Employer branding · Retail and consumer
A store opening means forty hires in three weeks in a town that has never heard of you.
Employer branding for a supermarket chain is hiring out of the catchment the store sits in: cashiers, fresh counter staff and backroom hands who live within a few kilometres and come by bus.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Employer branding for a supermarket chain is hiring out of the catchment the store sits in: cashiers, fresh counter staff and backroom hands who live within a few kilometres and come by bus. GullySales writes the careers page and the store launch hiring pack that reaches them.
Also written for
Supermarkets, Hypermarkets, Department stores.
What we do not do
We do not recruit, supply candidates or run payroll. We help candidates see the employer you already are.
Where this sits
For supermarkets and hypermarkets
Where it usually goes wrong, and what we would do.
“Shoppers know the name and have never thought of it as an employer”
Somebody who buys her vegetables from you twice a week has no idea what it is like to stand behind that till, and nothing you publish tells her.
“Your hiring radius is the catchment, not the country”
A cashier who travels eight kilometres each way leaves inside two months. The advertisement that matters is the one by the exit and in the groups the two layouts next door use.
“A new store is a hiring deadline with a fit-out attached”
Forty people have to be interviewed, trained on the till and put in uniform while the shelving is still going up, in a town where nobody has worked for you before.
“Closing duty is the part the page leaves out”
The shift that ends after the last customer, the cash-up, and how a woman on that shift gets home. Candidates raise it at the interview because the page said nothing.
What we do
What we deliver for supermarkets and hypermarkets.
Every deliverable, what it covers for you, and the result it is there to produce. Nothing here is an extra.
A careers page a cashier would recognise
Shift patterns including the closing shift, the weekly off, how the roster is published, the break, the uniform and the arrangement for staff who finish late.
Result: Interviews start at the second question instead of the first.
The store launch hiring pack
Notices for the site hoarding, cards for the residential layouts nearby, a local number, and a walk-in day with a date on it.
Result: Forty people are hired out of the neighbourhood the store will serve.
Department posts
Separate posts for till, fruit and vegetables, bakery, backroom and the department in-charge roles, each naming the physical reality of the work.
Result: A candidate for the fish counter is not surprised on day one.
The route from till to department in-charge
How somebody moves up in your stores, the training at each step and who decides, told through staff who have done it.
Result: A school-leaver sees a job with a next step attached.
Festival staffing material
Posts and messages for the weeks around Diwali, Ugadi or Onam, plus the note that brings back the people who worked last year.
Result: Trained temporary staff return instead of new ones being taught in the rush.
What your store teams say
Short conversations at a cross-section of stores about why people stay, what the closing shift is really like and which promises are not being kept.
Result: The page is written from something true rather than from head office language.
How the result is measured
- Applications received per open role
- Careers page engagement and time on page
- Candidate drop-off during the interview process
- Referral hires as a share of total hires
Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.
How it works
How the work runs for supermarkets and hypermarkets
The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.
- 1
Talk to current employees
We interview a cross-section of staff honestly, including some who might raise uncomfortable points.
- 2
Find the genuine reasons to join
We identify what is actually true and attractive about working there, rather than generic claims that could apply anywhere.
- 3
Build the careers content
The careers page, job post templates and employee stories are written from what staff actually said.
- 4
Review the candidate experience
We check what happens between application and offer, since branding cannot fix a process that loses candidates through delay.
- 5
Hand over and refresh periodically
Content is handed over for ongoing use and revisited periodically as the team and roles change.
Proof
What happened when owners fixed this.
Real clients, the work we did, and the result as it was recorded. Where no number was recorded, none is claimed.
Bon Millette
- Situation
- A new food brand has to look trustworthy before anyone will try it, and Bon Millette had nothing online for a first-time buyer to weigh up.
- What we did
- A site that matches the food
- The story in a trust-building order
- Product sections with full disclosure
- A short path from reading to buying
- Result
- No numbers were recorded for this engagement. The work is described in full in the case study.
France Fox
- Situation
- Eco claims are common enough in menswear that buyers discount them on sight. France Fox had a real production story and nowhere to set it out, which is the wrong way round.
- What we did
- A website built for a launch
- Social designs and captions
- Print for the launch
- One tone at every touchpoint
- Result
- No numbers were recorded for this engagement. The work is described in full in the case study.
Kalessi
- Situation
- Tiles are chosen by eye. There was no store suitable for a buyer who wants to scroll through finishes on a phone, compare two of them and then order.
- What we did
- A store built for browsing
- Search work from the ground up
- Social accounts opened and kept up
- Articles that answer the real questions
- Result
- No numbers were recorded for this engagement. The work is described in full in the case study.
Also worked with
Chord Road Hospital · Curtain Label · Difesa Security Services · Felicity Inn · Hands On CSR · Implevista · Kambar Group · Kerur Pain Clinic · LL Trust · Lucky Deals · Natural Gases · NavaShakthi Souhardha · NewCom Logistics · Proton Technical Services · SB Engineering · Shakthi Foundation · Shakthi Group · Urbanest · Insyde Studio · Venkateshwara Laser Tech · Vivara Studios
Before you hire anyone
The first thing to do yourself.
Read your company the way a good candidate would, before you change anything.
- Search for your company name with the word jobs, and read the first page of results as a candidate would.
- Read your last ten reviews and list the points that appear more than once.
- Ask your three newest joiners why they said yes, and what almost stopped them.
Judge any provider
What to ask any agency or ghost-writer.
Useful whoever you choose, including us.
- Will you work from what our people actually say, or from a template?
- Do you do recruiting or supply candidates, or only the employer-brand work?
- Who approves anything that speaks for our staff?
- Which of our existing job pages and profiles will you change, and which will you leave alone?
- What do you count as a result, and what will you not promise?
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
GullySales builds every engagement from three pieces of sales work. This page is not one of them, but the same three steps apply to the business behind it.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Will you recruit for the new store?
We already put a banner outside. Is that not enough?
How long before this shows up in applications?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Retail and consumer
Employer branding for the rest of the retail and consumer.
Or start from employer branding.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.