The Ultimate Guide to Restaurant Recruiting

Recruiting is a crucial part of any successful restaurant business. From hosts and servers to cooks and bussers, every employee plays a vital role in providing exceptional service and creating a positive customer experience. Finding talented staff can be challenging, especially in today’s competitive job market.

There are several strategies that restaurants can use to make the most of their recruiting efforts and attract top-notch candidates. In this guide, we will explore some tips and best practices for effective restaurant recruiting.

How To Recruit for a Restaurant

Recruiting for a restaurant involves identifying potential candidates who demonstrate the skills, experience, and temperament necessary to meet the unique demands of the hospitality industry. Typically, the process begins with a well-written job listing. The listing should be detailed and precise, clearly outlining the responsibilities, skills, and expectations for the role. It should also highlight the benefits and opportunities your restaurant provides, such as career growth, training programs, or competitive pay scale.

The recruitment process should leverage various channels to reach potential candidates. Traditional methods, such as newspaper ads and job fairs, can be effective. Still, online platforms like job listing sites, social media, and the restaurant’s website often yield greater reach. Networking is also a powerful tool. Current employees, industry contacts, and even customers can serve as invaluable sources for recommendations and referrals.

Once you find potential candidates, move those that seem like a good fit to the interview stage. The interview process is a valuable opportunity to assess each candidate’s aptitude and skills, as well as their personality, attitude, and ability to get along with other employees.

How Do I Start Recruiting?

To recruit new employees for your restaurant, start by writing a detailed job listing. Next, distribute that job listing using multiple channels, including job boards and social media. Finally, use candidate interviews to identify applicants with the right skills, attitude, and personality to work in your restaurant.

Common Restaurant Recruiting Tools

Recruiting the right people for a restaurant involves a wide range of tools. Here are some of the most common tools used in restaurant recruiting.

Job boards: Online job boards like Indeed, Glassdoor, and Caterer.com are excellent places to post job openings and reach a large pool of potential candidates.
Social media: Platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram can be powerful tools for sharing job openings, showcasing your restaurant’s culture, and engaging directly with potential applicants.
Recruiting agencies: Specialized hospitality recruiting agencies have extensive talent networks and deep industry knowledge, making them valuable resources for finding and hiring qualified candidates.
Word of mouth: Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth recommendations. Encourage your customers and vendors to refer their friends and former colleagues or ask other restaurant owners or industry professionals for recommendations.
Employee referrals: Many restaurants successfully recruit through their current employees. Offering referral bonuses can incentivize your staff to recommend talented individuals from their network.
Hiring events: Hosting job fairs or open interview days can quickly and effectively screen multiple candidates at once. They also allow candidates to get a firsthand look at your restaurant’s culture and atmosphere.

Tips for Successful Restaurant Recruiting

Every restaurant owner knows a skilled and dedicated team is critical to a successful business. Recruiting top talent is no easy feat, especially in an industry as dynamic as hospitality. Here are some tips to elevate your restaurant’s recruiting, allowing you to attract, hire, and retain top employees:

Define Your Ideal Candidate

Before you start your recruiting process, have a clear understanding of the type of candidate you are looking for. This means defining the skills, experience, and qualities essential for the position. Having a clear definition of your ideal candidate will help you target your recruiting efforts and attract individuals who are the best fit for your restaurant.

Optimize Your Job Descriptions

Creating a strong job description is another crucial step in improving your recruiting. An effective job description should provide a clear and compelling overview of the role, its responsibilities, and the skills and qualifications required. It serves as the first point of interaction between your restaurant and potential candidates, so it should reflect your restaurant’s culture and values while capturing the essence of the job.

Focus on Employer Branding

Employer brand is the public’s perception of your restaurant, including its reputation as a workplace. In recruiting, branding is the image that potential candidates have about the working environment, culture, values, and benefits of being an employee at your establishment. This sets your restaurant apart from competitors, making it an attractive place for top talent to work.

Investing time and resources into developing a strong employer brand can significantly enhance your restaurant recruiting efforts. You can share your restaurant’s branding through various channels, including your website, social media accounts, job postings, and during the interview process. Sharing stories of your current employees’ experiences, highlighting career growth opportunities, and showcasing the unique aspects of your restaurant’s culture are effective ways to build a strong employer brand.

