Rapid hiring transformation for Imperial Tobacco

Challenges

Imperial Tobacco is a subsidiary of Imperial Brands, an international FMCG company that manufactures, distributes and sells products in more than 150 countries. 

Following analysis of the sales strategy and to stay ahead of the competition in the U.K. – one of its top 10 core markets – Imperial Tobacco UK (ITUK) needed to hire a 50-strong, nationwide sales team in just three months.

To do this, ITUK utilized its global knowledge of the FMCG industry while relying on its multi-regional RPO partner, Cielo, to complete the project on time while simultaneously delivering an excellent service to both candidates and ITUK’s hiring managers.

Solutions

Cielo’s dedicated account team worked with its Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing experts to create, plan and manage a targeted media campaign based on analysis of the challenge facing ITUK.

A broadcasting approach drove traffic across several channels, which generated over 3,000 applications. Role brochures were created in collaboration with ITUK before the project to sell the roles, which received very positive feedback and quickly locked candidates in.

Overall, 50% of the new hires were sourced internally. As a result, 28 roles needed to be backfilled. To fill these additional roles, Cielo proactively reached out to silver medallist candidates – a process that took about two months. A flexible approach was taken, with vacancies created for candidates showing real potential in order not to miss out on talent.

Results

Working in partnership with ITUK, Cielo carried out a fundamental, strategic talent acquisition project – in an incredibly short timeline. All roles were filled on time, and within budget.

Cielo delivered a total of 78 hires (including 28 backfills) with an average time to hire of just 15 days, compared to a previous business as usual average of 42 days. Agency usage was just 6%. The role brochures created by ITUK and Cielo were uploaded to a careers site for viewing by potential candidates, helping sell the positions and encouraging applications. To top it off: 100% of offers made were verbally accepted.