How to Recruit Talent: Hiring Tips from Leap Hospitality
For a restaurant owner, hiring talent is an ongoing challenge. How you hire is just as important who you hire.
Chris Wunder, Vice President with Leap Hospitality based in Kansas City, recruits talent for local and national restaurants. From general managers and chefs to finance, marketing, supply chain and executive leadership professionals, Chris knows how to find and hire talent. Here are a few tips from Chris that you can use in your restaurant:
Mize Houser: “Chris, what are the most frequent mistakes restaurant owners make when recruiting and hiring staff?”
Chris: “We see two recurring problems. First, we see restaurant owners who are paying at market rate or just below market rate for talent. If you want to attract top staff, managers and culinary professionals, we tell clients it’s worth it to pay more than market rate. Second, owners often don’t have a process in place to recruit and interview potential employees. They make it way more complicated than it has to be, which creates hiring bottlenecks. Good candidates aren’t going to wait on a process that takes a lot of time. Have a simple recruitment process that you can easily replicate.”
Mize Houser: “How important is it to have written job descriptions?”
Chris: “If I had to put it on a scale of 1 to 10, I would say a 4. Why? Because most candidates skim job descriptions and get turned off because the job description is written by a HR professional, not an operations or hiring manager. If you do have a HR person writing descriptions, be sure they are collaborating with your hiring manager to get the most accurate picture of what the job entails.”
Mize Houser: “What types of questions are good for an interview situation?”
Chris: “We always suggest asking situational and behavioral questions like “Tell me about a time when you had to serve an angry customer?” or “Why are you interested in the restaurant industry?” Also come up with questions that give you a glimpse into their work ethic and how they work with coworkers.”
Mize Houser: “Is group interviewing a good idea?”
Chris: “Having an experienced candidate meet with a group of employees is a good idea in a conversational interview. But for less experienced candidates, it can be overwhelming, so I suggest one-on-one interviews.”
Mize Houser: “Why should a restaurant owner outsource recruiting? Given all of the social media tools available to advertise jobs, why go to the expense of hiring outside help?”
Chris: “The answer is simple: Leap is really good at hiring because we know the industry. Restaurant owners need to think about it as an opportunity cost – why spend your time and money on something you’re not great at when you should be focused on your restaurant? Another reason to get outside help is that we can find candidates faster than you can. In addition to the social media channels, job boards, etc., we have other proprietary tools that we can leverage to identify potential candidates.”
Mize Houser: “Thanks Chris!”
Based in Liberty, Missouri, Leap Hospitality provides talent recruitment; restaurant development services including custom furniture, FF&E project management and staging; and logistics through Leap Freight.