Remember, potential candidates are not just looking for a job—they are looking for a positive and rewarding work experience. Employer branding is a valuable tool to communicate these things to potential employees.

Create a Restaurant Recruiting and Hiring Team

Assembling a dedicated recruiting and hiring team is another effective strategy for enhancing your restaurant’s recruiting process. This team could include managers, supervisors, or experienced staff members who understand the restaurant’s culture, expectations, and the skills required for each role. The recruiting team’s responsibilities include interpreting the job descriptions, screening applications, conducting interviews, and making hiring decisions.

Having a dedicated recruiting team also helps streamline the hiring process and ensures that hiring decisions align with your restaurant’s needs and culture. This team can also provide valuable insights into the applicant’s potential fit within the existing team, as they are familiar with the daily operations and demands of the restaurant.

Ask Current Staff for Referrals

Referrals from current employees are often high-quality, as individuals typically recommend candidates they believe will fit well within the existing team and culture. Employees making recommendations will likely have firsthand knowledge of the candidate’s work ethic, skills, and attitude, contributing to a more reliable assessment of fit for the job role.

Implement a successful referral program by incentivizing your staff. You can do so through financial rewards, extra time off, or recognition for successful hires. Encourage your employees to recommend friends, former colleagues, or acquaintances from their professional network who they believe would be a great addition to your restaurant team.

Leverage Social Media

Social media offers a powerful means to reach a broad pool of potential candidates. You can use social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to showcase your restaurant’s culture and job openings effectively.

LinkedIn: A professional network like LinkedIn can be highly effective for posting job openings and scouting for potential candidates with specific skill sets. LinkedIn’s robust search feature lets you find professionals with the experience and qualifications necessary for your restaurant.
Facebook and Instagram: These platforms are ideal for showcasing your restaurant’s culture. Regularly post photos and videos of your team in action, highlighting the positive aspects of working at your restaurant. Use targeted ads to reach potential candidates in your area when you have job openings.
Twitter: Twitter is an excellent platform for quick, real-time updates. Use it to announce job openings, share updates, or retweet positive comments from employees. Using relevant hashtags can help increase the visibility of your posts.

When using these social media platforms for recruiting, engage with users who comment or share your posts. This interaction builds a more substantial online presence and makes potential candidates feel valued and seen. Social media platforms also offer a valuable opportunity for potential employees to interact with your brand before they even walk through the door, helping you to attract candidates who genuinely resonate with your brand and work culture.

Attend Job Fairs and Industry Events

Job fairs and industry events are excellent opportunities to supercharge your restaurant recruiting efforts. These gatherings offer direct access to many potential candidates, many of whom are actively seeking job opportunities. They provide an avenue for face-to-face interaction, facilitating a more personal and immediate connection than digital platforms.

Network actively with attendees at industry events, as it’s a prime opportunity to meet potential candidates and other industry professionals who could refer candidates to your restaurant. These events often attract passionate individuals who are involved in the industry and may be seeking new opportunities or who can connect you with potential candidates.

Offer Competitive Compensation and Benefits

Offering competitive compensation and benefits packages is a compelling strategy to attract and retain top restaurant talent. Salary is often a primary consideration for job seekers. However, comprehensive benefits can distinguish your restaurant from competitors and show potential employees you’re invested in their well-being and development.

A competitive compensation package can include a fair wage or salary, tips, and bonuses tied to individual or team performance. On the other hand, benefits could encompass health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, or even unique perks like staff meals, gym memberships, or professional development opportunities.

This comprehensive approach attracts quality candidates and boosts employee morale and job satisfaction, reducing employee turnover. It signals to potential employees that their efforts are valued and rewarded, fostering loyalty and commitment. It’s essential to clearly communicate these benefits during the recruitment process so candidates can fully appreciate the total value of their compensation package.

Create an Engaging Application Process

The application process is often a candidate’s first impression of your restaurant and can significantly influence their decision to apply. Make sure your application process is user-friendly, mobile-friendly, and engaging. Provide an option for candidates to upload their resume or link to their LinkedIn profile, as this can save them time and effort in filling out a lengthy application.

Take advantage of technology by including video interviews or assessments in the application process. This provides an opportunity for candidates to showcase their skills and personality and gives you a better understanding of their qualifications before scheduling an in-person interview. It can save time and effort for both parties, resulting in a more efficient and effective hiring process.

What Position is the Most Important Recruitment Decision in a Restaurant?

