Sandro’s secret for improving employer brand while offering candidates an innovative experience

French leader in the medium-high fashion industry, Sandro is a symbol of Parisian chic and has over a hundred locations across France

To staff its stores, each year the company hires 1,250 employees on full- or part-time contracts (including internships), of which half are fixed-term contracts.

The recruiting team at HQ centralises the initial phases of the process and selects candidates mostly based on personality, motivation, presentation, and likeness to the brand.

Mission: Offer a candidate experience worthy of the brand’s high standards

The high volume of applications received used to mean dozens of hours of telephone interviews. Recruiting teams at Sandro desperately needed to reduce time spent during the pre-qualification phases of the process.

Their second goal was to ensure all candidates enjoyed a unified experience worthy of the company’s brand positioning.

Last but not least, to ensure a successful process, Sandro needed to encourage candidates to reveal their personality and soft skills as early on in the process as possible.

Implementation: Rapid processing of thousands of applications received

For a shop assistant position at Sandro, recruiters receive on average 100 resumes.

Before resorting to pre-recorded video interviews, the company used to screen candidate resumes and select 10% of them for a telephone interview to discuss compensation arrangements, availability and experience.

By the time the invitation was issued, the telephone interview conducted and a debrief completed, recruiters had spent 20 minutes on average per application.

And then it was time for the second telephone interview – or an in-person interview for staff positions in Parisian stores – involving a dozen or so candidates to assess soft skills, motivation, and cultural fit.

When the company switched to pre-recorded video interviewing, the two telephone interview stages merged into one single video interview.

Pre-recorded interviews have become a mandatory step for all candidates who wish to pursue the recruiting process. Once the pre-screening has been completed, recruiting teams send the resumes and video interviews of 2 or 3 candidates to managers who then arrange to meet them in store.

Results: Motivated candidates and a faster, smoother recruiting process

Two years into implementing their pre-recorded video interview solution, recruiting teams feel they have achieved and even exceeded their initial objectives.

• Removing the telephone interview phase for all vacancies has saved a tremendous amount of time. We used to struggle to get hold of our candidates, especially those who already had a job and therefore had no availability during office hours.
• Now that the two telephone interview stages have been removed, our recruiters have improved their responsiveness and ability to detect relevant candidate profiles early on.
• Recruiting managers also noticed that a number of excellent applications might not have been selected (and therefore hired) had it not been for video technology, which truly reveals candidate potential.
• Plus, candidates have expressed positive feedback of their experience.

Sandro is now ready to expand video interviewing in order to recruit more experienced profiles at HQ level, and to other SMCP Group brands.