The Restaurant Resume Search & My Experiences (Part I)
Finally, I have some down-time at 11PM at night to write about the most exciting and enthralling topic of all…the Restaurant Resume Search!
CAUTION BEFORE YOU READ this is going to be a very long blog post, if you care not to read my rambling in these next few paragraphs just scroll down for the meat and potatoes of this blog (to the useful list of different online restaurant resume search sites out there and my review of them). Anyways, this blogpost goes out to all my recruiters and restaurant owners/managers! But before I do, I’ll tell you a little about myself and why I’m writing this…
So First, I’m Matthew Rodgers CEO of Restaurant Zones ResuBox. ResuBox is a resume aggregator that gathers resumes from many different sources off and online. I’ve been working on this hiring tool for about half a year now (specifically a resume search for the restaurant & hospitality industry) and have been refining it over and over! My team has learned a ton from working with many different clientele from small restaurants, to restaurant chains, to staffing agencies and recruiters and to help them get the right talent to staff their restaurant. Second, what inspired me to write this was a conversation I got into with my close friend Jordan Press who is CEO at Atlas Scientific . The two of us, many nights, call each other for hours and talk about each others businesses. He explains to me about the different things he engineers in particular chemical sensors for robots, and I explain to him the world of resume searches, classifieds, and job ads. Two very opposite worlds (obviously) but we get to nerd out and get a kick out of it. Anyways, I was explaining to him a few of the basics about what a resume search tool is and the different resume databases out there. As I was talking to him I was realizing how many idiosyncrasies there are when it comes to finding job-seekers online and what some of the in’s and out’s were. So in that moment I thought, well why haven’t I written some of this down???
S0 in today’s blog I will go through my experiences with many different resume searches…which have been interesting, and have yielded many different results. I’ll try to keep it basic for now, since this is part one of a series I would like to write. But I’ll go over the functionality to the quality, or to the freshness of the resume, to all sorts pros and cons that come along with the “online resume search tools”. My hopes are that this post will serve as a basic overview of where an employer/recruiter can go to find job seekers in the restaurant industry and their resumes on the web. I’m going to go over the tools that I have used personally for our own company, and breakdown and review them (please note all of the tools are related to restaurant and hospitality resume search tools, and no other industry).
So, let’s get this party started!
(Note this list is no particular order, it’s very random)
1) ZipRecruiter Resume Search (http://ziprecruiter.com/) – ZipRecruiter, a great tool that posts across multiple job boards and has a resume search of 5 million+ candidates. Craziness! In terms of the functionality of the search function for resumes, I find it very impressive. It’s intuitive simple and I really like how you can combine different keywords separately. The actual search is accurate and effective. Another benefit is how easily you can adjust the distance as well in the search. In terms of actual restaurant resumes I would say that ZipRecruiter definitely has a large quantity of them in the system. However, when it comes down to the actual quality of the resumes, I have found that they aren’t the most top notch. For roles we have filled they have only occasionally come from ZipRecruiter. When it comes to restaurant and hospitality resumes, I would say they have a good amount probably 500,000+ or more! Personally, we have used them to help our clients and I have noticed some good candidates for cashiers, bartenders, servers, banquet servers, and the occasional General Manager / Restaurant Manager. I would say it’s effective more in the fast-casual space. One complaint I have is I have noticed are a TON of foreigner resumes from India, Pakistan, etc. (nothing against these countries!) but sometimes I wonder if people really want to hire these sort of applicants or how they even got in the system in the first place (are some of them spam?). Also, all of their resumes are available in .pdf format and contain candidate contact information.
Pricing starts at $99/month for 50 resume views per month
2) HCareers (http://www.hcareers.com/) – HCareers Resume Database search has about 300,000 to 450,000 resumes depending on the week or month. Most of the resumes consist of hotel professionals and are related to the hospitality industry. However, when I narrow down the search to restaurant only, you can expect to see about 36,000 restaurant professionals seeking employment. Functionality wise, a few pluses include the filtering. I think its on the right track, however its glitchy and sometimes doesn’t work 🙁 …if it did it would be awesome! I also like how you can filter by “local candidates” to show you job-seekers close to the location that you are searching. In terms of the quality of the resumes many are outdated and still in year 2014/2013. I would also add that HCareers tends to work better with larger cities, and in the smaller ones it can be tough to find the right resume. Overall, I do find that when it comes to Sous Chefs, Executive Chefs, Restaurant Managers, and General Managers the quality is there. I have heard from clients that have successfully filled some positions in those roles. But again they were mostly in larger cities. Also, all of their resumes are available in .pdf format and contain candidate contact information.
