How Talbots Increased Applicant Quality and Drove More Hires

Company Overview

While Talbots is often known as a fashion brand, it has a wide range of careers that are important in retail, and engaging with high-quality candidates for such a wide range of roles can be challenging.

"You can build a career in retail and not be in a store or be a fashion designer — there are jobs that touch all aspects of managing a business," said Susan Collins, Director of Talent Acquisition & Employer Brand at Talbots. "It's not about a cookie-cutter person; it's about hiring somebody curious, versatile and with the right skills for the job."

Nurturing Passive Candidates for a Wide Range of Roles

Like many companies, Talbots is focused on finding and hiring the right candidates for the talent needs of today, so time for long-term nurturing can be limited.

"In talent acquisition, we are moving so quickly," Susan said. "We do nurturing behind the scenes and we're good at it, but it's a lot of work to nurture."

Keeping Candidates Engaged and Coming Back to Apply

Talbots is obsessed with recruiting innovation. It regularly tries new solutions then keeps the ones that work, and the opportunity to test Dalia worked well with that approach.

The Dalia automated email program keeps Talbots candidates engaged and coming back to apply to jobs. It also supplements the outbound work the Talbots talent acquisition team is already doing.

"What I like about Dalia is that candidates have an interest in Talbots but the timing isn't right," Susan said. "The layer of Dalia on top of existing nurture campaigns adds another touchpoint, which makes those candidates even more curious about us."

Better Applicant Quality, Higher Apply-to-Hire Ratio, and More Total Hires

As a well-known consumer brand, Talbots is less focused on candidate volume and more focused on candidate quality and hires. Dalia increases qualified candidate flow by engaging high-value passive candidates who are less likely to initially apply, and bringing them back to Talbots when the time is right.

Dalia quickly made an impact on the metrics important to Talbots — applicant quality, apply-to-hire ratio, and total hires — and it performs very well compared to other sources.

Consistent Top-Performing Channel

"Dalia is consistently in our top third of sources when it comes to performance," Susan said. "It's a successful channel — the ROI is there."

"We look at all of our partners holistically," Susan said. "You can be sending a ton of applications but if they are not quality applications, we're wasting dollars."