Hiring the Right People

Introduction

Hiring in a restaurant or pub is not “HR stuff.” It’s an operational lever that directly affects your prime cost, guest experience, shift stability, and how often you’re stuck covering shifts yourself. If you hire wrong, you’ll feel it fast: messy opening/closing, slower ticket times, higher staff turnover, and guests who don’t come back.

That’s why we use the Talent Funnel approach—hiring like a funnel. The goal is simple: attract the right candidates, train them so they can perform, and use a Repellent Job Ad to stop unfit applicants before they waste your time.

In a restaurant, your funnel isn’t just about getting résumés. It’s about building a dependable team that can hit standards on busy nights, handle weekends, and follow your systems.

Concept

The Talent Funnel has three parts: Hiring, Training, and The Repellent Job Ad. Done properly, these three work together to improve speed to fill, reduce turnover, and protect day-to-day service.

#

Hiring

Start with the reality of the role, not a fantasy version of it.

When you hire, define the job around what matters in your pub or restaurant:
- Busy-night behavior: Can they stay calm on a Saturday rush?
- Speed and standards: Do they follow ticketing flow, check backs, and side work timing?
- Availability: Can they cover nights, weekends, and holidays?
- Guest skills: Can they handle complaints politely and fix problems fast?

Your job ad should clearly state the expectations and challenges. That’s how you attract people who want your pace and environment—and repel those who don’t.

Restaurant/Pub example (Server):
Instead of “friendly and hardworking,” write: “You will work dinner peaks with 30–50 covers per service hour, follow our service checklist, and communicate clearly in the POS when timing changes.” The right candidates will recognize this as their world.

Restaurant/Pub example (Line Cook):
Don’t say “experience required.” Say: “You’ll prep to spec, run stations during peak service, portion accurately, and keep a clean station under time pressure. You must be comfortable receiving ticket changes within minutes.”

#

Training

Once you hire, you must train for performance—not just for orientation.

Training should include:
- Your menu standards: portion sizes, garnishes, sauces, and common remakes
- Your service flow: greet timing, upsells, table resets, and check-back rhythm
- Your POS habits: modifiers, course pacing, voids/refunds rules, and payment steps
- Your side work expectations: opening tasks, closing tasks, and prep schedule discipline

Restaurant/Pub example (New Bartender):
Training isn’t “watch one shift.” It’s: learn the bar setup, measure specs, complete the drink build checklist, practice common remakes, and demonstrate how you close down using your nightly checklist. Then you shadow for one service and are signed off only after you meet standards.

Also, training is where culture becomes real: how you speak to guests, how you handle conflict, and how seriously you take cleanliness and safety.

#

The Repellent Job Ad

A Repellent Job Ad is one that filters out applicants who can’t do the job or won’t meet your standards.

In restaurants, the trick is to embed a “detail test” that shows up in real work: attention to instructions, willingness to work weekends, and understanding of the pace.

Restaurant/Pub Repellent example:
“In your application, include the phrase ‘SEALED & SIGNED’ in the first line and tell us your availability for Friday and Saturday nights. If you don’t include it, we won’t proceed.”

Why this works: people who rush applications, don’t read carefully, or can’t commit to the shift schedule self-select out. That saves you hours of interviews.

Conclusion

Treat hiring like a funnel:
1. Hiring attracts the right candidates with honest role expectations.
2. Training converts hired candidates into reliable performers using checklists and sign-off.
3. The Repellent Job Ad prevents bad matches from entering the process.

When your funnel is tight, you reduce turnover, stabilize coverage, protect service quality, and stop the cycle of scrambling for staff every time someone quits.