Pricing starts at $750/month for unlimited resumes views
3) CareerBuilder (http://www.careerbuilder.com/) – I just signed up to try out their resume search tool and I have been enjoying it so far! The functionality is awesome and resumes are fairly fresh! In terms of restaurant professionals in the resume search tool, I noticed around 66,000…which isn’t super up there but definitely decent. One of my favorite functions in this database is the ability to filter resumes by how fresh there are. Meaning you can narrow down your search down to “1-Week” old resumes, “1-Month”, “2-Month”, “3-Month” and so on. In addition, CareerBuilder’s system also takes note of salary ranges (for some resumes) and desired role, some other useful details. The search is very responsive, and tends to be pretty accurate. I have noticed a fair amount of resumes in smaller cities and for roles like Sous Chefs, Executive Chefs, and Management. I will also note that the majority % of the resumes are downloadable via Word document. While the rest are dispersed amongst PDF, .TXT, .RTF files and contain candidate contact information.
Pricing starts at $430/month for 50 resume views per month
4) Restaurant Zone’s ResuBox – (http://www.restaurantzone.org/) – A resume search tool that is exclusive for the restaurant & hospitality industry that currently holds 404,414 (and growing) resumes in their system. I’m definitely proud of it and so is my team:) . As mentioned before, this is my companies creation…which is most definitely a work in progress! I feel happy to say that we have resumes across the country in various locations & even in Canada. The main focus has been in major cities, but we have had clients successfully hire in smaller cities as well. One of things I like about our database is it’s a large aggregator and growing! Meaning that the resumes come directly from the candidates themselves (that get directly submitted to us – email or online), resumes from our restaurant job board, college career-center resumes, social media, 99+ popular job boards, large resume databases (like the ones in this post and more), search engines, and many more! My main goal is to make this the largest Restaurant & Hospitality Resume Search on the web. Secondly, one aspect I’m a fan of is our companies ability to work closely with our clientele. Since we are small company we place a huge emphasis on customer service and working extremely closely with our clients (we give out our personal contact information, and are easily accessible). I make sure my team get their hands dirty, and help our customers with finding the perfect candidate (since we have many resources at our disposal aka. external job board/resume access, social media connections, programming tools, etc.)…It’s almost like getting an assistant recruiter, except its more like a virtual assistant recruiter. I have noticed many of our clients enjoy having someone to help them fill say their next Restaurant Manager or Chef. Anyways, moving on to some downsides… and like any search tool, there are always a need for improvements. Some of the ones our team is working on right now, are the core functionality of the search of ResuBox. It’s lacking more filters, and search tool functionality! Second, is adding a larger variety of resumes not coming from online…meaning going to more Culinary Schools, Colleges, and other places to help the job-seekers out and get them in our restaurant resume search and hired! In summary, our resumes tend to be great for roles like Restaurant Managers, General Managers, Chefs, Line Cooks, and even candidates in the Grocery Chain/Store space. Also note, that the vast majority of resumes are in .PDF format and others in .DOC format and all resumes contain candidate contact information.
(Has a Free-Trial) & Pricing starts at $99/month for unlimited resume views
5) Indeed (http://indeed.com/) – Unfortunately with this tool, I am just getting acquainted with it so far, so I don’t have much commentary on this (I’ll get back to you with more details on this in part II). I will say I’m very impressed by the sheer quantity of resumes. I mean, its Indeed…Duh. But most positions I type-in I notice that results pull. Note that all emails are private on Indeed, and you can only contact them through Indeed and you are charged per contact made. I have had one client complain to me about the freshness of the resumes. But that was just in a particular region (Savannah & Hilton Head). All resumes are downloadable in .PDF format but do not include contact information.
Pricing starts at $1 per resume
6) Monster (http://www.monster.com/)- I haven’t had much of a chance to dive deep into this one yet (again in part II I’ll go into it). From what I hear from our clients they have complained about the price and it not being worth it. For job postings in particular one client reported that they have been burned on it as well for different restaurant positions in the San Francisco Bay Area. But I’m not going to judge it based on a few comments. On our end we have had a few quality resumes from Monster that have helped us help our clients. But like I said, I can’t give much here…next time I’ll be in touch with a more thorough review.
Pricing starts at $700/month for 100 resume views per month
Anyways, it’s getting pretty late here and I think this is all I got left in the tank. But I’ll write another series on the restaurant resume search, following up on this and updating everyone on my findings and search for the best tool out there to find candidates (and will continue to refine our product, as best as we could!). But if you got this far, I would love to hear your experiences…do share! Okay, bye for now!
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