Victoria’s Secret boasts one of the world’s most attractive and recognisable brand names. How does their recruitment process reflect the fun, excitement, and beauty that the brand represents? The secret lies in experiential recruitment.
Recruitment Marketing Magazine spoke with Mark Lulham, Talent Acquisition Manager for specialist retailer in luxury and lifestyle brands, Valiram. We learned all about the success of their first ever Victoria’s Secret Instore Angel Games in Melbourne.
Valiram is a specialist retailer, representing numerous luxury lifestyle brands in the Asia Pacific. While the business represents many brands and stores across ten countries, it is still run like a family business with a strong entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit from the Valiram brothers.
As Talent Acquisition Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Mark acquires talent for Victoria’s Secret, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors, Bvlgari, TUMI, Rolex, Bath and Body Works, and more.
“If you work here long enough, you’re going to be challenged,” said Mark. “It’s a marathon sprint, it never stops! It’s always an adventure. From a personal and professional point of view, it’s the best place I’ve ever been. I feel like I learn something new every day.”
Valiram’s mantra is fast, focused, frugal, fantastic, and fun, which describes Mark’s days. He builds strategies and manages the full talent acquisition scope for Australia and New Zealand. Mark’s aim is to get candidates invested in a brand so that it becomes something personal to them.
“How do they feel when they see the ad? For each brand, I want people to feel something exciting and fun to make them want to apply. If they are offered a position, I want them to feel as if they’re being invited into a club.”
Why experiential recruitment?
Mark launched the first Victoria’s Secret Instore Angel Games recruitment event in Melbourne and received great feedback. This was the first big step the organisation has taken from transactional recruitment to experiential recruitment. Experiential recruitment immerses candidates in a brand. The benefits include:
- more engagement with a brand
- increased engagement with passive candidates
- better insights into candidates’ skills
- candidates become an active part of the culture and team
- both sides can decide who is a good fit
- it leaves the door open for boomerang candidates.
“Our Selection Events have improved over time. I’m always thinking ‘how can we make this better? How can we include a bit more show-biz?’. I’m figuring how to get pyrotechnics, a smoke machine, and pink carpets for next year. (Maybe not pyrotechnics, that might be a bit of an insurance issue!)”
In designing an experiential recruitment event, Mark tries to determine what information they want to learn from candidates.
“We want to know how they work in a team, how they function under stress in a fast-paced environment. When things go wrong, do they blame others? Can they keep doing? In a group, do they dominate, or collaborate? We can discover all these things while candidates enjoy playing a fun game.”
Recruitment advertising
While Valiram uses SEEK advertisements for more specific roles, more than 90% of candidates apply from seeing recruitment advertising boards outside stores. This strategy has proven effective, as local people see the signage and Valiram are swamped with applications.
“The enthusiasm was huge. We receive emails saying, ‘working here is a dream of mine.’ We need to match that excitement and amp it up even more!”
Building excitement
What Mark loves about his role is using his creativity to generate excitement. For the world’s sexiest brand, there has to be hype. The most important thing to him is the candidate experience, and he goes to great lengths to create memorable events.
“I wanted to get a Victoria’s Secret Angel to surprise candidates. Unfortunately, we didn’t have half a million in the budget for that… but it was worth a shot!”
“If I was a candidate, what would I want? Of course candidates want to be kept in communication and be given feedback, but that’s surface-level. Why do they want those things? Because they want to feel a certain way. The Angel Games was a launching point for that. Applying to work for Victoria’s Secret is not like applying to work for a bank. People aren’t looking for security, they’re looking for the lifestyle.”
After candidates apply, Marks begins a pre-engagement process as the stores are being built, engaging them so they feel noticed and involved. He sends personalised emails, reminding them, “The Angel Games are coming!”.
“When they receive their invitations, we want them to be excited. No one comes to the party without an invitation. There’s only so much space, and we save that for the best.”
“Sometimes, the night before the Games, people email me who hadn’t made the cut. If they’re emailing me the night before, that’s enough for me to send them an invitation. If it’s a matter of having more people than we can fit on the day, we’ll find chairs for them.”
Shortlisting
In the shortlisting phase, instead of looking for specific skills Mark looks left of field. He believes there is no substitute for the human eye for finding great candidates. He looks for people who can survive tough, fast-paced environments, and sometimes that means not inviting the most obvious people. The roles aren’t for the faint-hearted.
