Time to pull up those fashionable calf length socks River Island

If you’ve got nothing good to say then don’t say anything at all.

Sound advice I have no doubt - but advice that I seem utterly incapable of following, and advice that if followed would, to be honest and IMHO, make for pretty dull blogs (certainly not why we set this little distraction up anyway).

So - lets get straight to the point then: River Island + In Retail = oh dear + oh dear + oh dear.

I happened to be in my local metropolis (well, Colchester) the other day when I found myself playing sheep dog for 2 small people outside a River Island shop. There being no such thing as a day off for a committed individual such as I (especially now I’m self employed and all) I was taken by a small recruitment advert tucked away in the corner of the window.

It caught my eye - which I guess is a good start - but I was very much left wondering whether it was for the right reason or not? To be honest I was mainly struck by how it directed me to www.inretail.com to apply - which got me immediately thinking (apart from “where’s little person 2 think he’s heading?!”) “why on earth would they want to send me to a site where I’d also surely be served up every other local vacancy to compete against?”. Is the River Island employer brand that super sexy or, and I think we’d all concur more likely, have they opted for a recruitment process that’s all lo-cost and subsequently massively inefficient in their talent attraction pursuits?

So a little while later I had to go and have a nose. I mean perhaps the InRetail package was so compelling and well pulled together that I’d be eating my hat. Perhaps.

The best thing I can say is that there was indeed a River Island logo on the home page -  so perhaps I should indeed follow the advice I started with and quite whilst I’m ahead.

No chance.

I followed the link. Here are some of the issues I took with what followed:

• Warning - Pop up blocked - but I feel generous so allow it, go back and then click on the link again. The pop up seemingly gives me a list of their current vacancies - odd - no sign of Colchester though??!! “Click here to apply today” it beckons. Then a BIG warning. Scary. Along the lines of “use the back button and my application dies!” ummm - not very friendly.  But we pretend we’re cool with this and we’re into the application form. Shame that it hasn’t resized my pop up window and I can only see the top right 2/3rds (being generous). First question and I can’t see the  “next button” without horizontal scrolling. Ewwww.

• OK - so I closed the popped up window and thought I’d go through what other routes there may be. Hmmm. Single page of corporate info - hardly what you’d call particularly compelling. And as it’s within the InRetail site the main buttons I’m seeing would actually see me registering with or using the facilities on the site across all the InRetail clients. But I can download an application form - so I do. But it’s just for Sales Advisors - hope you read that in the small print body text above before clicking on the large text “click here to download an application form” statement. That could be confusing - for someone as daft / impatient as me anyway.

• I continue on my quest - at the bottom of the page (but not the very bottom -  that’s InRetail buttons again) there are some links to search specific vacancies. Sales Manager Vacancies. Excellent. Ah - not quite so. 47 Sales Manager vacancies returned and no sub search mechanic to help (just a three page list). But then after a trawl there she blows. Would happen to be that I pick Sales Manager vacancy 46 of 47 - I guess sometimes dem just de breaks.

• Click on Apply online - you get that InRetail “back button” warning again and into the application form. Would like to tell you about how that went - but I chickened out. All I can tell you is that there’s no apparent save and return function and I nor anyone else who hasn’t completed this particular application form would be able to tell you how long you might have to sit there for - you see, no indication of how many pages or what’s required either. Seen worse - but not great by any stretch of the imagination.

• Oh - and any time you click to go and find out some company info - well don’t bother - it’s back to that single page and the annoying pop up about what are clearly their top 10 recruitment blackspots. EVERY time. Lucky for Colchester that it’s not a blackspot I guess - just not for people looking to apply for the Colchester job.

So I thought I’d take a different tack and go look through the search facility on the InRetail homepage. So I selected “Deputy / Sales Manager” and entered “Colchester” as a location.

• The site “helpfully” tells me that it’s refining my search to roles within 20miles of Colchester - great. I still get 71 results (didn’t realise this part of Essex to be such a hot bed of retail recruitment activity). Unfortunately Colchester is actually (as I now know) 45miles from Lakeside, 44miles from Harlow & Romford and 33miles from Stansted - not "within 20 miles". So that didn’t really help me get to see the River Island vacancy within 71 mixed other vacancies. And a bit of bad luck this (it’s been up there a while and not refreshed for at least 7days), but there I found the role at the bottom of the list (71 of 71 - page 4).

OK - so what’s the point (for those who have scrolled through the above with the hope there is some conclusion to this rambling).

The point is that I am amazed at what hoops any recruiter will put in the way of an application / candidate - intentional or otherwise. In a market that consistently screams “shortage of talent” why on earth would you in the first place send them via all your competitor jobs and then give them a pretty poor experience even if they do hang on in there for the journey?

