Our client is an American cuisine restaurant based in Saudi Arabia that chose us to recruit candidates for various positions that they needed to fill as soon as possible. These positions included Head Chef, Management Accountant, Pastry/Bakery Chef, Captain Waiter, and Waiter.
Rise to the Challenge
Time here was critical, as our client gave us a limited time frame to recruit the best candidates in the targeted pools. This made us push for more energy and explore multiple portals and job boards to get more talents within the given time frame.
Action
We looked for the candidates using every possible professional platform and referral putting the client’s needs in our eyes. For the Head Chef, It was one of the most interesting hires we managed, where the Head Chef is responsible for tracking orders and determining the quality of American dishes served.
The restaurant offers dine-in service, so it needed a Captain Waiter to manage orders and distribute them among the Waiters, determine the shifts each Waiter should cover, and make sure that all orders were delivered to the right table at a suitable time, without the occurrence of any delay.
On another hand, the suitable Waiter should be qualified and adapted to all forms of hospitality, we looked for Waiters who worked in well-known hotels and restaurants. The client also requested suitable Management Accountant candidates from us. We sourced local Management Accountants who live in Saudi Arabia.
For Chefs and Waiters, we sourced candidates from India, the Philippines, and various regions in Asia. The Chefs were skilful individuals who worked in big restaurant chains and had the ability to cook new dishes, and easily construct menus on ingredients mix efficiency and perfect pricing that results in more revenue.
We also looked for candidates who were able to create both delicious bakery and pastry goods. Our client needed a Pastry/Bakery Chef who was able to innovate new desserts and price them accurately to put them on the menu.
Methodology
The right Captain Waiter and Waiter candidates should know how to communicate and know the culture of Arab Gulf countries. We focused on candidates originating from Asia, for their professionality and outstanding skills in hosting guests and respecting their orders, and also we sourced only those who had previous experience working in Gulf countries.
The restaurant offers beef dishes, so the Chef should know everything about the beef whether it is well done, rare, or medium. The Head Chef should have been experienced with temperatures and their effect on cooking food in the oven.
Besides the technical skills we reviewed in them, the Chef should have been a determined leader who knows how to manage the staff, checking whether all cooking essentials are of quality or not was his/her responsibility, as well as knowing how to store cooking nutrients in a dry place away from dampness to keep them fresh and protect them against rot. He/she was responsible for keeping the place safe against fire accidents considering safety regulations.
We evaluated Management Accountants, we screened qualified candidates who worked in restaurants and know how operations and payrolls in a restaurant are managed, he/she knows the major expenses the restaurant pays off and checks invoices for customers to make sure that all orders are covered. As well as, checking inventory and stock.
Project Deliverables
Within a 1-month duration, we were able to screen best-fit Head Chef candidates, interview them, and construct our shortlist of the most qualified of them in addition to our recommendations and comments. For other positions, we recruited candidates and we were able to fill them within a 3-week period each, where we scanned the candidates, set the interviews, and made calls that gave us a 360 view of each candidate.
