Four years ago, the footwear retailer partnered with SmartRecruiters to develop a custom implementation strategy that would empower them to tackle high-volume seasonal hiring and industry challenges.

After finding success implementing SmartRecruiters at their Manhattan Beach headquarters, Skechers had the ambitious goal to roll out SmartRecruiters in all 727 of their stores within 90 days. The purpose was to standardize their hiring process and provide a consistent candidate experience regardless of location. With the holiday season fast approaching, the pressure to implement a new system before the hiring demand spike was on. SmartRecruiters’ Hiring Success team was up to the challenge, and started the process by breaking out the process into five steps:

1. Awareness ― Understanding goals and defining metrics to measure success
2. Roadmap ― Establishing a plan to reach objectives
3. Re-optimization Workshop ― Redesigning the hiring process and providing sustainable supporting configuration for Skechers’ main points of contact 
4. Acceleration ― Implementing everything configured in the workshop and preparing Skechers’ trainers for their three-month training roadshow to teach all hiring managers how to use the new system effectively
5. Optimization ― Reviewing the metrics and achievements of retail stores on a monthly basis 

The results speak for themselves, with a 100% launch in all of Skechers’ stores after 90 days. Additionally, hiring teams readily embraced the platform, with over 80% of the entire organization’s TA department using the new system immediately after implementation. The modern and uniform hiring process also translated to a significant increase in applications, with more than 50,000 applications for 1,400 jobs, which led directly to 525 new hires. To us, that is the definition of Hiring Success.

SmartRecruiters sat down with Adan Villalobos, Global Director of Talent Acquisition at Skechers, to look back on these accomplishments. Adan dove deep into what it felt like to participate in the monumental changes of Skechers’s global hiring process.

What did you find to be some key benefits from the re-optimization workshop? 

It was incredibly helpful to have an expert show us the technical side of how we should be setting up the system. We realized during this stage that SmartRecruiters had so many different processes and systems that we weren’t even utilizing. We discovered how to operate the system on a global level, and were then able to come together and build a training program for our hiring managers. This step was crucial to prepare us for the global rollout. 

What were your biggest concerns while on the road during Skechers’ store rollout?

Initially, my biggest concern in rolling this out to stores was that we would have to pull hiring managers away from the sales floor to teach them the system. However, SmartRecruiters is so mobile and intuitive that it was possible to have short training sessions and then send hiring managers out to use the platform on their phones on the sales floor. Once they learned of this ability it gave them the opportunity to streamline the entire hiring process while also providing a great candidate experience. 

We were also somewhat worried about adoption rates, but the training programs that we built with SmartRecruiters encouraged all participants to buy into the system because they saw how it was going to benefit them in the long run. It was easy to see how, by using the platform, they were going to achieve top-quality hires, which meant an increase in the overall profitability of their store.

How do you sustain the success that you’ve seen with the engagement and adoption in each store?

Many of us have been in a business where a new system is rolled out, it’s bright and shiny for the first three to six months, and then it loses its luster. To avoid this, we wanted to create programs that support SmartRecruiters’ system and also sustain the great results we initially saw. In order to achieve this, we made district managers and regional managers accountable for managing the platform in all stores. This allowed them to truly own the program, and it was in their best interest to utilize it to the best of their ability.

We also built a recruiting ambassador program. Each recruiting ambassador was assigned to a district to help stores actively recruit through the platform and make sure that they’re utilizing it to its full potential. SmartRecruiters also does a great job of continuing to update the platform, and this keeps our people very involved. 

How can SmartRecruiters help clients be successful with high-volume hiring in retail?

The SmartRecruiters team has always helped build our strategy for the peak periods of hiring during the holidays and the back-to-school season. They have achieved this by showing us how to use the platform as a marketing tool. 

It gives stores an opportunity to market to career fairs and at in-store events. The hiring manager can then create candidate pools from the people they reach and benchmark the candidates already in the system. When the store is ready to hire for a specific season the hiring managers can go back into the system and identify the best candidates for interviews. Overall, our planning and communication throughout the hiring process have improved, and so has our capability to deal with the masses of candidates each season.

Through strategic planning and partnership, Skechers received a tailored implementation program that produced dramatic results and has the roadmap to continually attract, select, and hire great talent for years to come. To hear the full Q&A session check out the Webinar: Building a Business Case for Hiring Success in Retail where our Hiring Success director breaks down process that led to this incredible transformation.

When a growing management consulting company needed an applicant tracking system to handle its global business, there was only one choice for the HR Tech that could meet and surpass their myriad needs.

Co-founded in 1999 by Matthieu Courtecuisse, the firm started out in Paris in the financial services industry before developing expertise in energy, telecommunications and media, transportation and logistics, and government. 

From day one, Sia Partners’ ambition has been to become a global consulting firm, working on cross-border engagements. Their first-ever assignment was with the World Bank, for a project in West Africa. In 2006 they opened their first international office, and have always pushed forward innovation. As the pioneer of Consulting 4.0, Sia welcomes the disruption of AI, invests in Data Science, and develops consulting bots. As a firm with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, Sia Partners launched its investment fund, Studio, in January, 2017. Their current portfolio includes Big Moustache, Livsty, and Cleep.

What parts of the world is Sia Partners the most active, and which industries are most prevalent in those regions?

The Group has an international presence with 20 offices in 15 countries, and employs people of over 40 nationalities. The two biggest markets are France—with offices in Paris and Lyon—and the US, with offices in New York, Houston, and Charlotte. Our international expansion has lead us to innovate our recruitment process, and we have developed several international programs to attack and retain new talent.

