Hiring efficiency and turnover reduction at Starbucks

When Starbucks brought their recruitment in-house in 2021, they had to grow a whole recruitment team and needed technology to support them.  They chose SmartRecruiters for its strength in high-volume hiring and the ability to automate key elements of their recruitment process with a user-friendly interface for recruiters, hiring managers and candidates. Choosing an ATS with easy integrations to build a streamlined tech stack was key to success as the function grew.

Fast forward a few years, and Starbucks operates 72 stores across Australia, opening 10 new locations in 2023. In 2024, Starbucks set out to open one new store a month, which would increase the number of new hires a month by more than 30.

Starbucks decided it was better to tackle this huge increase in hiring by employing Sapia.ai’s AI-based assessment integrated with SmartRecruiters, rather than throwing more manpower at the problem.

The problem

A lean recruitment team in a company with big ambitions

• A high rate of early churn despite investment in training and development
  
• A candidate experience that was misaligned with their standout consumer brand
  
• Time to first contact taking too long
  
• An inefficient hiring process due to reliance on manual résumé screening
  

The solution

Sapia.ai’s automated interviewing and shortlisting process

What candidates get

Sapia.ai’s world-leading AI Smart Interviewer was integrated with SmartRecruiters in a matter of weeks, enabling a seamless experience for candidates. Candidates start their quick application in SmartRecruiters and are directed to a chat interview powered by Sapia.ai. They answer five questions that take about 30 minutes to complete via any device. Each candidate receives personalized feedback and coaching tips, whether their application was successful or not.

Shortlisted candidates go on to a non-AI video interview automatically. Through an email link, top candidates can self-schedule the in-person interview, getting them into their green aprons sooner.

Automated workflows within SmartRecruiters send candidates branded communications from Starbucks at each subsequent step of the hiring process, keeping them informed at every stage. In the last stage, the winning candidates receive a digital offer letter that can be signed via Docusign.

What the hiring team get

The hiring team receives an automated shortlist of the best candidates, with a soft skills profile of each applicant; along with a video of the applicant’s answers to scenario-based questions from the second interview. Everything they need is accessible via SmartRecruiters for a seamless shortlisting process.

When the recruiter moves a candidate forward in SmartRecruiters, the hiring manager receives the candidate profile and can review the CV and test results. They’re able to make hiring decisions armed with key insights impossible to glean from a resume and can spend more time working on other projects without so many CVs to review.

The hiring team can manage the entire recruitment process within SmartRecruiters, including posting to job boards, booking interviews straight into the hiring managers’ calendar, organising self-scheduled interview events, pre-employment checks, and sending offers.

The outcome

Hiring teams liberated from mountains of CVs

Thanks to Sapia.ai and SmartRecruiters, Starbucks doubled their recruitment volumes while drastically reducing the time spent screening resumes. By saving two days of work each week per recruiter, the recruiting team can now the focus on higher-level tasks. The automated process enables Starbucks to give something back to every candidate faster, without manual intervention.

Starbucks’ hiring managers are delighted with the quality of the candidates, and felt that Sapia.ai helped them reach a whole new group of people that their manual screening process wasn’t reaching before, such as candidates without relevant experience but impressive soft skills/growth mindset.

Additionally, candidates hired using Sapia.ai’s recommendations are staying longer, with the team seeing a 56% reduction in early turnover of baristas (from 25% to just 11%) since implementing Sapia.ai.

“The power of Sapia.ai integrated with SmartRecruiters has completely changed the way we hire. We used to spend half our day reading résumés! Now we hire people who stay longer, with an experience that’s aligned with our consumer brand.” – Rose Phillips, Head of Partner Resources, Starbucks Australia

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