Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Recruitment & retentionOnline recruitment

River Island launches online recruitment solution

by Personnel Today 26 Nov 2008
by Personnel Today 26 Nov 2008

For the first time ever high street fashion retailer, River Island, has introduced online recruitment to deliver sales advisers across its network of over 200 UK stores.

Working in partnership with online recruitment specialists, Changeworknow, the new online recruitment system has enabled River Island to reduce its recruitment costs, increase the quality of applicants and dramatically cut the time to hire in the run up to what is the busiest trading period of the year.

River Island is an attractive brand and each year receives thousands of applications for employment; but this high volume of applicants is time consuming to administer and puts a strain on the busy central recruitment team. 

As applicants get passed through to stores to shortlist it has not always been easy to maintain a consistent approach to short-listing, especially when there is pressure to fill the roles.

Moving store recruitment online now ensures that all applicants enter and complete the same process and only applications from suitable candidates hit managers’ desks; not only does this ensure the recruitment process is fair across all stores, but pressure on individual managers and their workload is reduced.

Lisa Astbury, Director of Changeworknow, says:

“People want to know more about their role with River Island than job responsibilities, salary and benefits; they want to hear what it really means to work for the company.

“To achieve this we have worked with River Island to provide an online solution that communicates to candidates what the company is looking for and the types of skills and experiences that will be important. 

“The online questionnaires help applicants really understand what it means to work for a fast paced, customer service oriented retailer and decide if this is the right job for them.  This has reduced the volumes but really improved the quality of applicants.

“Online recruitment enables River Island to provide regular feedback to applicants instantly and at no extra cost. It also encourages unsuitable candidates to deselect themselves, enabling us to maintain a strong employer brand with applicants and potential customers.”

The results speak for themselves.  In the first six weeks of the seasonal temporary campaign just over 54,000 applicants started the process with 37,000 submitting their application

Lisa comments:

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

“Recruitment is one of the most expensive HR activities, but maximising the use of technology enables employers to reduce their costs massively. Online recruitment, particularly at this busy time of year, offers faster and smarter solutions so businesses can drive better efficiencies in their recruitment process, which is a must in such an uncertain economic climate.

“More and more information is online and employers will miss out on talent if they don’t tap into online recruitment. Generation Y have grown up with information at their fingertips – they log on to the Internet to get the latest news, find out information and socialise, so it’s the natural place for them to go to look for work and apply for jobs.” 

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Migrant sponsor backlog blights launch of registration scheme
next post
Legal Q&A: Extreme political beliefs

You may also like

Employees voting with feet as return-to-office pressure increases...

15 Jul 2025

Businesses warned against reducing recruitment in favour of...

15 Jul 2025

Food sector warned it is facing a workforce...

14 Jul 2025

Steep reduction in recruitment in June

14 Jul 2025

Engineers prioritising benefits over pay

14 Jul 2025

It’s no secret – parity in the workplace...

10 Jul 2025

Teacher recruitment goals ‘lack coherent plan’

9 Jul 2025

One in seven ‘revenge quit’ in latest employee...

7 Jul 2025

Graduate jobs this summer ‘will be toughest since...

25 Jun 2025

Employers struggling with soaring candidate deception

25 Jun 2025

  • Empower and engage for the future: A revolution in talent development (webinar) WEBINAR | As organisations strive...Read more
  • Empowering working parents and productivity during the summer holidays SPONSORED | Businesses play a...Read more
  • AI is here. Your workforce should be ready. SPONSORED | From content creation...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+