Marks & Spencer is a British retail multinational company with locations all around the globe. Its Greece entity has been around since 1990, comprising 27 stores, supported by 550 employees and one support office in Athens.
On a global level, Marks & Spencer tries to innovate and is constantly changing the global retail environment. Especially during the Covid period, their ways of working had to pivot, and the typical in-store shopping experience had to change.
We sat down with Dimosthenis Panagopoulos, Talent Acquisition Specialist Greece, and Polina Kourakou, HR Manager Greece, to discuss how they made improvements to their hiring process, reduced their time to hire, and handled the increase in hiring during their busy seasons.
A manual screening process slowed down hiring
Just over a year ago, Marks & Spencer Greece’s hiring process operated in a straightforward, but time-consuming manner. A candidate would apply through a job board, and the hiring team would receive the CV through email. The email application had to be checked separately as part of the candidate screening process and then the team would reach out to qualified candidates.
The main struggle was that too much time was spent screening candidates. Once it became too overwhelming, the Marks & Spencer Greece team knew they needed to find a better solution.
On the hunt for an ATS
The Marks & Spencer Greece team heard about Recruitee through a consultancy agency already using the ATS. The agency explained briefly how the software works, and interest piqued, they reached out to the Recruitee team for a demo. From the beginning, it seemed like a perfect match to solve most of their manual tasks and to help speed up their processes.
What first impressed the Marks & Spencer Greece team was how user-friendly Recruitee was. They knew the automation would bring them benefits from day one and shuffle their team into more digital recruitment processes.
On the hunt for more accurate reporting
Previously, they had no way of reporting, with CVs coming in via email, so that was a huge selling point.
Reporting was vital for us; you cannot make a report through emails. It's impossible.
Dimosthenis Panagopoulos, Talent Acquisition Specialist Greece
The possibility to have access to historical data and the candidate database was a huge selling point for Marks & Spencer Greece. And the insight gained from the reporting analytics was invaluable. On top of that, talent pools make it even easier to track top candidates that may qualify for other job levels or jobs in the future, which is quite common in the retail industry.
Finding an ATS that meets all your hiring needs
Once they switched over to Recruitee, it was smooth sailing. For Dimosthenis, it only took 10 days to get used to the software and understand the way that it works.
And even now, after being onboarded to the software, whenever he or the team has a question, they can get it answered by his Customer Success Manager, the Support team, or by searching the Help Center. And any features he was missing he can either upvote or request on the public roadmap.
Overall, Marks & Spencer Greece’s primary goal as a company is to become more digital.
If you want to become digital as a company, you have to be digital in the recruitment process.
Dimosthenis Panagopoulos, Talent Acquisition Specialist Greece
Recruitee helped them modernize their processes and more importantly, improve their candidate experience. They’ve gained a competitive edge in the retail industry, by building out an impressive and expressive careers site and all while enhancing their employer branding.
The company focuses on its value of diversity and inclusion, which they’ve proudly displayed on their careers site.
It’s so easy for candidates to apply to open positions on their careers site now. And it brings value to the company and the HR department as a whole, thus bringing them further into the digital era.
They’ve seen an increase in the volume of candidates through the use of integrations with job boards such as Indeed.com, Talent.com, Careerjet, and other common Greek job boards.
Cutting time to hire in half
Marks & Spencer focuses heavily on candidate experience and consistency across all locations and Recruitee helps them constantly improve.
The automatic replies have most frequently come in handy for the Marks & Spencer Greece team. No candidate is left waiting for a reply and they are notified of every step in the hiring process. This really helps improve the candidate experience, but the user experience is also straightforward for the team.
Since implementing Recruitee, Marks & Spencer Greece saw a huge change in their time to hire which is vitally important for a retail company.
Before Recruitee, our time to hire was 30 days. Now it’s 10-15 days.
Dimosthenis Panagopoulos, Talent Acquisition Specialist Greece
Especially in Greece, a country known for its tourist industry, time to hire can be a challenge. For example, from May through September and in December, there are increases in seasonal hires, and meeting the same time to hire KPI now, compared to the rest of the year, takes hard work and dedication. But Dimosthenis and Polina don’t shy away from a challenge and with Recruitee, they can still manage to reach their targets even during the busy season.
What’s next for Marks & Spencer Greece?
In the Marks & Spencer Greece HR team, most are using Recruitee on a daily basis. They even give access to interns so that they can feel included in the process and gain valuable recruitment and ATS experience.
Recruitee has offered us a lot of benefits in comparison to our previous way of working. It brings a lot of value, not only in candidate experience but also to us as users. It’s really improved our way of working.
Polina Kourakou, HR Manager Greece
With the summer busy season upon them, Marks & Spencer Greece’s HR team is ready for anything with Recruitee on their side.
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