How to Overcome Retail Recruiting Challenges: Recruit for Retail in 5 Steps

Assistant managers are great to have but are not necessary for small operations. Unless your staff is 10+ for a single location or there are 3+ people on the floor at any time, you probably only need a head manager.

Did you know? The demand for seasonal workers is increasing year over year. In December 2022, the retail industry added 102,400 jobs. In the same period in 2023, retailers hired even more—bringing on 119,700 new employees.

To get a more precise measure of your needs, I suggest making a mock schedule for the week (including sales or events). Fill out that schedule, and determine the number of hours you need people to be on staff. Don’t forget any ecommerce-related tasks you need to fill.

In the example above, there is a total of 356 hours of labor to fill your schedule. You might break it down like this:

• 1 manager (40 hours)
• 1 assistant manager (40 hours)
• 5 full-time associates (200 hours)
• 6 part-time associates at 15 hours each (90 hours)
• Total hours: 370

Based on the mock schedule and projected staff docket above, it might be tempting to think that you will only need that projected number of associates to keep your store consistently staffed. This, however, is not the case.

In retail, you should have excess part-time staff so you aren’t short-staffed due to vacations, sick days, or lack of availability. In my experience, we strove to hire about 40 hours of excess part-time help for when we were missing a full-time associate or a few part-time associates. This helped us strike the right balance of reliable staffing and the ability to offer consistent shifts to all of our workers.

Remember, you do not want to overhire, as you will only be able to provide your part-time staff with limited shifts. Overhiring will create a frustrating and financially untenable situation for them.

This would mean, then, that you might need:

• 1 manager (40 hours)
• 1 assistant manager (40 hours)
• 5 full-time associates (200 hours)
• 9 part-time associates at 15 hours each (135 hours)
• Total hours: 415

You can use our free schedule download below to create a mock schedule for your store so that you can identify your needs and start creating a hiring plan.

In addition to determining your staffing needs based on store hours, you should also consider your budget. One of your biggest recurring expenses is going to be payroll; in fact, a widely cited stat says that retailers should be spending somewhere between 10%–20% of annual revenue on payroll. To avoid overhiring and skyrocketing payroll expenses, you should determine what you can reasonably spend based on your projected annual revenue before you begin the hiring process.

The first thing you should lay out is how much you will pay your salaried workers. This will be based on the competitiveness of the market you are in, the level of experience you are looking for, and your revenue. From there, you should set your hourly wages, again based on your industry and job market. With those numbers set and a general idea of how much you can spend on payroll annually, a little bit of math will make it clear just how many people you can hire without sacrificing your bottom line.

If you run into a large discrepancy between what you can spend based on your annual budget and the amount of staff you need in-store, you will need to balance the books somehow.

You have three options here:

• Take a realistic look at your scheduling plan and whether it is really necessary to have such a large staff.
• Ask yourself whether you have set your wages too high and look to your competitors and what they are offering their employees.
• Create a plan to make more money. If you are paying your employees fairly and need the large staff to man your sales floor, your revenue will need to grow to make ends meet.

A job description explains the duties and requirements of the positions for which you are hiring. A thorough job description will help put everyone on the same page regarding expectations, benefits, and perks. Your job description should be clear, honest, and comprehensive to avoid misaligned expectations or disgruntlement in the future.

For retail roles, here are some of the areas you should cover in your job descriptions to ensure you are providing a clear picture of the role you are hiring for:

The specific items under these job areas will be different depending on the role you are seeking to fill and your unique business needs. This list, however, is a great checklist to make sure you don’t leave anything out and provide a thorough and accurate job description.

Another way that you can work to overcome the competitive job market and attract good candidates is to offer flexible schedules and perks. While you can demand certain amounts of time from your staff, one of the biggest things that will draw people to retail jobs is the ability to have flexible work schedules that can accommodate their personal lives.

You can include something in your job description like “accommodating scheduling as long as you provide two weeks’ notice” or “we will work with your schedule as best we can.”

Do not mislead candidates and make bold promises, but try to include something that shows that you will work with your staff’s personal schedules to the extent possible. In my experience, as long as you have adequate staff and a strong team environment, most people can get the time off they need without sacrificing store coverage.

