Finding Good Staff for the Catering Industry

Finding good staff for the catering industry is probably not as difficult as it was a few years back, large numbers of catering establishments have closed or reduced their payroll and therefore there are probably many good quality individuals looking for opportunites.

However the catering industry is a broad market covering everyhing from fast food joints, to high class restaurants and therefore I want to look at some common ground that should be considered when hiring staff, be it for the catering industry or any industry.

Hiring staff is, for most business a fairly risky venture, so the first thing to consider is how risk can be dreduced, one of the simplest ways of doing that is to clearly define the roles and responsibilites of the position you are looking to fill, who will they report to, what tasks are they required to undertake, what codes of appearance and conduct apply, what are the standards we are seeking from this individual.

Next consider the pay you are prepared to offer and the terms of employment you will provide, do you believe these will attract the right standard of candidates?

The next thing to organize is a candidate search, is it appropriate to advertise the position or are their people internally that could fill the role, in my experience it is always preferable to promote form within. If there are no suitable internal candidates then consider how to advertise the vacancy, local press, Internet or word of mouth are just some the ways to get the word out there.

The key then in my opinion is not to base interview candidates solely on the CV provided, people often use artistic license when the write a CV so I would suggest considering the one key criteria that is critical to have in any employee, a skill that cannot be trained or really developed and that is ATTITUDE!

You can develop and train pretty much any skill in any individual as long as they have the desire and attitude to learn, but we often recruit on the basis of skills on a CV, therefore before going to a time consuming interview process, create a short script and screen each candidate over the phone.

Simply call each of them and explain that as part of your recruitment process you always carry out a telephone screen, the purpose of the script is to ensure each candidate is given equal opportunity to present themselves in the best light consistently, you should therefore consider asking questions that will give you an indication of that persons attitude, for example “It’s Christmas Eve and a fellow worker has failed to turn in what would you do? and then ask WHY?

Remember you can’t train Attitude!