Case Study: Cedar Fair scales seasonal hiring to 47,000 annually with iCIMS

How one of the World’s Leading Theme Park Operators Hires 47,000 Seasonal Workers Annually

Cedar Fair operates 11 major amusement and water parks and relies on roughly 2,000 full‑time staff plus more than 47,000 seasonal, part‑time hires each year to serve millions of guests. Faced with a manual, inbox‑based hiring process that couldn’t reengage past employees or scale for youth-dominated applicants, the company needed a modern applicant tracking and candidate engagement solution to meet aggressive seasonal staffing targets.

Cedar Fair implemented iCIMS Recruit, CRM and TextRecruit to simplify mobile applications, reduce questions and remove resume requirements—cutting application time nearly in half—and to nurture and reengage candidates year‑round. The program draws about 180,000 applicants annually, maintains a 97% application completion rate, achieves a 39% TextRecruit response rate (average 5‑minute reply), and consistently meets hiring KPIs such as 7‑day time to offer and strong preboarding/show‑rate outcomes.

Cedar Fair

Amy Smith

Corporate Talent Acquisition Manager