Read the case study given below and answer all the questions given at the end of the case study:

Customer-First Values Shape Hiring Decisions at Zalora

Founded in early 2012, Zalora is Southeast Asia's fastest-growing online fashion and beauty retailer, with presence in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Brunei. After just a year of operation, the company has already achieved annualised double-digit million USD revenues and employs more than 1000 people in 8 markets. The Managing Director of Zalora, Johan Surani, think that he still had not tapped the heart of what makes a company great. So he made a switch: Zalora would maintain a dynamic, fulfilling company culture. The company would be a great place to work and in that environment, employees would delight customers and loyal customers would provide the income needed to please shareholders.

That mission affects every function at Zatora, including employee selection. The hiring process aims to find and keep employees who share the company's values, such as "Deliver Wow through service" and "Create fun and a little weirdness." To identify 30 new hires a month from thousands of applicants, Zalora focuses on finding a good fit with the company culture, along with basic job skills. Candidates initially apply at the company's website, where a prominent message urges them to read the company's values first. Successful candidates undergo two interviews. In the first interview, usually a phone interview, the interviewer would talk to each candidate about his or her skills and experience. About half of the candidates are invited to a second interview, held in a room set up to look like the set of a television talk show. In there, candidates answer questions about Zalora's core values.

Learning candidates' values through an interview can be tricky, since many candidates simply want to say the right thing to please the interviewer, Senior human resource manager Fiona Wong says one of her favourite questions is "What's the biggest misperception people typically have about you?" She uses the question to identify candidates who are sincere and honest,

Besides traditional interview questions, Zalora has some unconventional ways to learn about candidates. One of the company's values is "Be humble." To gauge humility, candidates will be escorted by company shutter bus from their residence to the companys offices. The HR director finds out whether the candidates treated the driver with respect; if not, the candidate is eliminated from consideration. Another value is creativity and detail-oriented. To test for this, the interviewer gives candidates a mock up of a newspaper and asks how many photos it contains. On the first page of the newspaper, a headline states the answer. The assumption is that people who are detail-oriented will pay attention and notice the headline. The recruiting team also goes for lunch with the

. .5/-

candidates and observes how they interact with other people. The Zalora working environment is lively, sociable and loud, so candidates who are culturally fit are likely to be engaged with others during the meat.

After this process is over, about one-tenth of the candidates receive a job offer from Zalora. As one final check, these employees are offered RM$3000 to leave at the end of the initial training if they conclude they will not actually fit in.

Creating a lively culture has given Zafora a positive reputation that attracts superior job candidates. They are excited to work for a company that shares their values, empowers them to please customers. Despite modest pay, employees are loyal and highly engaged in their work.

Source: Fictional cases based on Greenberg, S. (2011) "Who Zappos is Hiring," CNNMoney, October 19, 2011 retrieved at http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/19/news/economy/hiring_zappos/ and Zappos careers retrieved at http://about.zappos.com/jobs

Questions:

Describe the steps in the selection process at Zalora. Does this seem like a complete selection process? What steps would you add?

(15 marks)

The criteria for a successful selection method should be reliable, valid, generalisable and practical. How well does Zalora meet these criteria? How can Zalora measure the success of its selection methods?

(15 marks)

Would you recommend that decision makers at Zalora use highly structured job interviews? Why or why not?

(10 marks)