Solving volume hiring for a top 10 UK supermarket chain

Iceland is a top-10 supermarket chain in the UK with over 1,000 stores and 25,000 employees. During the pandemic, they needed to quickly hire new team members. But with store leaders under massive pressure, this fell to the centralised talent team who needed to hire 5,500 team members in just one month.

The Problem

Centralised recruitment that couldn’t be sustained

● Recruitment was centralised, with over 1000 internal stakeholders across the UK
● High number of applications
● Lack of diversity in hiring decisions
● An application process that wasn’t candidate-friendly and didn’t align with Iceland’s values

The Solution

Automated interviewing that mirrors the real thing

What candidates get

A simple, engaging and fair interview, via chat. Candidates love it because it’s just five questions, takes on average just 20 minutes and every applicant gets personalised feedback.

What hiring managers get

Iceland’s store manager team is always changing as new people are promoted. Sapia.ai was incredibly easy for managers to adopt, with the huge added benefit of managers being able to read candidate responses, giving a much deeper insight than any CV.

The Outcome

Simple but sophisticated AI that was quick to install and could be scaled to Iceland’s needs with no fuss

Iceland can now interview candidates that are as diverse as the general population, with an experience that ‘feels very Iceland’.

Integration with Iceland’s existing application tracking system took just four weeks and adoption was easy with Sapia.ai’s bespoke training video for store managers.

“I banned the use of auto-replies, such as ‘if you don’t hear from us assume you won’t’. Candidates deserve better. A big employer like Iceland has an obligation to do better by candidates.” – Jeff Uden, Former Head of Talent and L&D for the Iceland Group

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