding of the firm’s goals, and plans.
According to studies, 74% of retailers indicate that their workers leave for better opportunities, rather than higher salaries. This means that offering a friendly environment, establishing career paths for employees, and providing additional training can significantly increase your chances to attract the best candidates.
Look beyond the retail industry
When you start the process of searching for candidates, look beyond the retail industry, you may find some great candidates in other industries too. Don’t be afraid to hire people with no retail background, you may find people who will bring new ideas and fresh perspectives to your company.
Create an attractive retail site
Establishing a career site will serve to highlight your company from the competition and attract the best retail professionals. Use your website for the following:
- Present your benefits.
- Showcase your company culture.
- Spotlight your “best places to work” awards.
- Introduce your employees’ success stories.
Leverage employee referrals
Convert your employees into recruiters by creating an employee referral program. You can ask your employees to refer new people and offer them employee referral rewards.
Although establishing these types of programs can take effort and time, it is worth it. Some studies show that employee referrals can significantly improve the cost, time, and quality of hire.
Always be recruiting
Those companies with high turnover rates and high volume recruiting can benefit from building talent pools.
Talent pools can be very helpful for seasonal hiring, if you have a database with a thousand potential candidates, you can invite them all to apply for jobs.
Use video interviewing
Take advantage of new technologies and use video interviews for screening candidates. Entering these types of interviews can save you a lot of time and money. Also, it simplifies the recruiting process for you, as the retail employer, and your candidates.One of the biggest advantages of using video interviews is that the number of no-show candidates is reduced.
Use recruitment software
The modern all-in-one recruitment software offers many benefits that can completely transform the recruitment process. Using this software will automate manual tasks that usually take a lot of time and it will streamline your entire recruiting process, saving you money and time.Some benefits that you can enjoy when using a recruitment software are the following:
- Automatically eliminate candidates who are not qualified.
- It will automate time-consuming activities like resume screening and parsing.
- Set up a structured employee referral program.
- Automatically add all your applicants to one searchable database.
- Post jobs on free and premium job boards.
- Create a branded career site.
Types of recruitment
Internal recruitment
This type of retail recruitment can be a massive time-saver because there is no protracted interview and onboarding process. The downside is that keeping everything close to home can stymie innovation, new ideas, and diversity.
External recruitment
This recruitment brings with it new ideas, renewed energy, and a fresh approach. However, it is a time-consuming and costly process. Candidates must be interviewed, sourced, assessed, and verified before making a hiring decision.
Recruitment methods
There are many retail recruitment methods that companies use to attract the best staff. Not all jobs have the same requirements, and each company has different needs. This means that employers must use different hiring strategies that suit the environment and appeal to the candidates they are looking for.Some of the methods are the following:
Direct advertising
Post job adverts on your job boards, social media, career site, and industry publications is a great way to find lots of applicants. It also boosts your company’s reputation and gives exposure to your employer branding. The downside of these methods is that advertising can be quite expensive.
Talent pool databases
It is recommended that you search in your talent pool databases for candidates who were not hired but were suitable enough to save. Most decisions involve deciding between a couple of candidates.
When a position is available, search your talent pool for similar experiences and skills. You will save a lot of time, thanks to this.
Boomerang employees
Rehiring past employees is a strategy that has gained popularity lately. The boomerang employees are people who worked well for the company but then left on good terms for a myriad of reasons.
Employers can appreciate the value of rehiring someone since they know their skills and the employee knows that they fit into the company environment. Bringing in a boomerang employee can reduce the time of hiring, reduces the cost per hire, and eliminates the risk of a bad hire.
Promotions and transfers
Transfers and promotions are not the same, but the concept is the same. Internal employees fill open roles. Promotion means that the person moves up a ladder and has more responsibilities, and also a pay increase. A transfer generally does not include increased responsibilities or a salary increase.
Recruitment agencies
You can delegate the responsibilities of the hiring process to a retail recruitment agency. These agencies handle the full cycle of recruiting on your behalf. Although the cost of these agencies is high, it gives you the freedom and time to focus on more pressing matters.
retail recruitment agencies are the ideal choice for hard-to-fill positions and for companies that do not have the internal HR resources to focus on hiring.
You can also hire an external recruiter to make contact with a specific person you want to attract to your company. You may know of a passive candidate who would be a perfect fit for the position, but they already work for another company, so you don’t want to make direct contact. In these situations, an executive search recruiter would be the ideal option.
Professional organizations
When you have a vacancy in a highly skilled position, professional organizations are the best option to find candidates. Many professions require that on qualification, people sign with the appropriate professional organization.
There are also other organizations where registration is voluntary, but it adds to the credibility of a candidate’s application. Partnering with these organizations can put you in touch with top talent.
Recruitment events
For companies planning to expand or for large corporations, retail recruitment events are the best option to attract the type of person you need. These events can be: holding a hackathon, hosting open days at job fairs, and graduate recruitment drives on campus. However, you must take into account that events can be costly.
