Boohoo's Remarkable Hiring Strategy Makeover, powered by LinkedIn's Enterprise Program
SUCCESS STORY
Boohoo is one of the world's largest online fashion retailers. With a global team of around 5,000 employees and 13 dynamic brands under its umbrella, Boohoo aimed to revolutionise its hiring practices. Its primary objectives were to boost direct sourcing, reduce reliance on recruitment agencies, and improve its employer brand awareness.
The online retailer turned to LinkedIn and its Hiring Enterprise Program, with a huge desire to ensure the entire talent acquisition team could use the platform’s full suite of hiring capabilities to find the best talent.
THE CHALLENGE
Reducing reliance on external agencies through increased brand awareness
The fashion industry is incredibly competitive and online fashion retail is even more so. Therefore, Boohoo must employ the best talent to ensure the brand remains at the forefront of the FMCG marketplace. Boohoo not only wished to grow its employer brand visibility in what is a crowded space, positioning itself as an employer of choice, and improving the candidate experience even for those people who are not successfully recruited, but it also wished to reduce its recruitment spending and dependency on recruitment agencies.
Gemma Kyle, Group Head of Talent Acquisition at Boohoo, explained that the retailer wished to increase the number of employees it sourced directly, reducing the business’ reliance and expenditure on recruitment agencies (which accounted for 45 per cent of its hires). Plus, there was a desire to increase brand visibility and strengthen brand awareness with a particular focus on showcasing company values and culture.
THE SOLUTION
Overhauling the hiring strategy by adopting a true partnership approach
Boohoo leveraged LinkedIn's Enterprise Program as a cornerstone of its hiring strategy overhaul. Boohoo and LinkedIn worked hand in hand to ensure a seamless and efficient onboarding process. A partnership approach meant both teams were able to hit the ground running and Boohoo's talent acquisition team – a team of just eight – immediately began to see the value of LinkedIn's tools and resources. Within the first 90 days, it could show concrete evidence of cost savings and improved recruitment efficiency. For instance, Boohoo achieved a 95 per cent reduction in agency spending, reinforcing the value of the partnership. This was achieved through extensive use of LinkedIn Job Slots, Career Pages, and Recruiter Licenses, which gave the talent acquisition team the ability to contact unlimited numbers of candidates, freely.
Positive results from continuous analysis and precise evaluation
Boohoo prioritised the upskilling and development of its in-house talent acquisition team. LinkedIn's Enterprise Program offered tailored training and resources, upskilling Boohoo’s recruiters and empowering them to excel in direct sourcing efforts.
Different parts of the Boohoo business were brought together under a common shared training and upskilling plan which streamlined processes and allowed for more precise talent acquisition. For example, Boohoo's recruiters became more proficient in utilising LinkedIn's features for talent acquisition and the talent acquisition team further maximised the potential of LinkedIn’s vast network to connect with top talent directly. Streamlined processes allowed for quicker and more precise candidate sourcing, reducing the time to hire.
Initially, time to hire was reduced from 45 days to 30 days and now this figure stands at 20 days. But this is not the only encouraging statistic. Boohoo’s talent acquisition team increased its InMail acceptance rate (28 per cent) and benefited from a 90 per cent year-on-year increase in job application clicks.
But what factors contributed to such fantastic results? Active engagement with LinkedIn helped Boohoo increase its employer brand visibility within the fashion industry. The group successfully portrayed itself as an employer of choice, attracting top talent. Boohoo’s brand awareness increased by 97 per cent, which significantly helped to improve the company’s hiring funnel too. Furthermore, Boohoo committed to regular reviews allowing it to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement. This continuous feedback loop enabled agile adjustments to its hiring strategy.
Gemma said: “Having access to LinkedIn’s Enterprise Program has really enabled us to grow. It has enabled us to promote all our vacancies and has boosted the visibility of our jobs available. The program has got our name into the market.”
Attracting key talent with targeted content
By working closely with the LinkedIn customer success manager and account manager, Boohoo’s “small but mighty” recruitment team constantly and consistently analysed the progress it was making.
It further identified a need to increase brand visibility and wished to boost its presence on LinkedIn. It actively engaged with the platform's tools to showcase its company culture, values, and career opportunities through its LinkedIn Career Page. By providing an insight into company culture, Boohoo’s values, and the opportunities available, Boohoo was able to give candidates an insight into what they could expect from the fashion retailer, crafting the candidate experience and giving new employees a rich understanding of the world they were about to become a part of.
Gemma continued: “Our partnership with LinkedIn’s Enterprise Program marked a turning point in our hiring strategy. By focusing on direct sourcing, reducing agency spending, and strengthening our brand presence, we have not only been able to develop a self-sufficient hiring process but also achieve remarkable success.
“The relationship with our customer success manager at LinkedIn has meant that the team has been guided on how to improve and progress with the features of LinkedIn that help us drive our goals and how to use the data to measure our activities and feed it back to me to implement changes. We fully utilise the hiring enterprise package. Job Slots enable us to show at a greater scale that we are hiring, raising our profile and generating more relevant applications, and LinkedIn Recruiter Licenses mean each recruiter can source outbound when required and proactively build talent pipelines.”
“I think a lot of that success comes down to the level of service we get from LinkedIn and our customer success manager and account manager.”
“Proving ROI is incredibly important,” Gemma added. “But I feel the team are fantastic at giving me the detail that I need to take back to the business as to why our partnership is so important and the impact it’s having on our hiring strategy. LinkedIn understands that Boohoo is a commercial business and I have to prove the worth of the contract.”
Gemma concluded: “Our story serves as a fantastic example of how innovative approaches to hiring talent can lead to hugely positive results in the world of online fashion retail.”
Main products used:
THE RESULTS
Significant reduction in agency spend
95% reduction in agency spending thanks to direct sourcing efforts
55% reduction in time to hire, thanks to precise candidate sourcing
Time to hire significantly reduced from 45 days to 20 days
Brand awareness = top talent attraction
Brand awareness increased by 97% = larger hiring funnel and more applications from top talent
In their own words
“Boohoo’s adoption of LinkedIn’s Enterprise Program has had a transformative effect on our hiring strategy. Hiring top talent fast is essential to our business. We want the best people working at Boohoo, and LinkedIn supports us in making this happen. Recruiting talented individuals who will play a role in our future success is paramount.”
“Our story has certainly been a journey of making continuous progress over time, starting by focusing on the areas that would make the biggest impact and building the best possible partnership. These approaches to hiring talent can lead to hugely positive results in the world of online fashion retail.”
About Boohoo
Boohoo Group PLC is a leader in fashion e-commerce based in Manchester, England. The group is made up of 13 brands – boohoo, boohooMAN, PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, MissPap, Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis, Warehouse, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton. The group has offices all over the world and a 5,000+ strong team. Boohoo has big ambitions, huge potential and a clear strategy to continually evolve and grow the business. The group’s vision is to lead the global fashion e-commerce market. What started as one brand, growing extensively in the UK and internationally, is today a platform of multiple brands servicing more than 18 million customers globally, generating more than £1.7 billion in sales.
INDUSTRY:
Apparel and Fashion
No. OF EMPLOYEES:
5,001-10,000
HEADQUARTERS
Manchester, England
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