Susie Long, Dollar General

SuperNova Award Category

Future of Work

The Company 

Goodlettsville, Tennessee based Dollar General Corporation is the nation's largest small-box discount retailer.  Dollar General ranks among the largest retailers of top-quality brands made by America's most-trusted manufacturers.  With 10,000+ stores in over 40 states, and 11 distribution centers, Dollar General pulls in more than 15 million applications per year and is closing the gap of employing 100,000 individuals in the United States.

The Problem

Dollar General's recruiting process was in need of a major re-vamp as some processes were maintained through the recruiting tool while others were done on paper.  Embarking on an implementation of a new Applicant Tracking System is a tough task for any team in the business.  It's even more of a challenge to not only implement the new system, but make great strides and enhancements to completely change the vision of high volume recruiting and create what would become a seamless full-cycle process that is both heavily integrated and automated.

The Solution

To create an applicant tracking system that was maximized not only from the recruiting aspect, but from the applicant experience as well.  To not only allow applicants the ability to transition through the initial application and assessments smoothly, but also the hiring process.  Use automation to create a vast candidate pool and move those candidates through a process that most individuals in the industry have unfortunately grown to expect to be both tedious and time consuming.

The Results

Before - Dollar General had a process that was both tedious and time consuming; however, more importantly it was manual in many ways.  Recruiters were spending much more time performing tasks that the system was not accomplishing for them.

After - Dollar General has one of the most integrated and automated processes for recruiting and hiring.  This requires less time for recruiters and system administrators to maintain the system and allows candidates to be processed from applicant to new hire through full-cycle recruiting more efficiently.

The Technology

Kenexa, an IBM Company - 2xBrassRing

Metrics

Dollar General has 27 actions set up through the automation process alone.  These actions vary from sending reminders to applicants to updating HR statuses based off of previous actions/integration results to maintaining clean requisitions for efficient recruiting and visibility of eligible candidates. Dollar General is also heavily integrated for tasks such as on-boarding and I9 e-Verify submissions, HRIS verifications, assessments, surveys, work opportunity tax credits, requisition imports, requisition delta feeds for updates, etc.

When an application is processed through the tool, a minimum of three actions are taken immediately via automation and the applicant is processed through a minimum of three integrations.  From there depending on which course of action is taken next an applicant can have as little as two additional automation actions processed against their record to as many as ten.  It's possible that no more integrations are used, but potentially as many as four more may be. 

When applying this to the number of applicants Dollar General is consistently seeing within any given twelve month period... there are between 75 and 195 million actions taken annually via automation.  In regards to the integrations, the numbers are just as staggering between 45 and 105 million applications processed through various integrations. 

Disruptive Factor

It's simple - when talking the number of applications Dollar General receives in any given year, time not only means money, but it also means quality.  Dollar General now has the ability to spend more time recruiting the right people for the right job because less time is spent maintaining the system and going through the motions.

Shining Moment

In many aspects, the Dollar General enhancements, integrations, and automation have set the bar for high volume recruiting clients.  Other organizations and companies have asked "How does Dollar General do "x"?"  The art of recruiting is a process that everyone is attempting to nail down and the Dollar General team has built a process for success.