The most critical recruitment decision for a restaurant is management. Managers serve as the backbone of the restaurant, running operations, coordinating staff, and ensuring customer satisfaction. Their competence directly influences the restaurant’s atmosphere, efficiency, and, ultimately, profitability. Moreover, a proficient manager can mentor and uplift the staff, fostering a positive work environment conducive to high performance and staff retention.

Manager retention is critical in the restaurant industry. The constant presence of a reliable manager offers stability and consistency, which is beneficial for both the staff and the customers. Frequent management changes can disrupt the workflow and create uncertainty, which can negatively affect the morale and productivity of the team. That’s why it’s essential to have an effective management training program to ensure you instill managers with the right attitude and skills and aid in their professional development to avoid high turnover in these key positions.

People live paycheck-to-paycheck

Not just some people are living paycheck to paycheck. Most people are.

That’s right: around 64% of U.S. consumers are just getting by. Even more shocking, 51% of consumers who earn over six figures are still living paycheck to paycheck, despite their higher tax bracket.

It’s a major reason why employees need access to their earnings sooner rather than later. The pressure of watching your bank account slowly drain in the two weeks between payday is putting a lot of pressure on people, leading to a much greater demand for instant payments than ever before.

Instant payouts are now table stakes

A PYMNTS study found that people of all ages prefer to be paid out immediately, as well as some other interesting statistics:

When given the choice, 68% of respondents said they would opt for an instant pay out
40% of gig workers surveyed were willing to pay a fee for an instant disbursement
81% of respondents were willing to switch jobs to an employer that offers instant access to earned wages and tips

It’s safe to say instant payouts are becoming the expectation for today’s modern workforce. But not all instant payouts are created equal.

Consumers are much more likely to engage with an instant payout system if they aren’t required to share their bank account and routing numbers and can access funds with just their debit card credentials. Why? It’s faster, more convenient, and feels more secure.

Instant payouts and tip management: a perfect use case.

Instant payout innovation has come at the perfect time for the restaurant industry, which is struggling more than ever with the hassles and cost of cash.

If you’re in the restaurant biz, then you know: Most consumers pay with credit cards these days, not cash. That means there’s rarely enough cash on hand to pay out tips at the end of a shift. But employees still want and need instant access to their tip earnings.

Enter: instant payouts. Offering employees the option to receive their tip earnings directly to their bank of choice, the second their shift ends, can go a long way in improving employee satisfaction and ensuring their financial security.

But instant payouts are more than a work perk for employees. The operational benefits for employers range from reduced administrative burden and significant time savings to stronger compliance and streamlined reporting.

Modernizing your tip management strategy: 5 best practices

There are three key components to your tip management strategy:

Tip pool policy: How are you divvying up tips among your staff?
The payout method: How are you distributing those payments?
The systems and tech: What are you using to facilitate those payments?

Under the current circumstances, restaurant operators are under immense pressure to bring their tip management into the future.

5 best practices for tip management

Based on our experience working with restaurant operators across the country, we’ve found that these five practices are the perfect recipe for building a successful tip management system.

Determine the right model and method for your restaurant, based on your location and tech stack
Get a written tip policy (and get it legally approved)
Solicit employee feedback in a structured way
Leverage technology for efficiency, accuracy, and compliance
Don’t over-complicate (but do over-communicate!)

Tip management solution must-haves

When seeking a new tip management solution, make sure you carefully vet each system to see if it really meets your needs, or if it’ll be just as frustrating as cash. Here are a few suggestions for what should be on your checklist:

Instant payouts
Direct to bank of choice
Availability of employee funds
Payroll option
Integrations
Simple implementation + onboarding process
Around-the-clock customer service

Big emphasis on strong customer support teams. Restaurants and bars don’t have “typical” business hours, so neither should your tech support.

Bar Louie automates payouts with Kickfin

In a recent case study, we took a deep dive into our partnership with Bar Louie, a chain with over 60 locations that took advantage of our new integration with Toast. They made the switch from cash payouts to Kickfin’s instant, direct-to-bank payouts and haven’t looked back.

Two-minute tip-outs

Before Kickfin, managers spent an average of 45 minutes per shift working through Bar Louie’s complex tip out policy and counting cash. The tip pooling rules were important to them — it’s what makes the entire staff feel like they’re getting their fair share.

