American clothing retail firm, Abercrombie & Fitch, has stores in the UK, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and throughout Europe, and is expanding rapidly, aiming to have stores worldwide by 2016. It has been ranked 241 in Deloitte’s Global Powers of Retailing, 2012 and 651st in 2010’s Fortune 1000, a list of the 1,000 largest American companies according to revenue.

Image is central to how the company sells its four brands – Abercrombie & Fitch, Abercrombie Kids, Hollister and Gilly Hicks. The first two target teens and young adults with an east-coast American slant; Hollister provides surfing-themed casual wear; and Gilly Hicks specializes in Australian-themed women’s underwear. Investor materials describe the flagship Abercrombie & Fitch brand as ‘rooted in East Coast traditions and Ivy League heritage’ and ‘the essence of privilege and casual luxury’. The importance of these brand values to the company is shown in a recent effort to disassociate from the MTV reality show The Jersey Shore by paying the cast not to wear its clothes.

The company claim their rowdy behaviour is ‘contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand’ (BBC News, 17 August 2011).

As described by one of the employees in the company’s recruitment video employees are expected to be ambassadors for the brand. Job advertisements are for ‘cool’ and ‘good looking’ applicants (Human Resources News, 2010). A company spokesperson describes their advertisements as just ‘aimed at attracting fun-loving and stylish people for the job’ and as having no discriminatory intent.

This approach is consistent with the image they wish to portray of the company and brands they sell. The job description for sales assistants (called ‘models’) states:

‘Models protect and project the image of the brand through personal style, providing customer service and maintaining presentation standards’ (www.abercrombie. co.uk/anf/careers/model.html). Sales associates and managers reflect the ‘casual, energetic and aspirational attitude of the brands.

One manager described it as, ‘You’re either Abercrombie hot – or you’re not.’ Their ‘look policy’, which was revealed in a 2005 class action discrimination suit brought by 10,000 former job applicants and employees, stipulates that all employees ‘represent Abercrombie & Fitch with natural, classic American style consistent with the company’s brand’ and ‘look great while exhibiting individuality’. Workers must wear a ‘clean, natural, classic hairstyle’ and have nails which extend ‘no more than a quarter inch beyond the tip of the finger’.

Attracting and selecting future leaders, ‘models’, and ‘part-time impacts’

In the world of fashion retail, there is no shortage of young, willing workers attracted to the brand cachet of Abercrombie & Fitch. Drawing significantly from the part-time student workforce, many potential applicants, themselves, are ‘brand advocates’. In fact, this is one of the qualities which the company looks for in potential employees. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are used to build a following and a potential pool of self-selected potential applicants. Once hired, store managers emphasize to new hires that they were selected because of their looks – ‘people see us and they want to be us’ – and they are also given opportunities to be ‘cast’ as billboard models. Mystery shoppers ensure employees are adhering to company guidelines regarding their look. This ‘image management’ all has a strong impact on future applicants’ expectations of what an Abercrombie & Fitch employee should be like, and, in some at least, shapes the desire to be one of them.
The following extracts from online fora (‘The Student Room’ and ‘Glassdoor’) for discussing jobs and employers reveal potential applicants’ perceptions of the company, and how this is shaped by current and past employees. I’ve applied for the model role for the Abercrombie & Fitch branch in London. Do I have to look all clean and fresh, with wavy beach hair? They invite everyone to the interview, and once you’re there they’ll analyze you in terms of looks and previous experience. Don’t wear colored nail varnish or obvious make-up; basically, look like you’ve come off a beach and they’ll take you. I wore a Hollister ‘vintage’ shirt, Abercrombie jeans and Adidas UltraStar 2’s and I was ever so slightly shocked in how 4 out of the 8 people wore black (which Abercrombie don’t even sell.)
I’ve had an interview for Hollister’s and for Abercrombie & Fitch. I haven’t heard from any of them yet. But both interviews went really well to [sic] my opinion. Also do you guys think that they hire black people? I am a model, black (chocolate skin) not too skinny and pretty. I am going to attach a picture to this but please let me know of what you think.
This company stresses customer service, by using several different taglines, depending on where you’re in the store [fitting room, front room, registers.] They clearly hire based on looks and personality. I have not seen anyone with acne or any overweight people yet.
The selection of graduates for their retail management programme is similar to most other multinational company graduate schemes. There is an emphasis on retail experience, demonstrated behavioral competencies, and a series of panel and one-to-one interviews.
The Manager in Training programme is the first step towards becoming a ‘store executive’ (Assistant Manager and then Store Manager) and a future within the company.
We hire nice, smart, talented people who are interested in building a career at Abercrombie & Fitch.
We have a strong philosophy of promotion from within. All of our District Managers, Regional Managers, Directors – even the Senior Vice President of Stores – have gone through the Manager in Training program. With the growth of the company domestically and internationally, career opportunities have never been better. (www.abercrombie.co.uk/
anf/careers)...........

Question

1 How are each of the perspectives of selection presented in this chapter – psychometric, best-fit, interactive decision process and discourse – represented in the hiring process for

(a) Managers in Training and

(b) sales assistants (both ‘models’ and ‘part-time impact’ roles)?
2 E valuate the selection process with respect to the four criteria of psychometric quality described at the start of the chapter. Can falling short on any of these criteria, in your opinion, be justified? Design a selection process for the sales associate roles in Table 4.3 using psychometric principles (start with a job analysis).
3 Identify as many examples of ‘selection as an interactive decision process’ in this case as you can. Should these processes be eliminated on the grounds they discriminate against particular groups, or can a case be made for retaining all or some of them?
4 How is the ‘selection as discourse’ perspective reflected in this case? Does this explain why the legal challenges to the company’s hiring approach have not eliminated the problem?