StepStone Prescribes E-Recruitment Cure for Boots recruitment

Leading health and beauty retailer Boots today announced that during 2008 it intends to implement StepStone's e-recruitment solution to support recruitment across its head office and 2,500 stores nationwide. Recruiting around 20,000 full time and temporary employees each year, the company will use the StepStone system within its Recruitment Transformation Programme, a major initiative designed to enhance the candidate experience and develop Boots' employer brand, whilst making it simpler for stores, reducing the time to resource candidates and review and screen applicant information.

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Boots is using StepStone's e-recruitment platform to implement a simple and consistent process nationwide, and will abandon paper-based systems altogether. The solution will help the company reduce time to hire and quality of hire, and the introduction of online psychometric testing will enable it to identify and prioritise candidates who fit in with its customer-oriented ethos. StepStone's interview scheduling features will enable Boots' recruiters to schedule prompt interviews with pre-screened candidates, helping the business ensure it successfully recruits the most promising talent.

Previously, store managers were responsible for the labour intensive, admin based process to recruit new people. Head office employees and specialist roles such as opticians and pharmacists were recruited via a web-based system, but depending on the position that they were applying for, inconsistencies in candidate experience and the screening process were common. With StepStone underpinning the Recruitment Transformation Programme, Boots will be able to ensure that the candidate experience from initial application, through interviewing, assessment and offer, regardless of the outcome, will be positive and professional.

At Boots we are as passionate about our employees - prospective and actual - as we are about our customers, said Dave Vallance, HR Operations Director, Boots. StepStone's e-recruitment platform will be a vital part of transforming the way we do recruitment. It will enable us to attract and select better quality people. Simplify our processes for the benefit of applicants and recruiting Managers. Getting these things right will enhance our employment brand, and free up time in our stores to focus on our customers.

Matthew Parker, Group Managing Director of StepStone's Solutions business, said: With competition on the high street getting tougher, retailers are becoming increasingly proactive in the search for talent. As its employees act as the human face of its brand, it is vital that Boots attracts the best possible talent, and the Recruitment Transformation Programme should enable it to achieve just that. We are proud to have such a key role in this important initiative.