HR Case Study – Recruitment for Cork and Bean

– delivering candidates in a tough hospitality market

– the importance of an employer’s role in an efficient recruitment process

Cork & Bean, an independent Coffee and Wine Bar in Romsey, engaged Marta Ulrich, our dedicated Recruitment Consultant to work with them on filling two hospitality roles in a challenging employment market. With Marta’s expert support, Cork & Bean made two successful offers for their Front of House role and a third offer for a Cook position.

The UK’s hospitality industry is experiencing some of the highest levels of with job vacancies since records began, with BREXIT and COVID-19 exacerbating a situation that has been brewing for a while. As a result, businesses reopening after lockdown are finding themselves short on team and struggling to capitalise on the much-needed pent-up demand from consumers. Small independent businesses like Cork & Bean could be particularly vulnerable to a shortage of good candidates, but with help from Pure Human Resources, they took the right steps to address the challenge.

With good quality candidates essentially in the driving seat and able to have their pick of jobs, the team at Cork & Bean realised that, now more than ever, the way they managed their recruitment process would be vital in ensuring they have the edge over the multitude of other hospitality venues competing for staff.
Our specialist recruitment consultant, Marta, was able to work with them to ensure an effective process led to the successful placement of three high quality employees.

Using a very clear brief from Cork & Bean, defining their role requirements, and highlighting the key things that made Cork & Bean a particularly attractive employer, Marta was able to develop job adverts that attracted a high-quality selection of applicants to shortlist on the client’s behalf. Offering generous benefits of genuine value and demonstrating a consideration for their employee’s work/ life balance helped Cork & Bean to stand out from competing employers.

“Cork and Bean recognised the importance of acting swiftly in engaging with candidates”

Taking the lead from Marta’s efficient candidate management and shortlisting process, Cork & Bean recognised the importance of acting swiftly in engaging with all the candidates, ensuring they felt valued – something that is all too often overlooked. In this current market, candidates will likely have multiple applications underway and sometime several interviews, or even offers lined-up. As with the management at Cork & Bean, for most small businesses, the recruitment ‘hat’ is just one of many roles they must wear, with numerous other vital tasks competing for their attention. Engaging a recruitment professional, such as Marta at Pure Human Resources, alleviates much of the time-consuming process of initial advertising and shortlisting, however if companies then fail to move promptly with their side of the process once candidates are in place for interview, they are at real risk of losing out on ideal candidates who are keen get to work and are ready to take the first best offer that comes.

Something else that Marta was able to advise the team at Cork & Bean on was that, whilst there are certain must-have criteria for all candidates, some flexibility is required in the overall person specification. A willingness to provide additional training for candidates that showed strong potential and the right attitude, but didn’t necessarily have the exact-match experience, meant Marta could put forward a wider selection of candidates that she identified, having spoken with them on a screening call, as a great fit.

Cork & Bean’s subsequent expediency in interviewing Marta’s handpicked candidates led to them making swift offers – all of which were successfully accepted. Marta cites Cork & Bean’s open, clear and frequent communication with her and the candidates as key factors in the success of the process.

Marta Ulrich is an experienced Recruitment Consultant who heads up Pure Human Resources recruitment services.   We offer a Fixed Fee Recruitment package which includes creating job adverts and promoting these through appropriate channels, managing applications via our Applicant Tracking System, shortlisting candidates to your criteria and contacting unsuccessful candidates once you have made an offer.