“I’ve had one girl come to three of our selection events in a row. On her third time, I thought ‘this girl can handle rejection and is not going to get flustered. We have to hire this girl, she has something special.’”
Mark is not a fan of traditional interviewing, as candidates often deliver the same rehearsed answers.
“When do you see who people really are? When they’re relaxed and playing games.”
This is where experiential recruitment helps to identify the best candidates.
The event
When candidates arrive, they are greeted at a fantastic venue with special features that are exciting and a little unexpected. At the first Angel Games event, the entrance featured a big banner with angel wings. Candidates signed cards with their names and had their pictures taken with the wings. Afterwards, Mark organises for these pictures to be sent to them and encourages them to share it on their networks with hashtag #VSLovesMelbourne.
When candidates are settled in the room, the lights go out and speakers blast upbeat music.
“We play a video showcasing a brief history of the brand. We equate our candidates to the level of the Angels, and say ‘we’re looking for you!’. It’s a secretive process to build excitement and create a lot of show.”
The opening presentation is branded, ending with the statement, “we’re looking for angels, not princesses.”
Candidates are then invited to start the Game.
The Game
Mark believes in looking for candidates’ strengths, so he designed the Angel games from the ground up as a way to create a great atmosphere and a means for candidates to have fun. Candidates are grouped into teams and given $5000 Angel Bucks. They then have to decide how to invest their money to run a “store”. They must choose how many cash registers, display stands, fitting rooms, and employees to purchase, which product lines to get, and other operational aspects of business.
“In the games, there are six stores in a row and only one can survive. I ask candidates to make me fall in love with their store. I call random draw cards and these have good or bad news! Sometimes they lose money, or sometimes they make money. How do they respond when they’re winning or losing? It’s a great way to shift the focus. How are they coping? Can they stay on target? You can see how their minds work, who are the more operational, sales-focused, or customer-facing.”
Mark encourages candidates to determine a strategy, look beyond the obvious, and focus on what they want their customers to feel. Valiram representatives sit at each table and facilitate the games, acting as bankers and guiding them through the process. When the facilitators are part of the game, candidates tend to be more relaxed in their one-on-ones afterwards.
“One of our Senior HR Managers had a great time being the world’s greediest bank, loaning money and exorbitant interest rates. Because that created a bit of fun, it removed anxiety. When there’s anxiety, you have to work to get the best out of people.”
Winners of the Games each received a Victoria’s Secret bag. This is another great branding strategy, as Victoria’s Secret will have a group of girls continuing to promote the brand and show off their bags after the event.
After the games, candidates then do individual customer service exercises, and a short five-minute interview called “Fabulous in Five”, a one-on-one interview with Valiram interviewers. Because they learn so much about candidates during the games, only a short interview is necessary.
Making the offer
In addition to making verbal offers, Mark also sends branded letters of offer.
“Letters of offer are boring. All our emails say, ‘congratulations, you got your wings!’ and continue on the Victoria’s Secret theme. It was such a wonderful surprise when a successful candidate cried with excitement. I mentioned that to others in my team, and some of them said that was a red flag – but I’m more concerned about those we hire that don’t cry, as they’re not as emotionally invested. We’ve taken them on an emotional journey and built it up. I always think, how many people can I make cry? (In a good way!).”
Moving people to become invested in a brand through emotional investment is the advantage of experiential recruitment.
The results
The event generated great feedback from the candidates who attended as well as internal and external senior stakeholders.
“After shortlisting, we didn’t do any pre-screening. The sheer volume of people who turn up was extraordinary and we had such a wide range of people from different working backgrounds. The calibre was phenomenal, we were blown away. It was fun, and the atmosphere in the room was great. It wasn’t stressful or mechanical.”
Those who won the Angels Games weren’t necessarily guaranteed a role. Whether they won or lost, Mark wanted to determine what they could bring to the table.
The recruitment process has always seemed a little grey to Mark, so the Angel Games were a way for him to make it more colourful. Mark anticipates that these hires will work harder and retention will be better.
“When your brand has pull in the marketplace, you need to capitalise on the personality of that brand and see what you can do with it. For the world’s sexiest brand, you need the world’s sexiest recruitment process.”
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