Recruitment for retail is different when compared to recruiting for other industries. The major reason is that prospects are from varied backgrounds and seeking a retail career. Many of these potential candidates are visible on social networking platforms, and are easy to access and communicate with.

There are some golden rules of retail recruitment that every recruiter for the retail industry, should abide by to target prospects:

• Many at times, retail jobs get dull and boring at a point in time. So provide employees a solid reason to be excited about their job in retail and to feel proud about their contribution as a team to the company’s growth.
• Motivate the team constantly and engage them in activities through continual learning and development programs that will make them stay with the company and continue their association for long.
• Give employees a reason to make a mention about the way you treat them with respect on job or talk about the perks and benefits offered. You will soon realise that they have spread the word out to other candidates who are looking for lucrative employment opportunities. This word of mouth advertising works better than any other medium could.
• Transform your suppliers, past employees and customers into passion recruiters and owners of your business, which means allow them the rights of ownership to make them feel sense of belonging to the company.
• Measure and distribute outcome of productive results with all line managers and senior management to help them understand how their recruitment efforts is helping the company fetch rewards.

 See: Retail Recruitment Trends in 2015

Here are some retail recruitment strategies for the recruiter to find the perfect hire:

• Develop world-class referral programs and ask past employees to be your trusted source of referrals, as employer brand ambassadors. They will be more than happy to feel themselves a part of the organisation, even though they have grown out of it.
• Recruit former employees who are conversant with your organisational culture and can see the corporate vision for the future.
• Hire people from the same fraternity, so that they can recommend to other people in retail about a job opportunity.
• Engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, like sponsoring community events.
• Look at other competitors in your area and keep identifying top talent on a regular basis. Build strategic partnership with similar retailers and staffing agencies to share recruiting costs and applicants.
• Develop an advisory board that comprises of coolest well-connected people from diverse backgrounds and plan a recruiting strategy that meets your current market demands.

If these retail recruitment strategies are correctly implemented, you’ll be able to enhance your employer brand and find the perfect hire to meet your recruitment goals.

Also read: 5 Warning Signs your recruitment strategy is not working