With the holiday season fast approaching, JD Sports faced the annual challenge of hiring over 1,500 team members across its 64 stores in Australia and New Zealand—all within a narrow two-week timeframe. The need to quickly and efficiently staff up for peak holiday demand has traditionally placed immense pressure on JD Sports’ hiring processes and frontline managers.
The Challenge: Scaling Hiring Efficiency for 1,500+ Seasonal Roles
In previous years, JD Sports relied on a time-intensive manual approach. Each store manager personally communicated with thousands of applicants via SMS, coordinated interviews, and fielded countless candidate questions while juggling their daily operational responsibilities.
This method yielded a modest 60% interview attendance rate and delays in response times for candidate inquiries, creating a less-than-ideal experience for both candidates and store managers as they tried to prepare for their busiest time of year.
With a predominantly Gen-Z audience, JD Sports needed to stand out in a competitive candidate market for Christmas roles.
“Seasonal hiring over the past few years has been a manual process for both our Retail and Talent teams. With peak trade in full swing, our Store Managers have had to juggle recruitment on top of their BAU, pulling focus away from core operations and making it tough to find the right balance.”
-- Jasmine Alderton, Head of Talent
The Solution: AI-Powered Automation to Boost Speed and Engagement
To streamline hiring, JD Sports partnered with Mercu’s AI recruitment platform, which automates candidate engagement, interview scheduling, and reminders via WhatsApp and SMS.
To ensure that frontline managers didn’t have to learn a new platform at the busiest time of year, Mercu integrated directly with their existing ATS, LiveHire. Managers could keep their existing workflows, and interview bookings would be automatically posted back to LiveHire to ensure a single source of truth.
By shifting these tasks to Mercu, JD Sports was able to directly engage over 4,000 candidates and automatically schedule them into 154 group interviews, freeing store leaders to focus on in-store operations.
"With Mercu on board, our managers could focus entirely on running their stores while Mercu handled candidate engagement—responding to the thousands of questions and queries that would typically fall on our Store Managers. The result? Less time spent on admin and more time dedicated to delivering exceptional service during our busiest season."
-- Jasmine Alderton, Head of Talent
Results: Increased Interview Attendance and Candidate Readiness
The Mercu platform lifted interview attendance to 80%, dramatically improving the candidate pipeline. Mercu’s AI assistant also instantly handled over 3,000 candidate inquiries, saving hours of manual follow-up time and ensuring candidates arrived better prepared.
This led to a more seamless interview process and allowed store managers to prioritize customer service during the busy season.
"The feedback from our Store Managers has been overwhelmingly positive. With Mercu streamlining the process, interview attendance was significantly higher, and the need for manual follow-ups was drastically reduced compared to previous years—making the entire hiring process more efficient and seamless."
-- Lynsey Rae, Head of Retail
Discover the Mercu Advantage
Experience the transformative power of Mercu in your recruitment process. Get in touch to learn how we can help you streamline your hiring, improve candidate engagement, and achieve remarkable results like JD Sports.
With the holiday season fast approaching, JD Sports faced the annual challenge of hiring over 1,500 team members across its 64 stores in Australia and New Zealand—all within a narrow two-week timeframe. The need to quickly and efficiently staff up for peak holiday demand has traditionally placed immense pressure on JD Sports’ hiring processes and frontline managers.
The Challenge: Scaling Hiring Efficiency for 1,500+ Seasonal Roles
In previous years, JD Sports relied on a time-intensive manual approach. Each store manager personally communicated with thousands of applicants via SMS, coordinated interviews, and fielded countless candidate questions while juggling their daily operational responsibilities.
This method yielded a modest 60% interview attendance rate and delays in response times for candidate inquiries, creating a less-than-ideal experience for both candidates and store managers as they tried to prepare for their busiest time of year.
With a predominantly Gen-Z audience, JD Sports needed to stand out in a competitive candidate market for Christmas roles.
“Seasonal hiring over the past few years has been a manual process for both our Retail and Talent teams. With peak trade in full swing, our Store Managers have had to juggle recruitment on top of their BAU, pulling focus away from core operations and making it tough to find the right balance.”
-- Jasmine Alderton, Head of Talent
The Solution: AI-Powered Automation to Boost Speed and Engagement
To streamline hiring, JD Sports partnered with Mercu’s AI recruitment platform, which automates candidate engagement, interview scheduling, and reminders via WhatsApp and SMS.
To ensure that frontline managers didn’t have to learn a new platform at the busiest time of year, Mercu integrated directly with their existing ATS, LiveHire. Managers could keep their existing workflows, and interview bookings would be automatically posted back to LiveHire to ensure a single source of truth.
By shifting these tasks to Mercu, JD Sports was able to directly engage over 4,000 candidates and automatically schedule them into 154 group interviews, freeing store leaders to focus on in-store operations.
"With Mercu on board, our managers could focus entirely on running their stores while Mercu handled candidate engagement—responding to the thousands of questions and queries that would typically fall on our Store Managers. The result? Less time spent on admin and more time dedicated to delivering exceptional service during our busiest season."
-- Jasmine Alderton, Head of Talent
Results: Increased Interview Attendance and Candidate Readiness
The Mercu platform lifted interview attendance to 80%, dramatically improving the candidate pipeline. Mercu’s AI assistant also instantly handled over 3,000 candidate inquiries, saving hours of manual follow-up time and ensuring candidates arrived better prepared.
This led to a more seamless interview process and allowed store managers to prioritize customer service during the busy season.
"The feedback from our Store Managers has been overwhelmingly positive. With Mercu streamlining the process, interview attendance was significantly higher, and the need for manual follow-ups was drastically reduced compared to previous years—making the entire hiring process more efficient and seamless."
-- Lynsey Rae, Head of Retail
Discover the Mercu Advantage
Experience the transformative power of Mercu in your recruitment process. Get in touch to learn how we can help you streamline your hiring, improve candidate engagement, and achieve remarkable results like JD Sports.
