We’ve just blown the budget on Irish Catering Jobs Boards, can you help us?
“Hi, do you have any Chef De Parties, Sous Chefs, Pastry Chefs, Head Chefs (delete as appropriate)?” Even before introducing themselves this is often the first thing we hear from our Irish catering clients. The second thing we often hear is “how much do you charge?” Now we really do know that they’re already down several hundred on Irish job board fees, know they urgently need an agency’s help but hate throwing good money after bad.
In any case the urgency to find chefs is often such an overbearing concern for Irish caterers that they’ve little patience left for social niceties anymore. Having more than a passing familiarity with the difficulty of trying to construct a roster, for a kitchen which is already understaffed, I can certainly empathise with anyone in this situation. If finding good chefs was easy there’d be less need for catering recruitment agencies such as ourselves, so I’m not complaining.
If, this time round, we manage to solve our client’s problem the probability is we’ll hear from them again the next time their situation in the kitchen is desperate and not a moment sooner.
Why is this? Well the explanation is understandable, caterers are, despite the fact that experience should, by now, have taught them otherwise, one of life’s eternal optimists. Next time, they reason, they’ll have better luck with their jobs board advertisement. Sure it’s an upfront fee, sure there’s no promise a jobs board advertisement will be a success and sure they’ll have to pay whether or not they’ve attracted a single worthwhile application. It’s a lot cheaper than the agencies goes the reasoning and if they get what they want it’s true, it is cheaper than using a catering agency, if they get what they need. That’s one very big if.
The expenses, overt & covert to relying on job boards
The only problem, and it’s big one, is that staking the success of their catering business on an Irish jobs board advertisement is often a far riskier pursuit than it appears at first blush. We know, hardly a day passes when we don’t pick the phone up to an Irish caterer who’s blown hundreds on, “cheaper,” job board advertising and now a month, or longer, later here they are looking for an instant solution from a hospitality recruitment agency.
We shouldn’t really complain about Irish jobs boards being ineffective, sometimes they can surface good chefs. We use them too, of course we do (a good agency uses everything they can to get to candidates, it’s just that we don’t depend on them). In fact if Irish jobs boards weren’t there we’d have a harder time convincing Irish caterers that we really do earn our money. If Irish jobs boards didn’t exist then the Irish hospitality industry wouldn’t have as much first hand experience of the fact that there’s a lot more to catering recruitment, and especially to finding chefs in Ireland, than sticking up a job board advertisement and waiting for the CVs of all those talented chefs to come rolling in.
So how can Irish catering recruitment agencies help Irish caterers avoid the calamity of an unsustainable rostering situation arising again in a few months? By encouraging them to contact us earlier and plan their recruitment drives further ahead of time. For a lot of caterers this runs against their belief that an agency is the last resort, a place you call after all else, including jobs boards, has failed. It’s actually a point of view we fully appreciate. It just so happens that failing is a lot easier than it used to be and in an ultra competitive market potentially fatal too.
Using a Catering Recruitment Agency to pipeline talent
So what’s in it for the caterer who is prepared to plan ahead with an employment agency such as ourselves? Well rather than deal in the abstract I’ll give an example from a current hiring assignment.
About ten days ago I found a message waiting for me from a chef who can safely be described as one of the best on the island. The message was a masterclass in communication efficiency: “you guys got any strong Chefs de Parties?”
This being a question very few catering recruiters like answering, and mindful of the fact we were already at capacity I decided this was one, potentially very prestigious, client I might have to risk losing through the time honored expedient of truthfulness. I called back, thanked him very much for his enquiry and there and then leveled with him that we were flat out chasing Chefs De Partie for our existing clients. Not wanting to surrender the opportunity, of acquiring another high profile client, without so much as a fight, I did venture that over the medium term we probably could help him find the level of talent he’d need but that I understood he probably needed someone right now and that on this occasion we’d have to pass to concentrate on existing clients. Then he took me by surprise by announcing that no, he was covered for the moment but was wondering do we have anything in the pipeline suitable for him in the months ahead. Now we were in a different ball game, easy answer, yes we do! So, while less well positioned players throw their cash, upfront, at the roulette wheel that is the Irish jobs boards, this client will, this week, be viewing CVs from interested applicants with AA Rosette, Relais & Châteaux, and Michelin Star experience.
Will this restaurant’s staffing costs over a 12 – 18 month period, taking agency fees into account, exceed what their more reactive peers will spend? Almost certainly not? Will he have more talent and resources at his disposal over the same period? Almost certainly yes. It’s the difference between proactive and reactive recruitment and we encourage you to think like this too.
