Marks & Spencer’s time to hire is three days!
To maintain its exceptional customer service for the over 33 million customers who visit its stores and the 6.1 million who browse its website weekly, Marks & Spencer’s recruitment team needed an application system capable of managing the high volume of applications received for roles across the UK.
The sheer volume of applications, particularly for customer assistant positions, posed a significant challenge. These roles alone generated 35,000 to 40,000 vacancies annually, primarily during peak seasons like Easter, summer, and Christmas, resulting in a staggering 200,000+ applications for this single role across the UK each year.
Industry
Retail
Development programs
High volume recruitment
Main Challenges
Reduced time to hire
M&S is one of the UK’s leading retailers, with 1,382 stores worldwide
Challenge
83,000+ staff members
200,000+ applications per week
To maintain its renowned level of customer service for the 33 million+ customers who visit its stores and the over 6.1 million who visit its website weekly, M&S sought an application system capable of efficiently managing the high volume of applications it receives for positions across the UK.
Marks & Spencer needed a system that would…
- Handle the high volumes of applications for roles across the UK
- Offer exceptional customer service
Why Oleeo and what was the implementation like?
Oleeo’s ATS software helped the M&S recruitment team and shared services team manage the thousands of applications it received across the whole organisation. The ATS integration afforded the organisation more consistency in the recruitment process and better candidate selection in a simple two-step process that took applicants all the way from application to on-boarding. Oleeo’s Applicant Tracking System allowed M&S to manage the entire recruitment process and significantly reduce the time to hire without jeopardising quality. It allowed the organisation to post one vacancy instead of 50 for a single post using bulk processing.
The scoring system offered responses to thousands of data points in the application processes to identify the strongest predictors of success. It meant that they were able to improve the quality of candidates going through to assessment centres by between 5 and 16%.
Results
- Store conflict application controls- M&S can now ensure candidates only make 1 application per role avoiding store conflict
- Duplicate checking- Duplicate checking occurs at the application stage using business rules.
- 1 hour turnaround- At its fastest, applicants can be contacted within 1 hour from application to booking an interview.
- Significantly faster time to hire- Time to hire typically now significantly faster to as little as 3 days
- Increased conversions- Greater conversion through robust testing and application flow.
- Uninterrupted application flow- There is no break in application flow.
The Future
Oleeo forms are configurable to the needs of regional recruitment teams to help ensure forces recruit to reflect the communities they serve and ensure that they can continuously improve their recruitment processes.
“Oleeo offers us a very lean and efficient twotouch process to volume recruitment. We can limit the number of applications from applicants to just one to avoid duplication and store conflicts compliant to business rules. That gives us a typical time to hire of three days at best, variable across the country.”
Andrew Paterson
M&S Recruitment team