Another way that you can attract good employees is by offering perks and benefits. For hourly retail employees, this looks like a store discount (ranging anywhere from 25% to 60%), team building activities, and other perks like free meals and other fun offers.

For salaried workers, you should also offer paid time off, 401(k) matching, and insurance coverage.

While in an ideal world, you would be able to find the perfect candidate with the exact experience, skills, personality, and availability you are looking for, the current job market makes that untenable. If you want to overcome the challenge of finding skilled candidates and actually fill the positions you need to fill, you will need to expand your job requirements and criteria.

Expanding what you are looking for in a candidate allows you to cast a wider net but does not mean you have to sacrifice overall performance. Say a candidate applied to your store with event planning, customer service, and project management experience. If you required all job candidates to have retail, POS, and managerial experience, you would pass up on a candidate with great potential.

Also, looking beyond the most obvious resumes will allow you to enter a less competitive hiring arena.

Did you know? Retail is one of the most important industries in the American economy. It supports 55 million American jobs and directly employs more than 32 million people, making it the largest private job sector in the country. The retail industry also represents $2.2 trillion of annual GDP in the US. In other words, the retail industry is a key piece of the American economy, from the revenue it generates to the people it supports.

In simpler times, you might have put your job in the local paper and called it a day. With technology and new loci of entertainment popping up every day, placing a newspaper ad is no longer enough to reach people and find a person for the job. These days, you have to consider a plethora of different recruitment channels:

• Job boards: Places like Indeed or LinkedIn get a lot of traffic and are a popular place for people to start their job hunt.
• Social media sites: Consider posting on your feed and running social media ads to catch the attention of scrollers and attract talent via social channels.
• Your business’s website: You should post your job listing on your business’s website so that anyone that comes to your site sees that you are hiring.

• Physical postings in your neighborhood: Put out flyers so that local traffic sees your posting.
• In-store flyers: Post your listing in your physical store for your customers to see you are hiring. In my experience, the best places to put in-store job flyers are in your fitting rooms (if applicable), at the checkout counter, anywhere there is seating, and on mirrors. These are all places where customers are paused.
• Word-of-mouth and staff promotion: Ask your staff to promote your position among their friends and family and use your own network for word-of-mouth promotion.
• Employee referrals: Ask your staff for recommendations of qualified candidates. They know what their job requires, so they will have a good idea of who would be good at it and capable. You can even offer cash rewards for successful referrals.
• Local newspapers/online publications: Post your listing in your local paper and online publications to help capture more local traffic and awareness.
• Local events: Attend local events and promote your openings with posters and word-of-mouth. This is a great way to connect with people who are already engaged in your neighborhood.

I would suggest placing your listing in as many recruitment channels as you can. If this is not tenable, prioritize job boards and in-store promotion. Job boards are where some 50% of people start their job hunt, and in-store promotions allow you to reach people you already know are interested in your brand. From there, I would consider how effectively each channel would work to reach your ideal candidate.

For example, at my store, we looked for people who cared about fashion, had a more boho style, and were sweet and confident with customers. We found that the best way to reach this particular group and, by extension, attract strong candidates, was to run ads on Facebook and Instagram because that was where our particular fashion-focused audience was easiest to reach and tended to congregate. Consider where you can access your ideal candidates and focus your job postings in those locations.

Another thing you can do to make retail recruiting more effective is to utilize recruitment marketing. The objective of recruitment marketing is to increase the number of viable applicants.

Businesses use recruitment marketing strategies to find, attract, engage, and nurture talented candidates for open positions—anything that will make your company more visible and thus attract more applicants. Here are a few examples:

• Brand marketing: If you can make your brand more appealing, you will be able to attract better talent.
• Digital marketing and advertising: When you spend money on advertising, you will gain more recognition and be able to reach larger audiences and attract job candidates from a larger pool of talent.
• Social media marketing: Leverage social media to engage with people and attract candidates.

Most small business owners will do their recruitment marketing in-house, but if you are doing a large hiring push, consider hiring a recruitment consultant such as Robert Half to help streamline the process and delegate this task.

Another thing that you should consider as you are posting your job is how easy it is to apply. Anything that makes the job application process easier for potential candidates will increase the rate of application.

