CUSTOMER STORY
How Talbots Increased Applicant Quality and Drove More Hires
“Dalia is consistently in our top third of sources when it comes to performance. It’s a successful channel - the ROI is there.”
Susan Collins
Director, Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand at Talbots
Challenges
❌ Many highly qualified candidates don't convert into applicants immediately because of bad timing
❌ Nurturing passive candidates for a wide range of roles is too time-consuming for recruiters.
Solutions
✅ Dalia keeps Talbots candidates engaged and coming back to apply to jobs.
✅ It supplements the outbound and nurturing work the Talbots talent acquisition team is already doing.
Results
📈 Dalia increases qualified candidate flow by engaging high-value passive candidates.
📈 Dalia quickly made an impact on the metrics important to Talbots - applicant quality, apply-to-hire ratio, and total hires.
The Challenge
Nurturing passive candidates for a wide range of roles
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.”
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.”
“What I like about Dalia is that candidates have an interest in Talbots but the timing isn’t right. Dalia adds another touchpoint, which makes those candidates even more curious about us.”
- Susan Collins, Director, Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand at Talbots
The Solution
Keeping candidates engaged and coming back to apply to jobs
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.
“My favorite thing to do is to test new solutions,” Susan said. “Some tests are duds, and some are successful - Dalia was a successful test.”
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.”
The Results
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.
“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.”
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.
“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.”