Talent Acquisition – Retail and ECommerce Industry

Difficulties in finding the right match

The first and foremost challenge that emerges in talent acquisition is finding the right match. Even with the swelling manpower requirements in the retail and eCommerce industry, businesses find it hard to fill up their roles and positions. There are different issues with different channels of hiring. For example, in campus recruitment, many students hold their offers and go for the one that best suits their requirements. Of those who join, not all stick for a long time. In the case of job portals, the preliminary screening process is a tedious task without automation. With automation, sometimes good candidates are filtered out even before a recruiter could lend an eye on their profiles. Many candidates jump off the recruitment process for their own reasons. After a long recruitment and selection process, many prospects turn down the job offers at the stage of salary negotiation.

Lack of domain-specific evaluation

An important aspect of talent acquisition is the assessment and evaluation of the candidates on the grounds of domain-specific standards. The HR recruiters who are deployed for screening resumes and job applications need not necessarily possess the expertise of retail and eCommerce. It takes significant experience for HR professionals to master the challenges and intricacies involved in the talent acquisition for a given domain. In the absence of a clear understanding of the talent requirements in retail and eCommerce, the general HR recruiters tend to rely on the words used by candidates in their resumes. This is a challenge because, for basic recruitment activities like resume screening and the initial telephonic conversations, not all businesses can appoint senior and experienced HR recruiters. If a good candidate is missed out in the first filter, s/he is missed entirely for that recruitment drive. If a competitor hires them, it becomes more difficult to attract them.

Continued competition in hiring

Whether it is difficulty in finding the right candidates or failure to close a position due to failure in salary negotiations or any other reason, it must be realized that talent acquisition is a zero-sum game in competitive markets. If one business fails to hire a suitable candidate, one of its competitors seizes the opportunity. As competition in the eCommerce channel continues to intensify despite any global business outages like the one we witnessed in the year 2020, no business is holding its horses back. The same goes for brick and mortar. Contrary to what the pandemic caused to the economies, there is no stopping in the emergence of retail brands and businesses, especially in the startup category. Hiring for retail and eCommerce continues to be as difficult as it was before 2020.

Lack of process orientation

Talent acquisition may be a broader term but when it comes to implementation, precision is the key. Business operations, be it recruitment or order fulfilment, cannot be done in the most effective and efficient manner without defined processes. Talent acquisition also eventually boils down to operational details. The vision has to be translated into strategies. The strategies have to be defined in terms of action. And this action plan has to be guided by direction and steps. In the absence of process orientation, there are no operational standards of performance and output. Recruiters are more likely to deviate from what is required to be performed. This could further lead to deviation from the vision and strategies for talent acquisition.

Executive Search

Executive search is a specialized recruitment activity. Using the traditional methods of recruitment does not yield the desired results here. For instance, whenever there is a vacancy in any of the executive positions, it cannot be advertised publicly. It is not ideal to reveal to competitors about senior positions lying vacant in a company.

We deploy the most experienced talent acquisition specialists in executive search activities for both retail and eCommerce. The positions we cover in this service include senior managers and top-level executives. Our role is to search for the most suitable candidates and introduce them to clients via a mutually-agreed process. We maintain the highest standards of professional ethics and decorum in trying to reach out to the candidates. Our preliminary screening assesses a candidate on the grounds of qualification, experience, exposure, personality traits, and shared values.

Non-Executive Positions

We provide talent acquisition services for all positions in an organization structure. We have consulted numerous brick and mortar retail clients across different verticals. Our team possesses the necessary experience and expertise in the domain of brick and mortar retailing and the manpower requirements involved in it. Since fulfilling non-executive positions are generally not as complicated as executive search, our team of talent acquisition experts for retail could quickly identify the resources pool and begin their engagement activities. Specifications highlighted by clients are duly taken into consideration.

YRC now has considerable experience in delivering business solutions to eCommerce enterprises. This has enriched our understanding of the structural and qualitative manpower requirements in eCommerce. Our talent acquisition experts for eCommerce begin with extensive groundwork towards formulating the most suitable talent acquisition strategies and planning the recruitment drives for each client. Our talent acquisition process requires the use of manpower planning and job analysis reports. It is important for us that we work in close coordination with our clients with the objective of better incorporation of clients’ specifications and business requirements.

International Recruitment

Talent recruitment at the global level is a challenging task for many reasons. There are differences in the regulatory environments of each country and state. Cultural differences have a bearing on teamwork and internal communications. There can be differences in how one subject can be taught differently in two different countries. This affects how candidates answer interview questions or in the selection tests. At the individual level, two candidates can have completely different perspectives on their career goals and aspirations. It immediately affects how a company presents the career opportunities it offers.

Our expert talent acquisition associates for retail and eCommerce are aware of the intricacies that come along with global talent acquisition. With every company, the degree of the challenges takes a slightly different turn. We seek to address these concerns proactively in our expert international recruitment services. YRC’s recruitment consultants for retail and eCommerce help clients formulate their global talent acquisition strategies, chalk the operational roadmap, and carry out the talent sourcing and acquisition drives. Clients’ specifications and expectations will be sought and incorporated to a high degree of detail.