Using the Kickfin Toast integration, Bar Louie was able to automate the tip pool calculation process and send tips straight to employees in under two minutes – a potential annual savings of 15,000 labor hours across all locations.

>> See more customer success stories

Do you want to see these kinds of cost-saving results at your business? Let’s talk. Get a demo of Kickfin and see why restaurant owners and employees alike trust us to manage their tips.

Product and Company News

New Tip Calculation Features You Don’t Want To Miss

Big news: Kickfin’s best-in-class tip calculation tool has some exciting new bells and whistles.

If you’re already using Kickfin’s tip pool calculator, then you know how much time and hassle you’re saving by automating everything. (And if you’re not? Head over to our tip pooling software page to see how it works!)

As we partner with more restaurants to bring their tip management into the future, we’re continuing to innovate our product so we can address their biggest pain points.

In this case, that means enhancing our tip pooling features so you can auto-calculate tip amounts even for the most complex tip pool or share policies.

Check out a few of our latest features that will make tip calculations easier than ever.

🕺 Splitting large party tips

If your restaurant often hosts large parties, you know that the tip share can get confusing. Say one server is taking care of a party of 40 with a bartender assigned to only make drinks for that party. Meanwhile, the server has a few other two-top tables that are getting drinks from the main service bar. At the end of the night, how do you ensure that the large-party bartender gets their fair share of the tip out (without spending an hour on your phone calculator)?

Kickfin can now automate that process for you, alleviating questions from your event bartender and saving time and effort on the part of your managers.

📲 Seamless POS integrations

Kickfin is partnering with the top POS systems to integrate seamlessly with your existing restaurant tech — including Toast, Heartland, Shift4 and more.

DID YOU KNOW? Kickfin integration users get access to new product features first, like our new tip-out transparency tool — which allows your staff to log into their Kickfin accounts and see exactly how their tips have been split between team members. An added layer of visibility can go a long way in cultivating trust (and eliminating those pesky tip disputes).

💸 (Re)Allocation of manager tips

We’re always listening to feedback to improve the Kickfin experience, and this one goes out to all of our restaurant partners who asked us to streamline the manager tip reallocation process.

>>Learn more about managers and tipping laws

In most cases, managers are not allowed to earn tips since they are salaried employees. But we all know that managers often step in and take care of tables to help servers get out of the weeds. Well-meaning guests will most likely leave a tip, not knowing that the manager technically can’t accept them — so where does that money go?

Kickfin now features a default pool, where tips “paid” to a manager are automatically redistributed to tipped staff based on your restaurant’s tip policy.

🤓 Improved labor data accuracy

We all know how easy it is for an employee to forget to clock out after a long shift. And sure, they aren’t going to get paid for a 16-hour overnight shift, but when payday comes around, those extra hours create a nightmare for your payroll team.

With Kickfin, all employees are required to be clocked out in order to finalize payments — so you’ll catch the labor data mistake long before your payroll team has to sort it out.

🔑 Even better security

We’re committed to protecting your business (and your employees’ hard-earned money), so we’re adding an extra layer of security for certain transactions.

You can now enable double approval of payments that meet certain conditions:

First payment for new employees
Employees getting their first payout in X number of days
Employees receiving more than X payouts in a 24-hour period.

With these extra guardrails in place, you can always be sure that the right money is going to the right person. Reach out to our support team to configure your custom security measures.

Using Kickfin is a win-win for operators, managers, and employees alike. Restaurateurs save on cash delivery and labor costs, managers shave hours off their workload, and servers have the same instant payment that they’re used to — without the hassle and uncertainty of cash.

Want to learn more about Kickfin? Let us show you the ropes with a 10-minute demo!

Hiring, Training and Retention, Restaurant Management

Kickfin Announces Integration with Toast

You heard it here first: 2024 is the year of integrations.

First up — Toast! A trailblazer for cloud-based restaurant management technology, Toast is a favorite POS system for restaurants, food trucks, and bars. You probably know them best for being the first to create handheld POS devices, drastically changing the entire restaurant ecosystem. To make life easier for their customers, Toast partnered with Kickfin to create an integration that makes tip pooling, tip distribution, and calculation smoother.

As restaurant tech innovators ourselves, this partnership is the perfect fit for Kickfin.

Our goal at Kickfin is always to save time for managers, prevent loss for operators, and create more financial freedom for hospitality employees through pioneering technology that digitizes many of the analog processes that the restaurant industry is built on.