Some things that you can do to make the application process easier include:

• Uploads: As opposed to requiring applicants to fill out a resume and cover letter form, simply require applicants to upload their own resumes. Most people already have a resume prepared, so requiring them to rewrite what they already have is frustrating and can be an application deterrent.
• Consider waiving cover letters for part-time positions: While they are helpful to give you a better sense of your prospective hire, cover letters, especially for part-time positions, are cumbersome for applicants and can be a waste of time for hiring managers.
• Create a QR code for in-store applicants: For people who learn about your job while they are shopping for you, it is helpful to include a QR code on your job flyer so they can apply on the spot or at least have a clear plan forward once they get home.
• Offer phone interviews: Make it easy for candidates to schedule their initial interviews by offering to do them over the phone.
• Check your mobile application: Be sure that your application form works for mobile devices to maximize how easily people can apply.
• Keep physical resumes in-store: For in-store shoppers, have resumes they can fill out while they are shopping.
• Provide a resource for questions: On your job listing, include your hiring manager or owner’s contact information so that applicants can easily reach out with any questions or concerns.

There are two main ways that you can sort through job applications to find the most suitable candidates. You can either opt to do the process manually or you can use an application sorting software.

• Manual sorting: If you opt to use sort through your applications by hand, we recommend either requiring applicants to apply with a standard application form so you can go through them quickly or downloading all of your applications onto a searchable interface, like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, so you can use a search function to find applications that include the most relevant skills. You might also consider using a hiring manager, as application sorting can become a full-time job.
• Application sorting software: You can also opt to use an application sorting software to automate your search. Most sorting software allow you to pay for their services on a job-by-job basis. You can then program the software to look for specific skills and qualifications. The software will then deliver you the most relevant applications, saving you time and money.

Once you have selected the top candidates, it’s time to vet them—which typically happens through an interview. When interviewing candidates for any customer-facing positions, it is best to include a floor interview in your interviewing process.

A floor interview comes after your initial conversation, where you have gotten to know the potential candidate and determined they would be a good fit. During the floor interview, you invite the candidate back to work a mock shift, where you can observe how they work with your team and customers alike.

This acts as a final test for applicants, and if they demonstrate that they are personable and represent your brand well, it is time to hire.

Some of the things you should be looking for include:

• Confidence approaching customers
• Enthusiasm
• Personability
• How they keep busy during downtime
• How they fit socially with your existing staff
• Willingness to ask questions
• How they are dressed/represent your brand

Did you know? According to the 2023 US Mercer Turnover Survey, ​the retail and wholesale industry saw the highest voluntary turnover rate at 32.9%.

When onboarding your employees, you should provide them with reference materials, both digitally and physically. Writing down all your store policies and procedures will give employees something that they can look to throughout their time at your business and a sense of autonomy on the job. Having everything written down is also a great way to hold both you and your employees accountable.

In addition to giving each new hire their own personal onboarding materials, you should also keep an onboarding binder at your cash wrap. This ensures that there is always a copy of all shop procedures and policies whenever people need it.

You should design a sequential onboarding program that extends at least 90 days, at which time you can review their performance and officially conclude the onboarding period. Typically, onboarding stages look something like this for a retail employee:

A very useful training tool that you can utilize when onboarding is checklists. Checklists will help you stay on track and have a clear picture of what your new employee knows already and what they need to review. This also provides a place where new hires can reference what they have learned, making it easy to identify topics they want to review.

I recommend using the written policies and procedures you provided to your new hires and their job descriptions to write your checklists. This will ensure that you cover every topic and prepare your employees for every aspect of their new role.

At the end of the day, most of what your associates and managers are doing is interacting with customers and maintaining your store as a team. You should be sure, then, that floor experience plays a big role in your employee onboarding process. I would recommend that floor time account for 90% if not more of the onboarding process. Little time should be spent training behind closed doors or off the floor, if possible.

This will ensure that at the end of their training, new employees can feel confident on the floor, working with your customers and the rest of your team, and doing store procedures along the way.

Did you know? 75% of SMB retailers say they struggle to find candidates who want to work enough hours to cover their needs.