How leading retail recruiters prepare for holiday hiring in 2024

It may be known as "the most wonderful time of the year" to some, but the holiday season is also the busiest time of the year for most retailers.

From the moment they start their Black Friday sales to the end of Boxing Day, retailers tend to experience a notable surge in customers and purchases — and they need the staff to manage it all. Navigating seasonal hiring can be challenging at the best of times, but it's made even harder during the holidays because the majority of the workforce wants to take time off to see friends and family.

In this article, we're sharing some of the top challenges that retail recruiters face during the holiday season, and the strategies they implement to mitigate them. For this article, we spoke to Rosie Williamson, Manager, Talent Acquisition & People Experience at Herschel Supply Company, who shared some of the best practices she and her team implement at Herschel.

Trends in holiday retail

As we head towards the 2024 holiday season, there are a number of trends shaping the holiday retail landscape.

• The peak season is longer than ever. Retailers have extended their major sales periods from just a couple of days to as long as a week.
• The in-store experience is more important than ever. A recent PwC report highlights that shoppers are spending more time in stores to discover products for the holidays compared to other research methods.
• The unemployment rate in the US is rising, reaching 4.3% in July 2024 compared to 3.7% in November 2023. While this provides a growing pool of potential candidates, retail remains a highly competitive industry.

To meet these trends head on and continue to provide excellent service to their customers, retail recruiters are under significant pressure to staff up their teams for the peak holiday season.

4 top challenges in holiday retail recruitment

1. A competitive candidate market

While the unemployment rate is going up, it is still trending low after extremely low rates late last year. The market for qualified retail staff is highly competitive. Not only are you competing with other big names in the industry, you're also trying to attract a limited pool of candidates that have the right skills and an actual interest in working the season in retail.

As Rosie Williamson says, "if you don't hire early, all the great talent will no longer be available." Retail recruiters need to take a proactive approach in their hiring.

2. The type of work is difficult to market

The nature of retail work during the holidays — with its lack of flexibility, last minute schedule changes, and variable hours — can discourage people from applying. For many applicants, seasonal work is typically a second job, and that means they're typically looking for something more regular.

In addition, because of the time of year, many potential employees are eager to take time off during the holiday season. This can make scheduling a nightmare for store managers, and can also cause conflict if that time off can't be given.

3. Inefficient volume hiring processes

Many retail organizations rely on outdated, manual recruitment processes that are time-consuming and unsuitable for seasonal high-volume hiring. This can lead to inconsistencies, poor quality hires, and high turnover rates. It can also slow your team down, making it harder to keep up with your competitors.

4. Lack of awareness of job openings

Depending on how you're promoting your holiday retail jobs, candidates may not even know that they can apply. It's worth investing in a targeted marketing strategy that puts your job applications in front of the right candidates.

Note: it will help to know which of your sourcing channels have proven most effective in past seasonal hiring initiatives.

7 ways retail recruiters overcome and prepare for holiday hiring

In dealing with these varied challenges, recruiters need to take a proactive approach, while also ensuring that their hiring processes are optimized to be as effective as possible.

1. Clarify your recruitment needs

Before you get started with your holiday hiring efforts, take the time to understand what your needs are. For Rosie and her team at Herschel, this means asking themselves a series of questions:

• What are our gaps?
• What are our strengths?
• Who do we need to fill these gaps?
• Are we set up for success for any scenario?

By getting everyone on the same page, you can then craft a strategy that's equal parts efficient and effective.

2. Plan ahead

Even though it is a seasonal hiring process, you should be thinking about your holiday hiring all year round. Otherwise, you and your team will be starting from scratch every holiday season — and that can be an obstacle in itself.

Rosie also has advice in this area: "Build a top 10 recruit list so you have a great bench to pull from and are not scrambling to find talent last minute." In other words, establish a talent pipeline that makes it easier to bring people in when you need them. You can do this by keeping warm relationships with past employees, and having an open application on your career site.

3. Run hiring events

A great way to improve the effectiveness of your volume hiring efforts is to run hiring events. Held in person or virtually, depending on your needs, a hiring event will help you assess multiple candidates for customer-facing and warehouse roles in a streamlined process. Hiring events also provide an opportunity to showcase company culture and brand, which can help attract top talent in a competitive job market.

Plus, if you use a hiring event platform that lets candidates self serve, seamlessly connects to your ATS, and reduces the burden on your hiring staff, you'll be much better prepared to tackle the holiday hiring season.

4. Be clear and transparent

One of the biggest challenges with holiday hiring is a mismatch of expectations around scheduling and the potential to take time off. Clarity will be key here. "Be extremely clear and transparent with expectations regarding time off, shift and scheduling cadences, hours, and job responsibilities," says Rosie. This will help you weed out the candidates that are ill suited for the job, and ensure that you don't have as many challenging discussions or turnover during the season itself.

5. Promote your hiring efforts

Make sure your ideal candidates know about your hiring efforts. Leverage your social media accounts and the other channels you know will reach your ideal applicants.

Other useful tactics include:

• Creating a landing page for your event
• Promoting the hiring event on your brand's website
• Extending personal invitations to past hires
• Partnering with local media
• Promoting the roles in store as your customers could be potential candidates
• Sharing your hiring event details with contacts at post-secondary institutions

6. Consider offering perks and bonuses

To remain competitive in the job market, retail recruiters should consider offering attractive perks and bonuses to entice candidates. This could include higher wages, employee discounts, or other incentives that set your company apart.

7. Prioritize the candidate experience

In a tight labor market, providing a positive candidate experience can be a game-changer. This is particularly true for retailers, who often hire people that know the brand as customers.

Retail recruiters who focus on making the hiring process smooth, engaging, and memorable are more likely to attract and retain top talent. Take the time to streamline your application and interview processes, give candidates a chance to talk to real people, showcase your company culture, and provide clear communication throughout the candidate journey.

Navigating a successful 2024 retail holiday hiring season

As the retail industry faces the evolving challenges of the 2024 holiday season, the most successful recruiters will be the ones that start acting now. Being proactive and introducing tools and processes that make your systems more effective will be key to standing out against your competition.

Withe's hiring event platform is designed to help retail recruiters navigate the holiday hiring rush with ease. Learn more about Withe today.