IRVING TEXAS —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Attendees at the annual Meeting of the Minds conference were reminded that restaurants have more employees per sales dollar than any other industry, but turnover, age demographics and increased competition remain high hurdles for staff development officials to leap. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
“We all live and die by the ability to hire talent,” said Tom Solomon, human resources vice president for On the Border, a Mexican chain that is one of four brands owned by Dallas-based Brinker International Inc. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Solomon told an audience of about 300 attendees at the two-day event the number of 25 to 34 year-olds—the age range of most restaurant managers—remains flat, while competition in and outside the industry increases. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
“There’s not a lot of growth in that age range, even though the demand is growing quite a bit for us,” he said. “All retail segments are hiring those managers.” —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
The industry also turns over its restaurant management staff on an average of every four to five years, he added. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Multiple jobs have become a way of life, noted Sean Self, founder and president of Self Opportunity Inc., the Lewisville, Texas-based recruiting consulting firm that sponsored the conference. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
“According to the U.S. Department of Labor, today’s college students will have 10 to 14 jobs by the age 38,” Self said. “One out of four workers has been working for a company for less than a year and one in two workers has been working for a company for less than five years.” —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Recruiters and HR directors discussed a variety of tactics in workshop sessions, from maximizing Internet use to offering cash bonuses to employees for referrals. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Jim Jordan, director of national recruiting for Atlanta-based Morrison Management Specialists, said he has been optimizing search engines such as Google to find nutritionists and dieticians, a category of professionals who may not consider a foodservice contract company. Morrison, a division of British foodservice giant Compass Group, provides foodservice to health care and senior living communities through its two operating divisions: Morrison Healthcare Food Services and Morrison Senior Dining. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Key words typed online by job seekers, specifically nutritionists and dieticians, will trigger a Morrison website’s banner ad to appear on screen. If the job seeker clicks on it, it will take them to a “landing” page, and from there the user can be steered to a site to apply or gather more information, Jordan explained. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Since he started doing word optimization last spring, 914 people have been driven to the Morrison career page, and two dieticians who found Morrison on line were hired in the fall, he said. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Recruiters also advised one another to use the Internet to evaluate job candidates by checking out their personal pages on social-networking sites such as
Open houses, job fairs and rewards for referring potential co-workers are also common tactics among recruiters. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
Armando Lopez, director of training management for Nashville, Tenn.-based O’Charley’s, stressed the importance of effective interviewing for hourly employees, no matter how busy the restaurant or hiring manager is. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
He advised operators to analyze the character traits of their best performers and look for those characteristics when interviewing in job candidates. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
“You can do an effective interview in five to seven minutes if you use powerful questions,” Lopez said. —The current state of the economy is filling the labor pool with more displaced job applicants, but fishing for the right candidate remains a challenge, according to chain restaurant recruiters and human resource executives who met here recently.
