Hospitality Hiring Insider – Exclusive insights from San Carlo

What are you biggest recruitment challenges?

“The biggest thing we’ve had to adapt to is the use of technology”

Recruitment is constantly changing and the use of technology to create the perfect CV is a new and interesting challenge for the hospitality industry. “Using AI candidates can write a CV and tailor it, and their cover letter, specifically to our brand. The end result is perfectly written and reads very well. This means that being able to shortlist and only select the very top candidates has become more difficult and something we’ve had to figure out a working solution for.

That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, I think people should use AI in their job search because it’s a great tool. It just means that the selection process is tricky, as there are more great candidates to filter.”

What can employers do to overcome the AI challenge?

AI is here to stay, and James believes it’s now about developing the sector’s skills and knowledge to recognise when AI has been used and adapting your recruitment approach to suit. “Hospitality businesses are becoming more aware and now it’s about how we can train our hiring managers and our own recruitment teams to look out for things that could indicate the use of AI in an application. That knowledge will help us to know how we should best view applications in the future.

If we think an application has been completed by AI, we know to look at it through the lens of the candidate’s experience. Sometimes we’ll put a perfect cover letter to one side, just so we can base our decisions on their exact experience, and the values we think they could bring to the company.”

Filling hard-to-recruit roles and the transactional market

Entry-level positions have always proved challenging to fill, especially in London.

“It’s about minimum wage and living in London – it’s expensive and to live and work here means candidates are looking for more than minimum wage.”

“It’s why we see more of a transactional market for talent in London. It’s tough, but it’s the reality that we have to face. Employers have to step up and offer incentives, rewards and recognitions, to make themselves an employer of choice. It’s an industry wide problem and businesses have to make themselves as attractive as possible to potential recruits.

“Hopefully it just doesn’t become about the money, it becomes about everything else you’re getting from working for us, that will make people decide to stay with us in London.”

Why educating the next generation of hospitality talent is critical

“Invest in early years and reach out to schools and colleges.”

San Carlo has partnered with Springboard to host activities for potential candidates, who are all looking for work experience but may have never considered hospitality.”

James continued, “We want potential recruits to have hands-on activities like cocktail or pasta masterclasses. The excitement you see from the people that attend is great. We’re not doing it for the San Carlo brand, we’re showcasing the industry as a whole.”

It’s a long-term strategy. You won’t necessarily make hires straight away but you’re investing time and resources now. You’ll have sparked the imagination and hopefully one day they’ll want to join the industry.”

Is flexible working the answer to your recruitment challenges?

In most hospitality roles working from home is not an option – you can’t be a chef or work front of house from your home so how do you address the hospitality work-life balance?

James believes that hospitality is one of the most flexible industries to work in. “I think people believe that it’s unsociable hours, working in hospitality, because you work evenings and weekends, but you also get your days free. If you’re in a household, you can adjust your shift patterns to meet the needs of multiple different responsibilities.”

“I believe it’s one aspect of the industry we don’t talk about it enough. I don’t think we mention how flexible hospitality is and we really should because people have lives outside of work. Why should you choose a job that’s 9:00 till 5:00 and doesn’t fit in with your life outside work when hospitality can offer you hours that work for you and our commitments?”

Give your recruits the career development that meets their personal needs

“We recognise that our people want to develop their own career pathways and so we’ve strengthened our internal training, learning and development team and upskilling all our team members.”

“An example would be our bar teams, who now have a set pathway of learning and development that will make sure that they have the experience necessary to get to the next career step. We’re doing that across the board, focusing on development because as we expand internationally, we need to make sure that all our teams have a clear career pathway.”

What are your top tips for recruitment and retention for 2024?

Invest in early years and reach out to schools and colleges.

It’s a longer-term strategy, but I think we need to really go out to this younger demographic of potential superstars and talk to them about the industry — the benefits, the amazing culture, the flexibility, the career progression, and the fun that you’ll have by working in hospitality.

There were so many misconceptions about the sector — it’s just a job before you find a real career. Just go work in a bar before you get an office job, etc. — and that’s been the message for so long. But it’s really not the case, so we need to share that.

What tactics have you found particularly useful in your candidate attraction?

So, for me, you have your reliable job platforms, Caterer.com being one of them. If someone in hospitality is looking for a new job, they will typically use Caterer.com, so it’s perfect for what we need, but we have also been focused on how we can get our EVP, our brand and our message out to the wider market, to reach people that aren’t actively looking.

This means passive candidates are seeing our messaging, and when they do start looking for work, they’ll know that San Carlo is a great company to work for, that we treat our employees well, and that we have great rewards and recognition.

Find out more about San Carlo

To access more exclusive insights from leading hospitality employers, read our latest Caterer.com Hospitality Hiring Insider H1 2024