Good people could still fall in your lap - but don’t you think that in general those good people generally stand out to other recruiters in your area too? Personally 2 clicks later and I’m done applying to a job with PC World that has the potential of paying me up to £10k more than the River Island ceiling rate.

If this is about recruitment budgets then please wake up and see your approach smacks of massive false economy on just about every level. And it's not that you have to invest all that much in what would quickly prove to be significant strides to smarten up your process. To put it simply - you need Prince’s /Princesses, you’re process is fit only to generate a disproportionate level of frogs. So pucker up, you’ve got a lot of sloppy kissing ahead.

And BTW - get a map InRetail!!

Comments

[Recruitment Nick]

That is unbelievable. River Island are hardly badly off with profits having 'fallen' to £152 million last year http://www.retail-week.com/Fashion/2008/07/river_island_profits_slump.html - plenty rish enough to manage a coherent and co-ordinated recruitment process.

As a side note, are calf length socks really fashionable? If so I am glad to be unfashionable!

[Alex Hens]

You got me Nick.

I've been found out.

Evaluating a recruitment process and critiquing an integrated marketing campaign I can get away with - alluding to having the first clue about what is or isn't fashionable was always gonna be my undoing in this post!

You can therefore safely assume from my plumping for this blog title that actually this season it's knee length, pop socks or none at all as opposed to calf length that's in - which still gives you a 1 in 3 chance of being down with the kidz! Best of luck with your sock selection going forward.

:)

[Jamie Leonard]

Great post Hensy. InRetail will be at our retail event on the 20th August, why not take this conversation offline?

[Peter Gold]

Steady on Alex; you'll have me thinking you are just trying to stir things up for the sake of it now you've left your corner office, executive expense account, BMW, final pension salary and all that.

Or is a little bit of controversy actually OK? And JL, fancy you trying to stir it a little bit more. Poor old Inretail, they try so hard to do a great job; I mean, now they've been acquired they told me (just after the acquisition) that they'd be implementing some great new technology so leave em alone Alex, more will be revealed (yeah right).

Best stick to chasing sheep!!

[Alex Hens]

Makes it easier to blog my mind that's for sure, but never believe in controversy for the sake of controversy - not my style. Just calling it how I see it and as always happy for anyone to point out where/if I'm wrong.

And as for that last comment - as a Welshman I very much resemble that insinuation.

:)

[John Whitehurst]

On the sock question ... i would always tend towards Burlington (never go for high street ones - poor quality cotton = smelly feet) ...

On the post ... you bugger Alex - i was in the process of writing a similar blog ... inretail and river island are not alone

Rather than reading papers on web 2.0, 3.0, and all of that - try to search and apply for jobs online

Shocking ...

Really shocking ...

It almost made me sick ...

Come on it not that hard to write website people can use ... or is there a little bit too much focus on speed of build and margin ?

Or are the people building the sites not bothered ?

[Recruitment Nick]

have never worked in retail recruitment so I am forced to ask, is this sort of recruitment practice normal for the 'big players'? Do they really lack any sort of co-ordinated recruitment process?

If so I have to wonder if they have any processes in place for the recognition and retention of talent. No wonder every other shop window has a note in it asking for new staff.

On the sock question, fair enough, personally I wonder how fashionable socks can be, they're under trousers for heavens sake (unless I am VERY drunk). Mind you I am as fashion concious as an elephant.

Nothing wrong with sheep chasing either... how else would we get the wool for these fashionable socks?

You weren't suggesting us welsh lads chased sheep for any other reason were you?

[sinead]

No wonder the models in the employer profile page look so mean and moody, they probably tried applying for a job.

[Ben]

Let's not forget that it was the aforementioned retailer that incurred the wrath of the majority of the internet community when, just over a 18 months ago, they launched a wholly inaccessible corporate website... and then did nothing to address this when the world (well, the world of the web) quite publicly criticised their approach.

A lot of employers do get it right, but it's not as interesting. I don't know that many get it totally 'right' but then there is really no clear definition of 'right' - just what we believe to be 'better than most'.

Good work though Hensy - i'd have just walked off and played with the stereo equipment in John Lewis - much more fun!

[Alex Hens]

ooooooo - you've touched on a sore point there Mr Nunn. The move out involved quite a few changes that we've had to get used to, but undoubtedly the hardest of all is the fact there's no John Lewis in East Anglia which is, as you might imagine, a real bone of contention with the missus.

There is a solution though - it's called the Dartford crossing (to Bluewater). Rising fuel prices be damned - you want to reduce my wife's carbon footprint then force John Lewis to open a Chelmsford, Colchester or even Ipswich branch!

[Ben]

Or a trip to Norwich - that's near you isn't it? They have a Debenhams, which is sort of the same thing.