A good applicant who accepted somewhere else
A line chef with the right experience applies on a job board for a role at one site on Tuesday. The GM is working doubles and does not see it until Friday. By then the chef has taken a job at a competitor who called the same afternoon. At a sister site across town, the head chef is desperate for exactly that person.
The group advertises constantly, pays for job board listings and still runs short. The problem is often not the number of applicants, but what happens to them after they apply.
Walk-ins are the same story. A bartender drops in a CV at lunchtime, the supervisor puts it in the office drawer, and it is found three weeks later under a pile of delivery notes. Meanwhile the area manager is paying agency rates to cover the bar on Saturdays, and a GM at the busiest site is on their sixth double shift in a row.
Why hiring leaks across a group
- Adverts are posted by each site, and responses go to that GM's inbox or job board account.
- GMs are busiest during the hours they should be calling applicants back.
- There is no shared view of applicants, so a good candidate for one site is never offered to another.
- Walk-in CVs and referrals are kept on paper in the office.
- Interview times are arranged by phone tag, and many applicants never turn up.
This is about the flow of applicants across the group. Right to work checks and contracts are separate steps, and your HR adviser decides how those are done.
The cost of slow hiring
Every unfilled shift is covered by overtime, agency staff or managers working the floor, all of which cost more and wear people out. Job board spending is wasted when applicants are not contacted. Good people end up at competitors. And sites stuck short-staffed deliver a worse experience, which feeds into reviews and sales.
How we build the group hiring pipeline
- Every vacancy is created once, with site, role and hours, and posted to your chosen job boards and your careers page.
- Applications from all sources, including job boards, the careers page, walk-in forms on a tablet and referrals, land in one pipeline.
- Applicants answer a few screening questions for the role, such as availability, experience and travel to the site.
- Applicants who meet the basics get a text inviting them to pick an interview or trial shift slot from the GM's calendar, with a reminder the day before.
- GMs see their applicants on a phone and can move them on or pass them to another site with one tap.
- Head office sees open roles, applicants and time to hire by site, and which sources bring people who stay.
| Stage | What happens | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| Applied | Screening questions answered | Applicant |
| Invited | Interview or trial slot booked by text | Automatic, GM reviews |
| Trial shift | Feedback recorded on phone | Head chef or manager |
| Offer | Handed to HR process | GM and HR |
What the GMs notice
Applicants hear back quickly, often the same day, without the GM having to phone anyone. Interview slots fill themselves, and reminders cut down on no-shows. A chef who applied to one site but lives nearer another is offered there. Head office can see which sites are struggling to hire and put effort where it is needed.
Does this match your hiring?
- Applicants wait days to hear back.
- Each GM manages their own applications.
- Good candidates are never offered to other sites.
- Interview no-shows are common.
- Nobody knows which job boards bring people who stay.