Custom careers & mobile recruiting at Macy’s

Vast hiring needs and competitive job markets sparked a custom careers site – creating an outstanding and cohesive digital experience at Macy’s.

Challenge

Macy’s regularly faces stiff competition when it comes to hiring – they compete with every retailer nationwide for hourly employees to staff their stores, distribution centers, call centers and corporate offices.

Their online recruiting was scattered across a system of microsites that lacked cohesion and strategy, along with extensive hands-on maintenance. Macy’s also used Taleo’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) which offered great flexibility and candidate management tools, but lacked a mobile solution which deteriorated the overall candidate experience.

Macy’s needed an outstanding digital experience for job seekers that stood out from the competition, one that attracted the best candidates and encouraged them to learn more and apply. Above all, the new careers site needed to support the 58% of job seekers who are searching for jobs on their mobile devices.*

Macy’s turned to long-time partner, Sanger & Eby to create the solution they needed.

Services:

Content audit & inventory Content strategy & development Search engine optimization User experience planning Information architecture development Responsive website design & development Mobile job search & apply functionality Custom application development Ongoing maintenance & support Photo & video art direction

Vast hiring needs and competitive job markets sparked a custom careers site – creating an outstanding and cohesive digital experience at Macy’s.

Services:

Content audit & inventory Content strategy & development Search engine optimization User experience planning Information architecture development Responsive website design & development Mobile job search & apply functionality Custom application development Ongoing maintenance & support Photo & video art direction

Challenge

Macy’s regularly faces stiff competition when it comes to hiring – they compete with every retailer nationwide for hourly employees to staff their stores, distribution centers, call centers and corporate offices.

Their online recruiting was scattered across a system of microsites that lacked cohesion and strategy, along with extensive hands-on maintenance. Macy’s also used Taleo’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) which offered great flexibility and candidate management tools, but lacked a mobile solution which deteriorated the overall candidate experience.

Macy’s needed an outstanding digital experience for job seekers that stood out from the competition, one that attracted the best candidates and encouraged them to learn more and apply. Above all, the new careers site needed to support the 58% of job seekers who are searching for jobs on their mobile devices.*

Macy’s turned to long-time partner, Sanger & Eby to create the solution they needed.

Close up of Macy's Jobs home page
Close up of highlights of Macy's Jobs home page
Responsive screens of Macy's job search results

Strategy

We consolidated most of their hiring needs from multiple microsites into a unified website, then executed their employer brand site-wide. Then, we crafted audience-specific content designed to resonate with each segment, including the aspects of culture, perks, work environment and career development. 

Since “showing” is often more powerful than “telling,” we utilized video and custom photography to give candidates a sense of the company and answer the key questions every candidate has, regardless of level or focus: What’s the culture like? Who will I be working with? What’s the job really like? What will I be doing every day?

Since a large percentage of Macy’s hiring focused on hourly associates who typically pinpoint jobs in their immediate area, we knew serving them positions nearest their location was key. Our development team integrated geolocation to automatically deliver jobs closest to each user on the site’s home page without them even having to search for jobs. Users could still search based on their own criteria and filter job results to find the role that’s optimal for them. From there, candidates are able to customize and filter their search based on multiple criteria including category, distance, schedule and shift.

Mobile view of our job search and save interaction

For job seekers using mobile devices, Sanger & Eby pioneered a mobile job search and apply solution. We identified and resolved breakpoints in the old user experience. Mobile wireframes and a mobile design interface ensured priorities of communication were highlighted effectively. We leveraged the Taleo API from Oracle to pull jobs from the Taleo system and display the results on the careers site rather than in Taleo.

Custom CSS for mobile devices optimized the Taleo application for mobile, enabling a single application rather than multiple versions; this means changes propagate out instantly, with no duplication of effort by Macy’s Taleo team, who only have to maintain a single location rather than a separate mobile implementation.

 

Tech stack

The following languages and platforms were used to bring this project to life:

Languages

HTML5
CSS

Frameworks/tools

ASP.NET
.NET MVC
MS SQL Server
Bootstrap
jQuery
jQuery UI

CMS

Umbraco CMS

API

Taleo API
Google Analytics
Google Maps API
Google Places API

Group of young professionals taking a selfie
Woman adjusting clothes on Macy's store racks

Results

More than 9.4 million candidates visit the Macy’s recruiting website each year, which greatly helps Macy’s meet its aggressive hiring goals.

In a corporate world where only 3% of companies offer a mobile job application, the Macy’s recruiting website is fully responsive. This experience widens their applicant pool by making the job search and application process available to all applicants regardless of device. Macy’s now receives an outstanding 50% of its applications through mobile device, far above the 22% average.

Our solution reduced the administrative burden on the Macy’s recruiting team by decreasing time spent maintaining systems, allowing the company to maximize recruiting efforts.

Macy’s has been recognized as a front runner in mobile employment applications amongst Fortune 500 companies by the Wall Street Journal and won the Technical Innovation Award from the National Association of Colleges and Employers twice during its partnership with Sanger & Eby.

 

Do you need help reaching top talent to reach your hiring goals? Let’s talk!

 

* Glassdoor studies.