How Sweetwater Sound Composed a Symphony of Recruiting Automation
One recruiter copies candidate information from Indeed into their ATS. Another waits on hold with a background check company. The recruiting team juggles browser tabs like a frantic game of digital whack-a-mole. A hiring manager stops by asking about that distribution center position that's been open too long.
For Jordan Applegate, VP of Talent Acquisition & HRBP at Sweetwater Sound, America's largest online music retailer, this scene represents everything wrong with modern retail recruiting.
The company faces unique challenges that mirror the music industry's unpredictable rhythm — rapidly scaling distribution centers during peak seasons while maintaining authentic connections with creative talent who detect disingenuous communication instantly. But Applegate's talented team was trapped in a seven-system maze, spending their days managing digital chaos instead of doing what they do best: finding great people. The solution would require thinking like the musician he is — and it would transform how Sweetwater hires forever.
Read on for the Applegate’s Retail Day highlights from Phenom Industry Week!
The Problem: Seven Systems, Zero Harmony
Like many growing companies, Sweetwater had accumulated what Applegate calls "sandbox chaos" — seven different systems that didn't talk to each other.
"One of the biggest rubs for me as a leader within the talent acquisition space is seeing my team playing in what I like to call so many different sandboxes," Applegate explained.
The fragmentation was everywhere: one partner for job applications, another for candidate texting, a third for employer marketing campaigns, and separate systems for interview scheduling, background checks, and more. Each served its purpose but created costly operational chaos.
"We were getting applications in Indeed — hundreds of them — until a recruiter could find time during peak season hiring to review them and bulk upload candidates back into our process," Applegate recalled.
His team was spending talent acquisition budgets on administrative work instead of strategic hiring. Something had to change.
Why Sweetwater Chose Phenom
When Sweetwater began exploring solutions that could cater to these distinct retail needs, Applegate knew they needed more than just new software — they needed a partner who would actually listen and adapt.
"Through the exploratory phases with Phenom, one of the main questions I asked was: ‘How are you with driving enhancements and taking customer feedback?’" Applegate shared. Moving from an internal system managed by their developers, he needed assurance that their new vendor would be genuinely responsive.
The answer came through direct relationships. "My account manager made a connection so I can go directly to the CRM product owner to ask and talk about enhancements," Applegate revealed as he began explaining the nuts and bolts of their current Phenom High-Volume Hiring solution.
This partnership approach proved crucial when his team needed a simple scheduling solution that matched their existing workflow. Instead of forcing them to adopt a whole new process, Phenom created exactly what they asked for.
"I requested that Phenom recreate just a simple scheduling link," Applegate explained. "My team has a process in place. They send emails that request interviews, and then people schedule themselves. I don't think that part of our process is broken."
Phenom's response: "They were like, 'Yeah, you're right, we can easily do this. We already have the technology in the back end.' A couple of emails back and forth and a dev sprint later, they clicked a box and now it's there for you."
Next came the real work: building the automations.
Building Automations Like Writing Songs
When Applegate talks about automation, he speaks like the musician he is. "Before I approach songwriting, I have to really define the theme of what the song is going to be," he noted, "And I think in order for me to approach automations, the theme transitions into the why. What am I trying to solve? And why am I trying to solve it?"
His team mapped every repetitive task throughout the life cycle of the recruiting process and asked two questions: "Could we automate it? And can you automate it without taking away the personalization? I don't want it to feel like a bot."
This approach led them to their biggest breakthrough.
The Indeed Integration Game-Changer
Sweetwater's biggest challenge was seasonal distribution center hiring. Applications flowed into Indeed but sat isolated until recruiters could manually process them — a critical bottleneck during high-volume periods.
Phenom HRIT Experience provided the integrations needed to eliminate this. When candidates use Indeed's easy apply feature, applications automatically flow into Phenom. But Applegate's team went further, creating an automation that immediately converts these leads to active applications.
"We created an automation that says, 'If the source is Indeed Apply, automatically change the status from Lead to Not reviewed,' so it's dropping those into my recruiters' spotlight as new applicants," he explained. The logic was simple: "If I'm on Indeed and hit easy apply, I believe I put in an application for this job, right?"
This single automation transformed peak season hiring from reactive scrambling to proactive candidate engagement.
The Proof: Automation Delivers Real Value
Sweetwater identified three main areas where Phenom's automation transformed their recruiting efficiency:
Interview scheduling: 10-15 seconds to schedule an interview became 1 second with a simple status change that now triggers personalized outreach. "Even with just the 10 to 15 seconds that it was saving, it has saved us hundreds of hours when you equate it to the number of individuals," Applegate noted.
Background checks: 3-5 minutes to run a background check became 2 seconds through Phenom's integration with Checkr. "My recruiting coordinator only has to click a single button that handles the background check process," he revealed.
Strategic capacity: "On a day where I could do four hour-long interviews and then had four hours of administrative work, now I actually have seven hours of interviews if necessary per day, or I still have that four hours and then four other hours to do sourcing," Applegate said.
But the biggest win was team satisfaction. "You're a recruiter because you got the gift of gab. You just want to talk to people all day long. Most people naturally don't want to handle the administrative work anyway."
The efficiency gains even enabled professional growth: "I've been able to empower some of our talent acquisition team to take on stretch assignments and project management in other areas that they just didn't have the time or capacity to do previously," Applegate added.
What's Next: Completing the Symphony
Sweetwater isn't stopping here. They're working on the final piece: Phenom Onboarding integration with their Workday HCM system to eliminate the last manual step in their process.
"Now we need to execute onboarding. My recruiting coordinator is manually entering all employee information into Workday," Applegate explained. Once complete, they'll have a fully automated candidate journey from application to onboarding.
"I'm going to take a deep breath once the HCM and Phenom integration is done and pat our team on the back and say, ’Look at the efficiency we drove," he said.
The Framework: Your Automation Roadmap
Sweetwater's approach offers a simple framework any company can follow:
Audit honestly: What tasks are eating your recruiters' time?
Target repetition: Anything done over and over can probably be automated
Maintain authenticity: Don't let automation feel robotic
Customize freely: Make systems match your processes, not vice versa
Expect trial and error: "The idea of getting it right on the first try or writing a hit song in one swing — those happen few and far between," Applegate noted.
For automation skeptics, Applegate offers reassurance: "Automation and AI don't have to feel like a robot — it can be personalized. Our emails and communications were drafted by a human, and we're just using AI and automation to be the trigger that sends it for us."
His advice is simple: "Challenge your current process and figure out what areas you can turn some piece of automation on. Free up your time to do the stuff that you like to do."
When your team can spend more time building relationships instead of juggling systems, everyone wins. The company gets better hires, recruiters get more satisfying work, and candidates get authentic experiences that actually feel human. As Applegate puts it: "I like to call myself a champion and ambassador of Phenom because I'm singing your praises every opportunity I can." For a musician turned recruiting leader, that's the highest praise of all.
Want to uncover your recruiting bottlenecks?
Start with a High-Volume Hiring Audit to identify where automation could make the biggest impact.
Fariya Banu is a content marketing writer at Phenom who loves decoding buyer psychology and crafting stories that convert. With engineering and marketing expertise, she brings analytical thinking to creative storytelling. When not writing, she's snorkelling, cooking, or diving into any adventure that sparks curiosity.
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