Inclusion at scale for the UK’s largest coffee chain
Turning intent into action
Every year, Costa Coffee receives 300,000 applications for just 8,000 openings across their Barista and Barista Maestro roles. Reviewing every CV by hand was never going to be sustainable at that scale.
The burden fell on store managers, who were already running busy retail environments where hiring was just one small part of a demanding day.
Manual, inconsistent decisions let unconscious bias creep in between stores, and a patchy candidate experience fed higher attrition among new starters.
Their goal was bold but simple: Replace a process that was never built for this scale.
- Store managers were drowning in CVs, on top of running their stores.
- Manual screening let inconsistency and bias creep in from store to store.
- A patchy candidate experience contributed to high early attrition and turnover.
- Hiring was never designed to work at this kind of scale, and something had to change.
A fair start for every Costa candidate
Every Barista & Barista Maestro applicant now begins their Costa journey with Sapia.ai’s Chat Interview, a conversational, text-based assessment that replaces CVs and personality tests with five structured behavioural questions. It’s a calm, human experience. Untimed, mobile-first, and blind to gender, age, ethnicity, or disability.
For Costa’s store managers, Sapia.ai gives back the time CV screening used to take. They now receive instant, ranked shortlists of stronger candidates, backed by explainable insights, powered by Sapia.ai’s ethical AI.
“We wanted efficiency in a very human sense, giving time back to store managers, and making sure every candidate has a fair, inclusive, positive experience, regardless of the outcome.”
Olivia Sarson,
Global Head of Talent Acquisition, Costa Coffee
What candidates get
- A fair, inclusive interview that removes pressure and bias
- Compatibility with screen readers and voice-to-text tools for accessibility
- Immediate, personalised feedback and coaching through My Insights
- The confidence that every response is assessed, scored, and valued equally
What the hiring team get
- Every applicant screened instantly and fairly
- Ranked shortlists backed by transparent, data-driven insights (SAIGE™ Scoring)
- Diversity dashboards to monitor fairness and representation (Discover Insights)
- Seamless integration with their ATS Dayforce, reducing manual workloads
A human hiring experience, designed for dignity at scale
In its first year with Sapia.ai, Costa has redefined what fair hiring at scale looks like in practice, giving time back to store managers while delivering a faster, more consistent process for high-volume hiring.
The combination of structured, purpose-built AI assessment, human oversight, and continuous candidate feedback has made inclusion scalable, measurable, and real.
At Costa, inclusion is no longer a statement or an initiative, it’s built into the fabric of how Costa hires.
With Sapia.ai, every candidate is heard, every store manager has time back, and every hiring decision is backed by data.
