Restaurant insights by 7shifts

There’s busy. And then there’s restaurant busy. Before you know it, you’re in the weeds. Again.

When you’re deep in the weeds, even the smallest fire can feel like a five-alarm. This issue of Food Runner is here to toss you a lifeline: tools, templates, and tried-and-true resources designed to pull you out of the chaos and help you run the kind of operation you want to be in the thick of.

On weeding out hiring struggles… 


While finding top talent can feel like a tough task, here’s a hot take: if you’re struggling to hire the right candidate, your job posting might be the problem.

In this blog post about what to avoid in a restaurant job description, we pulled insights from Jensen Cummings, Chef & Founder of Best Served Creative, on six red flags from the hiring side:

🚩 Job postings that don’t inspire: “You have to tell a story. Why the hell should I come work for you? The reality of that is important because if we’re saying we’re putting in so little effort, so little time and thought into trying to hire you, at what point are we going to hold ourselves to esteem and to higher standards? It starts at the beginning.“

🚩 Using empty words: “We use so many empty words that mean absolutely nothing in job posts… High volume probably means you’re going to be really busy all the time. What that means to me is you don’t have clarity on who you are and your message… You have to make it personal and unique. Restaurants can not be monolithic. Just because someone has worked at a restaurant doesn’t mean they know what I’m walking into.”

🚩 Deceptive language on pay: “Clarity has to be at the forefront. We’re seeing things like ‘competitive pay,’ ‘pay based on experience,’ or a ridiculously large pay range. What keeps playing out is that this is just a way to try and pay the lowest common denominator. Nobody’s getting tricked by that anymore.”

🚩 Lack of clarity on benefits: “You’ve got to be very clear on what the benefits are. Are you offering health, dental, and vision? Are you offering paid time off? Are there sick days built into your model? How are you actually making sure that people have that balance? Can you come up with creative things?”

🚩 Unclear interview expectations: “How many interviews am I going through? Am I doing a working interview? Are you going to try and just get free labor out of me? Or is it very clear what that expectation is? We have to understand that process and know that for some people, getting down to your location is a challenge, for some people working seven hours at a stage to see if it’s ‘a good fit’ is pure exploitation.”

🚩 Lack of clarity on onboarding and training: “Every restaurant person will know exactly what I’m talking about… Susie has no idea that you were training with them. So you just follow them around awkwardly doing things if you’re in front of the house or back of the house… That manager’s mid, so they left before the shift was over. So there’s no filling out that paperwork… The next day, that manager is off… I’ve heard people not get their first paycheck because they’re not even on the payroll yet.”