Dishing About Work: Finding and Filling Jobs by Talking Shop
Getting the right job, having a great career, hiring the best workers: Why do both foodservice workers and operators seem to experience such pain about all three? We at Galley want to know—and, maybe, alleviate some of that pain. Our goal with this blog, then, is to help you eliminate the daunting obstacles that keep foodservice operators and culinary job seekers apart.
Career opportunities for motivated food service workers at all levels have never been more exciting. And, if you’re an operator, there’s never been a more talented worker pool to pick from. With all the Human Resources (HT) technology available today—applicant tracking systems (ATS), online job boards, and AI (artificial intelligence)—you’d think employers and job seekers would be able to sync up with little trouble. Well, you’d be wrong.
Frustrated job seekers in food service apply to tens or hundreds of job postings without success. The ATSes and the AI algorithms seem to reject even the most qualified candidates.
Foodservice operators, meanwhile, are flooded with thousands of applicants for a job but complain they can’t find the right talent.
So what’s going on? Why is everyone in such pain?
Hiring the Best Workers?
I’ve been a headhunter for a long time. What I’ve learned is that employers have outsourced their most competitive edge—hiring the best workers—to database jockeys and data scientists who know all about “keywords” and algorithms, but nothing about hiring or getting hired.
The humans have been removed from Human Resources.
That’s why job seekers and operators are in pain.
Wharton labor researcher Peter Cappelli says: “Obsessed with new technologies and driving down costs, [employers] largely ignore the ultimate goal: making the best possible hires.”
It seems “employment technology” is keeping earnest job seekers and employers on a kind of hamster wheel. No one gets anywhere but frustrated. The goal of efficiently and accurately making the best hires is lost.
No more. We aim to help you ease the pain and frustration of job hunting and hiring.
The Personal Touch
Here’s the most important thing I want you to know: 50 to 70 percent of hires are made via personal referrals, not through job postings, not online application forms, not high-pressure recruiters.
And here’s what else you need to know:
Job hunting and hiring through personal referrals yields the best hires.
The most productive job interviews are not about what animal you’d like to be or where you see yourself in five years. They’re about talking shop—about how the applicant and hiring manager can get a job done.
Employers often can’t fill jobs because they don’t offer market pay. [Cappelli]
Employers lose good people because they don’t provide adequate training and development.
Employers rely too much on automated recruiting systems that don’t work. [VP that ripped out ATS, CEO whose resume was rejected]
The AI used to conduct robo-interviews and personality tests has been discredited. [Schellmann]
The job candidate that succeeds is not always the one that scores high in interviews. It’s the one that’s enthusiastic and shows they can do the work.
While job applicants have trouble with interviews, employers usually conduct interviews all wrong.
The System is Broken
Laszlo Bock, a former human resources executive at Google, “did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship.”
What Bock means is, the employment system is broken. The good news is that you can, nonetheless, get a great job or hire the best people, whichever side you’re on. And in this new Galley Solutions careers community feature we’re going to show you how.
It’s all about hanging out with people in your professional community—and casually talking shop. This is where jobs and great hires come from.
Remember what I said about the most important thing I can tell you? That most jobs are found and filled through personal referrals? Well, the networking required to cultivate strong personal contacts also happens to be the one skill that eludes people the most. In fact, most people cringe: “Networking is icky!”
Sure, while people hate to ask for job leads and to “give my resume to your boss,” they love to talk about their work. Real networking is actually easy and fun when you’re part of a community where workers and employers can casually get together and talk shop. Which is good news for you—hirer and hiree. The foodservice industry relies heavily on personal connections and networking because of its fast-paced, high-turnover nature and the importance of cultural fit within restaurant teams. Word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals from trusted industry contacts often lead to job opportunities before they're publicly posted, giving networked individuals a significant advantage in securing positions or finding qualified candidates quickly.
The Galley Mission
Galley Solutions’ mission with “Dishing About Work,” therefore, is to create a community of foodservice professionals where you can meet and talk shop with your next boss or your next great hire—and other foodservice folks that will introduce them to you.
I will be here on Galley Solutions, every month, to answer your toughest questions about job hunting and hiring with frank, no-nonsense advice. I especially welcome those in-your-face questions no one in human resources or career counseling will touch. Your real-life questions are what Ask The Headhunter® is all about.
If you’re serious about foodservice, we hope you’ll join our new community and challenge me with the obstacles you face in job hunting and hiring—whether you’re a dishwasher, an executive chef, a catering GM, or in any position in between.
But this is interactive, so help us to help you. Please tell us, when it comes to job hunting or hiring: Where does it hurt? Here are some of the topics we might delve in to:
If I disclose my salary history, I’m afraid it will limit my job offer.
We interview job candidates, then they ghost us!
I want to get in the door ahead of my competition.
Our job postings deliver loads of applicants but none worth hiring.
After 6 interviews they still can’t decide to hire me.
We keep losing good employees to competitors.
HR is slowing down the hiring process!
One bad reference could cost me this job!
I can’t get a promotion or raise.
Recruiters waste my time with the wrong jobs/candidates.
How do I explain that I got fired?
Which is your problem? What would you add to the list? Let us know. I’m in the galley, ready to serve up answers.
About the Author
Nick Corcodilos is the headhunter behind Ask The Headhunter®, an iconoclastic advice feature that has been syndicated in over 20 publications including Electronic Engineering Times, Adobe Systems’ CMO.com, The Seattle Times, and PBS NewsHour. Nick has taught his contrarian methods of job hunting and hiring at such business schools as Harvard, Cornell, UCLA and Wharton. He is author of Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job and Fearless Job Hunting. Nick has answered more than 50,000 career-related questions from professionals around the world. His first job was at his uncle’s diner.
