Hack and Hire?
Fashion specialty retailer that offers upscale clothing, shoes and accessories for women, men and children. They have been operating since 1901 and recently expanded into Canada. They have 347 stores and there focus is on providing the best possible shopping experience. They also sell their products through partnership companies such as HauteLook.
WHAT IS THIS HR INNOVATION ABOUT?
It is about Nordstrom’s ability to implement innovative methods to recruiting in order to attract a specific candidate pool. Hosting Hackathons where HR and the technology community could partner and interact was the innovation. Having pop up innovation labs that created on the spot technology innovations based on customer feedback positioned the company to appeal to the technology talent pool. These specific technology focused Hackathons provided insight to tech talent about what working in tech at Nordstrom would be like.
WHY WAS THIS INNOVATION IMPLEMENTED?
Nordstrom needed to hire more tech talent but knew that brick and mortar retailers would not often be a tech applicants choice of industry. As they are not a technology company they needed to appeal to the technology talent pool in a different way that would attract them.
WHAT ARE ITS MAIN BENEFITS?
Nordstrom was able to showcase itself as more than just a typical large fashion retailer. They showed their focus and commitment to customer service and innovation. They appealed to a completely different talent pool bringing in more diverse applicants. They hired many external technology employees which aligned with and met their recruitment goals. It provided insight on recruiting using Hackathons which can be applied elsewhere in the company as well. There is the benefit of a strong corporate culture as employees take pride in these types of innovations. Also as applicants are given insight into what the corporate culture is and what a technology team at the company might look like.
COUNTRY: USA & Canada
YEAR: 2011
Please check sources at the bottom of the page.
SOURCES: Innovative Recruitment Strategy: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2015/02/how-nordstrom-is-reinventing-its-recruiting-strategy Hackathons video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szr0ezLyQHY
About Nordstrom: http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/about-us?cm_sp=corp-_-corp_AboutUs-_-globalfooternav_aboutus%20