How We Helped Hire Expert Chefs With 80% Time, 40% Cost Savings Despite Strict Screening

Reducing Expert Chef Talent Acquisition Costs and Time

Summary:

An international hotel reputed for its excellent but affordable services was looking for Japanese chefs for its South Asian hotel chains. The hotel did not find the chefs they were seeking despite 6+ months of recruitment efforts—one of the reasons being a tricky and tough screening process.

The hotel came into contact with Alliance Recruitment Agency. Our chef recruitment services helped them fulfill various goals. Here’s the case study.

Client

The client company had an international chain of budget hotels in Several Asian countries. Known for its affordable but efficient services and amenities, the hotel brand was enhancing its food services efficiency, offering a wide range of cuisine.

The hotel’s restaurants were adding more Asia-Pacific menus to attract more travelers from the region and had already put in place marketing strategies focusing on Japanese leisure and business travelers.

Vacancies and Requirements

1. The recruitment objective was to hire Japanese chefs at several hotels.
2. The client had five open positions that needed to be filled within three months.
3. The positions required specialized experience and skills:
   • Sushi Chef experience of 7+ years
   • Ability to manage sushi kitchen operations and plan enhancements
   • Experience in creating multiple Japanese cuisine items in addition to Sushi
   • People management skills to lead under chefs and kitchen staff for daily work as well as various promotional events
   • A degree in culinary arts from a recognized institution In Asia-Pacific or in the US
4. The position involved travelling to different client locations as and when required.

Challenges:

• Tough Screening Tests: The screening involved very detailed, and exhaustive interview rounds divided into multiple sessions. The interviewers had a very strict outlook and often rejected applicants within minutes.
• Sample Food Preparation That Required Traveling: The interview panel at the client end was insistent on personal supervision of sample food preparation based on a fixed menu. Most good chefs who fit the criteria on experience, skills, and certifications were unwilling to travel for this screening as they already had work commitments.
• The client was not able to find the right talent who could successfully clear all interview rounds, especially the sample food preparation round, despite 5+ months of recruitment efforts.

The Solutions And Approach

Alliance Recruitment Agency chef recruiters were successful in finding Japanese Chefs who passed all the interview rounds satisfactorily. Our chef recruitment consultants also found a way to solve the sample food preparation bottlenecks.

Within two months, the hotel had hired five chefs and was very happy with the way in which we conducted the recruitment process and troubleshooted issues.

• Following a strategically done market research, we enhanced our talent profile and search parameters and criteria and leveraged advanced tools to mine our network of databases for candidates with the best-match profiles.
• Our chef recruiters narrowed the search down to 20 candidates who seemed best fit for the client’s organization and the specified Japanese chef positions.
• Our chef recruitment consultant prepared a detailed session with chef recruiters to help them enhance their candidate engagement in order to assess and evoke candidate interest in the client’s job scenarios and the terms of screening and offer.
• Around twelve Japanese chef candidates agreed to consider the jobs, and virtual interview sessions were scheduled.
• Nine candidates were selected following the interview rounds. Their background checks and reference checks revealed a solid track record of several accomplishments.
• As the selected chefs were not open to travelling for sample food preparation, our chef recruiters proposed a virtual conference tool-based sample food preparation session based on the same menu.
• Our virtual conference tool included features like 360-degree views, HD video quality, and options to zoom in on any point.
• The hotel’s interview panel was happy to conduct the sample food preparation using the proposed virtual supervision method.
• The 5-6 Japanese Chefs shortlisted from the nine candidates were selected for the food prep round, and all chefs were selected.
• We arranged detailed negotiation sessions through video-communication tools and helped the hire a chef understand the monetary benefits and the terms of the offer. Being an affordable hotel service provider, the compensation package was tricky, with fixed salary and benefits comprising 60% of the package, and the rest based on profit-sharing from the restaurant in which they were placed.

Outcomes for the Client:

1. Our chef recruitment service enabled clients to optimize recruitment methods by including mobile-based pre-recorded presentations by chefs and mobile-based recruitment management techniques.
2. The hotel benefited from 40% cost savings through our services compared to recruitment costs incurred earlier,
3. Recruitment time also got reduced by 80% in comparison to efforts made earlier.

About Alliance Recruitment Agency

We are a wide network of recruitment teams offering a range of manpower sourcing and recruitment solutions across industry sectors and geographies worldwide.

Our ability to source highly specialized candidates within a short period of time is one of our key strengths. Our extensive recruitment experience also makes us an affordable recruitment partner, as we are able to get a lot done with less time, investment, and hassles.