We created the first-ever international Gap Year Internship program in the management consulting industry, which gives students the opportunity to do their one-year internship in two locations. First, a six-month period in Paris, then New York, Hong Kong or Dubai for another six months. Our consultants also have the possibility of international mobility through our Associate Program, which allows consultants the possibility to work for three years in three different Sia Partners offices (one office rotation per year).

How long was it before the focus became truly global, and what did that do to your hiring process?

In a certain way, Sia Partners has always been a global-focused company. Since its internalization in 2006, we’ve recruited employees in each office through the VIE contract.

For VIE programs :

Collaboration between Paris (HQ) and offices for the sourcing and screening steps and, later, within the recruitment process to link each stakeholder

Impacts on the hiring process :

• An increased exchange of information between offices to build a global vision of recruitment
• Becoming global helped Sia Partners to develop international mobility thanks to new international programs. We moved from a local vision of recruitment where each office handled its own process to a collaborative approach.
• New opportunities for our consultants: Sia Partners developed a structured yet dynamic international mobility policy through innovative programs such as our Open Track, Associate Program, and International gap year for students.

What was the TAS/ATS you used before SmartRecruiters? Can you walk us through what your sourcing and hiring were like before?

We had no TAS/ATS before going live with SmartRecruiters—every step of the recruitment process was done manually.

1.      Job Posting: manually post the job opportunities on various job boards (around 20 job offers for France): LinkedIn, JobTeaser, CareerSite, and university websites.
2.      Screening/Sourcing: a generic email address gathered all the applications. When a candidate applied, he or she received a confirmation by email. Regarding the number of applications received, we were not able to respond to each applicant individually when the application was declined.
3.      Selected candidates’ profiles were shared by email to the Partners.
4.      Interview steps: once again, interviews were manually planned by email. There was no shared agenda to help recruiters through the process. As a consequence, a lot of time was spent checking each stakeholders’ availabilities by email, and the candidate experience was negatively impacted.
5.      Job offer internship: when the offer was accepted and the contract drawn up, all the information was transmitted by email. Recruiters, the HR team, and Partners used to discuss the details regarding the new employee and its arrival by email.

Joining the SmartRecruiters community was a huge and major step towards increasing our efficiency. We were able to gather all the information regarding our candidates and easily share them with our community and coworkers. The ability to post multiple open positions contributed to making Sia Partners’ presence on job boards continuous and more efficient. In fact, recruiters spend less time posting job opportunities and are able to focus on high value-added tasks.

What Smartrecruiters did to our hiring process :

• Help the recruitment team build a complete automation of the multiposting process
• Increase each recruiter’s autonomy and visibility on their scope
• Improve candidate experience in various aspects:
  • Thanks to the SmartRecruiters portal, candidates can apply for a job, refer friends, modify and even withdraw their profile.
  • Every candidate now receives a reply to their application—and the response can be customized
  • An increased responsiveness to candidates’ solicitations

• Data centralization, which helps Sia Partners to be compliant to new regulations (GDPR, for instance)
• Ability to create and track analytics
• Create a real community: all stakeholders are highly engaged along the recruitment process
• Reinforce the collaboration between offices: recruiters are able to share candidate profiles and information between offices

What was the process of implementing SmartRecruiters?

Sia Partners went live with SmartRecruiters in November 2016, in France and also in our 20 offices across 15 countries. We worked in collaboration with the SmartRecruiters team, who helped us construct a personalized and intuitive tool that was implemented seamlessly within three weeks. Every user (around 100) was trained during that same period in France and in every Sia Partners office around the world. Sia Partners’ team developed communication tools to gather everyone around the implementation process as fast as possible.

The major result, by far, is the time saved posting job offers, and having centralized all information on a unique platform. Thanks to Smartrecruiters, the recruitment process became smooth and engaging, not only for recruiters and managers but also candidates who are now able to fully take part in their own process. Since November 2016, more than 40,000 candidates have applied through SmartRecruiters. Last but not least, SmartRecruiters also increased collaboration between offices and made the global hiring success at Sia Partners a reality.

What is something unique to hiring for Sia Partners that SmartRecruiters has made easier?

We significantly reduced our time spent on the overhaul recruitment value chain, which helped us to be focused on more added-value projects. As an intuitive tool, SmartRecruiters engaged everyone in the process and created a relevant recruitment track for candidates. Finally, it allowed us to share information and optimize processes that increased stakeholder reactivity.

The international law firm boosts hiring success with the implementation of SmartRecruiters talent acquisition suite.

Please join Smartrecruiters in celebrating our latest go-live with law firm Crowell & Moring!

Crowell & Moring is an international law firm recognized for representing clients — including Fortune 500 companies — in high-stakes litigation and regulatory matters, as well as for its commitment to pro bono and diversity. With more than 500 lawyers in Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County, London and Brussels, Crowell & Moring serves clients in litigation and arbitration, regulatory, and transactional matters.

“Crowell & Moring is dedicated to connecting with and attracting the best talent in a dizzyingly competitive hiring environment.  We rely on SmartRecruiters to provide the smooth hiring experience our star candidates deserve – and to let us focus on the compelling case we need to make for the firm.” – Ryan Tisch, Partner

In bringing SmartRecruiters’ TAS  into its hiring process, Crowell & and Moring expects a competitive edge by plugging into a ‘live’ talent pool to solve duplicate issues, and receives better reporting & analytics.The mobile/tablet compatibility means fewer less clicks for applicants and fast access to Helpdesk anytime.

Crowell & and Moring benefits from a hiring process that encourages collaboration across departments and, in addition, is GDPR compliant.

For more information about the company and how SmartRecruiters functions from the candidate-facing side, the Crowell & and Moring Career site can be found at www.crowell.com/Careers