Rainbow USA Saves More Than $125,000 with Standout Jobs
September 30th, 2008 by n4Rainbow USA, Inc. is a privately-held, national retail clothing chain specializing in junior, plus-sizes, lingerie and children’s apparel. Founded in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, Rainbow has grown to include four brands and has opened more than 1,000 locations nationally, adding 60 more per year. Their focus is on women ages 14 to 40 and as such the work environment is youth-oriented, fun and full of energy, while offering employees stability and solid, long-term career paths.
Challenge
Rainbow has not only survived but thrived in the fickle retail space for decades. Clothing trends have come and gone along with brands catering to what’s hot in the moment, but Rainbow has outlived them all. To do that Rainbow relies on a loyal, knowledgeable staff of store, district, and regional managers to keep the brand at the top of its game. Rainbow boasts an impressive retention rate, with 80 percent of the managers having been with the company for more than 18 years. The company constantly strives to hire skilled talent looking for real, long-term career opportunities with multiple growth paths within the organization.
Traditionally, Rainbow relied on recruiters to funnel skilled managerial and corporate candidates into the hiring pipeline. While recruiters managed to find candidates with desirable skill sets, the process often took months and was expensive. In retail, it’s common for recruiters to ask for 15 percent or more of a new hire’s salary once placed. Rainbow augmented its active recruitment efforts with paid listings on Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, HotJobs.com and Allretailjobs.com, typically spending 10s of thousands of dollars throughout a year with little return on the investment.
“The boards are junk. They are full of desperate candidates who don’t read the ads and don’t have the skill sets Rainbow needs to succeed in a highly competitive environment,” says Anthony Bockerstette, Rainbow’s corporate talent acquisition manager.
Solution
Rainbow needed a more effective way to showcase itself to prospective employees, including senior level executives; attract candidates, both “active” and “passive” job seekers; promote the company’s positive work experience; and manage applicants. Rainbow turned to Standout Jobs’ suite of hosted career site tools which lets Rainbow showcase its culture and team, advertise open positions across the Web, and manage job applicants through the hiring process from one central and easy to use “dashboard.”
“We initially set up the career site to give candidates something to get excited about,” said Bockerstette. “We needed something which said ‘hey, go look at the site, see what we’re about and read the testimonials. We want you to get excited about the company.’”
Bockerstette found Standout Jobs quick and simple to use.
I had a first class career site up and running in 15 minutes. I’m not a programmer, and Standout Jobs made the site very user-friendly. Regular maintenance is just a matter of point, click and publish. The service I received when I had questions completely outclassed anything from the job boards and recruiters I had previously used.
Results
In just a short period of time using Standout Jobs, Rainbow has filled key positions including a number of store managers; the company’s Visual Manager, responsible for the overall look and feel of the brand both online and off; a lease administrator and a Senior Buyer for Rainbow’s 579 division.
Bockerstette estimates the savings on recruiters’ fees alone for just the above positions is more than 5,000.
Bockerstette added, “We want to make hiring more proactive versus reactive. There’s huge turnover in retail due to bad hires. With the help of Standout Jobs we’ve continued to be proactive in finding great fits for Rainbow who will stick around longer, saving us money and keeping us on a competitive path.”
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