Some restaurateurs are wincing at today’s job market. “I’m in charge of 19 locations,” says Courtney Beach, director of the corporate store division for sandwich chain Pita Pit. “Eighteen of my 19 managers would say hiring is their biggest problem.”
Reaching nearly prerecession digits, the unemployment rate from January to August averaged 4.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The job market is 100% a job seekers’ market,” says Beach. “The demographics we hire—16- to 23-year-olds—they can get a job anywhere.”
To snag top applicants before they are snatched up, Pita Pit has had to speed up hiring. The chain now pushes recruits from interview to hire in one to two days, according to Beach. Cracker Barrel, too, has expedited its hiring process over the past year by more than 30%, according to a brand spokesperson, taking no more than 10 days to hire. Ivar’s, a seafood chain based in Seattle, hires candidates within five days, streamlining the process by half by asking the right questions in the first round of interviews with the help of guidebooks, said Patrick Yearout, director of recruiting and training, at an industry event.
Five years ago, Pita Pit operators would’ve conducted at least two rounds of interviews, Beach says. Now, corporate is advising franchisees to hire promising candidates on the spot and get them onto the very next schedule. Here’s how the chain and others have streamlined hiring to keep up with an illusive labor force.