Lacoste faces hiring for summer sales with AI

The summer sales are just around the corner, and HR teams in the retail sector are already preparing to meet the demand for personnel needed for this season. During this period, selection processes can increase by up to 46% compared to times less marked by seasonality.

We analyze the case of Lacoste, the renowned French fashion chain, which It has 120 points of sale in Spain and Portugal, divided into full-price boutiques, outlets and corners in El Corte Inglés. The company manages very high selection volumes, which intensify during peaks in demand typical of the retail sector. In this way, Lacoste can achieve up to 400 selection processes per year.

‍“We have very high selection volumes, and these are not selections where you have room to hire. When a store asks you for a booster, it has to be for the next day. So we needed to speed up the selection processes, reduce that time to hire“, explains Ana Sánchez, Talent Acquisition, Employer Branding & DEI at the company. For this reason, the company decided to invest in the automation of its selection processes with the support of HR Bot Factory.

Why did you decide to digitize your selection processes?

‍“The way we had to work was to send the screened CVs in PDF to the Managers and they had to scroll through them one by one. Now, they have direct access to the chatbot, so they can post notes, they can make their own filters, view CVs digitally and access video interviews. Thus, the process is much more streamlined and user-friendly”, says Ana Sánchez.

Thanks to digitalization with AI, everyone involved in the selection process can manage applications in a more agile and effective way. Not only does this optimize time and resources, but it also improves accuracy in selecting candidates. This efficiency is crucial in a sector such as retail, where employee retention is a significant challenge, with an average annual turnover of 65%.

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What strategy do you follow when hiring for sales?

‍“We tend to do group dynamics. We also do this through the chatbot, which has the option of making group calls and having people confirm whether they attend or not. That helps us a lot to solve the whole problem of sales“, comments Ana Sánchez.

In peak talent search seasons, it is essential to have tools that not only streamline processes, but also ensure the best results. The use of AI-powered chatbots to organize group dynamics and manage confirmations of attendance makes it possible to efficiently solve challenges in finding personnel.

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‍What is the candidates' experience with the chatbot like?

When a selection tool is launched, we always try to make it as simple as possible so that candidates do not fall out. In fact, Lacoste's fear of introducing a recruitment chatbot was to lose candidates

And how was the result? “The feedback is very good, in fact we were surprised that a lot of people actually respond. When you launch an ATS, you always have the thought that candidates may fall, but in reality it hasn't been like that at all”, Ana says.

With the introduction of an AI-powered recruitment chatbot, the Lacoste Human Resources team frees you from repetitive tasks, allowing you to dedicate your time to aspects that truly add value to the company. 

In addition, this digitalization not only streamlines processes, but also improves the quality of contracts and strengthens the employer branding of the company, which is especially relevant considering that around 50% of retail companies report significant difficulties finding candidates with the right skills.

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