As a member of the Toast Partner Ecosystem, we’ll be able to deliver our product to Toast customers and modernize their tip management systems with ease. Using technology that they’re already familiar with, Toast customers can reap the benefits of Kickfin with minimal ramp-up upon implementation.

“No two restaurants split tips the same way, but invariably, it takes too long and involves too much risk,” said Justin Roberts, the co-CEO of Kickfin. “This integration allows for the utmost customization with a near-zero learning curve — truly the best of both worlds for restaurants that want to save time, reduce labor costs and make life easier for their team.”

And one of their partners is already enjoying the ROI with Kickfin. Bar Louie takes great pride in making tip distribution equitable for all of their employees, so they rely on a complex tip pooling system to ensure fair pay. Prior to using Kickfin, managers at each of their 60 locations spent 45 minutes at the end of every shift to make calculations and divvy out funds to all of their servers. Now, they’ve streamlined their tip-out process with Kickfin — and managers are doing the same work in less than a minute! That’s an annual average of 15,000 hours saved across their entire chain.

>> Hear more Kickfin success stories

After implementing Kickfin, managers can spend their time on what matters most: delivering excellent customer service. That means more table touches, more support for your staff, and more time to focus on server training.

With managers spending more time on the floor (instead of counting cash in the back), you’ll see better customer reviews, better service, and increased sales — all from digitizing your tip-outs with Kickfin.

We’re excited about our new partnership with Toast and the opportunity to make digital tipping a reality for their customers. For restaurants who aren’t using Toast, don’t worry! We look forward to providing similar integrations across the restaurant tech industry.

Want to see these results for yourself? Find out how to become a Kickfin integration partner or check out a demo of our platform.

Product and Company News

Kickfin Makes Inc.’s List of Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies in the Southwest

No growing pains here!

We’re thrilled to announce that Inc. listed Kickfin in their list of the top 10 fastest growing companies in the Southwest. (In fact, we earned the #1 spot in the software category and were listed as #9 overall!) We’re honored to be included alongside innovative companies that are making a big difference in our region.

Inc. measured Kickfin’s growth from 2020 to 2022 — which wasn’t an easy time for the restaurant industry, to say the least. In spite of the challenges posed by the pandemic, restaurant concepts across the country embraced Kickfin’s technology.

As a group, the 2024 Inc. honorees averaged 136% growth and created 17,606 new jobs over a two-year period. Individually, Kickfin grew by a whopping 1,304% (yes, really!).

We want to recognize and thank both our amazing customers and the Kickfin team for being part of our success story and allowing us to be a part of theirs.

Our Customers

For years, restaurants manually calculated and paid out cash tips — despite the increasing hassle and liability those old-school methods entail. It’s not because operators are tech-averse; there simply wasn’t a good way to automate the process that didn’t create new friction or require new workarounds.

That’s precisely why we developed Kickfin. Of course, we’re proud of what we built and the team behind it (more on that below). But we owe a great deal of our success to the customers who trusted us enough to give Kickfin a shot — especially those early adopters who are now some of our longest-standing customers.

There’s a leap of faith involved when you partner with a vendor and layer in new technology, particularly when it impacts something as important and sensitive as how you pay your people. We don’t take that lightly, and we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve each and every customer who’s been on this journey with us.

>> Hear from our customers about their experiences with Kickfin

Our Team

Every person on our team wholeheartedly believes in our mission and vision for the future. In short: we’re here to make the tip management process insanely easy for everyone so that paying out your people is (almost!) as great as getting paid.

As backstory: Our co-founders, Brian and Justin, came up with the idea for Kickfin while dining out together and noticing that an armored car was dropping off cash. They asked why a restaurant would need a cash delivery when most patrons pay by card; the manager explained the cash was needed to pay out tips at the end of the shift. The inefficiency (and expense, and risk…) of that process was a lightbulb moment for Brian and Justin.

They set out to build a team who not only understood the problem, but could think critically and creatively about a solution — and bring it to life.

From sales and marketing to product and support, every Kickfin employee has had a hand in the growth and success of our company, thanks to their passion for our purpose and their commitment to being best in class.

We’re proud of what we’ve achieved thus far, and we’re excited to continue collaborating with our customers, innovating on their behalf, and taking Kickfin to the next level together. Onward and upward!