Phenom, an applied AI company that helps organizations hire faster, develop better and retain longer, announced Rally House earned the Brandon Hall Group™ Gold Award for Excellence in the ‘Best Use of AI for Talent Acquisition’ category. The recognition celebrates Rally House’s innovative hiring transformation using Phenom’s applied AI and automation to accelerate recruitment, reduce costs and enhance candidate experience during a period of rapid expansion.
As Rally House expanded from 140 to nearly 300 stores, the company faced a critical yet common retail challenge: scaling recruitment without proportionally increasing staff. In response, they worked with Phenom to roll out solutions that would make the biggest impact for their industry-specific needs. Their solutions included mobile-first QR code applications placed throughout stores, AI-powered chatbot screening, predictive hiring campaigns and automated interview scheduling — all designed to remove friction while preserving transparency and fairness.
Rally House took this a step further by using real-time data and predictive insights — including sports betting odds during playoff seasons — to launch geo-targeted hiring campaigns before demand surged, enabling them to staff new locations even before construction was complete. Most importantly, the solution maintained a human-in-the-loop approach that empowered store managers and scaled recruiting operations efficiently, ensuring AI enhanced rather than replaced the personal touch that defines Rally House’s culture.
Key results that earned Rally House the Brandon Hall Group recognition include:
- 5,800+ interviews automatically scheduled in just three months, dramatically reducing time-to-interview from days to hours
- 10,000 hours saved through automation (equivalent to five full-time recruiters) freeing store managers to focus on operations and customer service
- 7,992 employees successfully hired in 2024 through automated workflows, proving that AI-driven processes deliver real outcomes at scale
- 122% cost savings achieved through reduced dependence on paid job advertisements and more efficient sourcing strategies
“The time saved, the candidate quality that we’re surfacing to the top and our ability to differentiate from our competitors — that’s something Phenom’s applied AI has helped us do. It’s helped us add a personal touch at scale, which is absolutely essential in high-growth retail environments like ours,” said Bryan Brazil, Talent Acquisition Manager at Rally House.
“This year’s Excellence Award winners exemplify the transformative power of strategic human capital management. Through their innovative approaches to talent development and employee engagement, these organizations have not only achieved remarkable business outcomes but have also redefined what it means to create truly people-centric workplaces. Our comprehensive evaluation process has identified these programs as benchmarks for organizational excellence and innovation,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Awards® program leader.
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