When asked at last week’s NACS Show what 7-Eleven’s greatest hiring challenge has been in recent years, Rachel Allen, the company’s senior director of talent acquisition, didn’t hesitate: Its hiring process has simply been too slow, causing the company to continually lose out on quality candidates.
“We could not get to the people fast enough,” Allen said.
Finding the balance between speed and quality candidates during the hiring process isn’t just a problem for 7-Eleven — it’s a challenge for most convenience retailers, Allen said. This is because many c-store candidates are casting a wide net, and many are willing to drop out of the application process if things don’t move swiftly. When the application process drags, prospects often find something else. In the c-store industry, that’s often a nearby competitor.
For 7-Eleven, this became a recurring issue, Allen said.
“We found that every candidate that was applying to one of our roles had applied even the same day to 14 other places, and it was taking us a couple of weeks to finally log in and look through [their application] and give them a call,” she said. “By the time we gave them a call, they were hired down the street.”
Finding quality candidates and bringing them in for interviews as quickly as possible have become 7-Eleven’s top priorities in its hiring process, Allen said.
To help with this process, the convenience retailer recently turned to artificial intelligence — and so far it’s worked wonders, Allen added.
Using AI in hiring
While 7-Eleven’s store-level managers do the hiring, Allen and her team handle the behind-the-scenes technology, training and support to help managers carry out this process. When Allen and her team realized 7-Eleven was losing top talent early in the application cycle, they turned to RITA for help.
“By the time we gave them a call, they were hired down the street.”
Rachel Allen
senior director of talent acquisition for 7-Eleven
RITA, an AI-enabled assistant that “recruits individuals through automation,” handles all communication with applicants, including scheduling interviews. Since implementing RITA earlier this year, 7-Eleven now automates about 95% of the front recruitment process, Allen said. Doing so has cut the company’s hiring process from 10 days to three per candidate, Allen noted. She added that RITA has helped 7-Eleven reduce store labor hours by 40,000 on a weekly basis.
“It has been a life-changing experience for us,” Allen said of 7-Eleven’s AI recruitment bot.
Beyond 7-Eleven’s use of the tech for scheduling interviews and applicant communication, retailers can use AI to refine job descriptions on their websites, create interview guides by role and skill set, standardize evaluation criteria and write personalized follow-up messages and candidate feedback.
Automation should continue even when candidates are hired, Allen said. Retailers can use AI for administrative functions, such as sending out notifications for paperwork or on-the-job training.
“Automate the things that are administrative, and then invest in the time where you’re going to create or cultivate that connection and steep them into their role,” Allen said.