The current recruitment scene in the Indian hospitality segment is not exactly promising. With turnover rates reaching upwards of 30%, and a fragmented recruitment process that resembles a jigsaw puzzle, both restaurants and jobseekers find themselves navigating a complex journey in the country to follow their professional passions.
Historically, the process of recruiting hospitality staff has been a disparate mix of approaches: relying on referrals, walk-ins, WhatsApp forwards, and third-party websites. Typically, restaurateurs start by crafting a job description and reaching out to their network for referrals. If this approach proves ineffective, they then turn to national job boards, often attracting candidates from outside the hospitality industry. As time becomes a constraint, they resort to WhatsApp forwards and agencies to manage the recruitment process. However, this patchwork, while useful, can result in a limited candidate pool and perpetuate biases within the workforce.
“We find ourselves recruiting every month for both new and existing roles due to our expansion plans and the high attrition rate,” confesses Pritpal Singh from Toscano India to the Recipeat team.
Restaurant groups without a strong HR team find themselves in soup when it comes to recruitment. The presence of multiple recruitment channels and different requirements makes sourcing and screening a tedious task. “At Recipeat, we are streamlining all recruitment channels under one dashboard and help recruiters seamlessly track their candidates through different stages” quoted Ramvaibhav Kumaran, co-founder of Recipeat.
With Recipeat, restaurants can now use a singular smart link across all their recruitment channels to source candidates and screen them in one place. The platform identifies the source of the job seeker and helps the recruiter connect with the candidate instantly.
Moreover, high turnover rates in the industry mean that restaurants are in a constant state of hiring. Restaurants employ various tactics in their quest for suitable candidates, ranging from participating in university job fairs to leveraging the power of social media platforms like Instagram. Additionally, they often resort to enlisting the services of costly recruitment agencies in the pursuit of talent. Facing a scarcity of local candidates, some establishments dispatch their lone HR representative to universities and training centres to personally select potential hires. However, this approach is not without its risks, particularly as hotel groups maintain direct partnerships with educational institutions, facilitating preferential placement of candidates based on brand affiliations. Thus, for independent restaurants, securing suitable staff becomes akin to navigating a precarious gamble amid a landscape fraught with challenges, including exorbitant fees and a lack of transparency and accountability.
For example, in Bangalore, a tech-savvy city known for its bustling food scene and youthful demographics, restaurants prioritise agencies, social media and walk-ins to attract fresh talent. Meanwhile, in the cosmopolitan hub of Mumbai, renowned for its vibrant culinary culture and diverse population, establishments may lean more heavily on traditional methods like job fairs and personal referrals to source candidates. Despite these regional variations, the underlying challenges of turnover and recruitment persist across both cities, demanding innovative solutions for sustainable staffing.
With Recipeat, their clients are able to tackle these challenges by finding all levels of hospitality candidates in one place. Just across Bangalore and Mumbai, Recipeat’s database spans over 30,000+ candidates for recruiters to source from.
Apart from these, agencies in particular, pose a significant problem in the hospitality industry. Many recruitment agencies operate in a fragmented manner, each with different fees and replacement policies. This lack of standardisation not only complicates the hiring process but also leads to confusion and frustration for both restaurants and jobseekers. Moreover, some agencies exploit their position by charging exorbitant fees or engaging in unethical practices like exploiting the replacement policy, further exacerbating the challenges faced by the industry.
“We've partnered with over 48 agencies spread across Karnataka, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra," Adrien Jasserand explains. Recipeat is currently running pilots to organise the local agencies by serving as the intermediary between restaurants and these hiring agencies, offering a three-month guarantee and a consistent flow of demand and qualified job seekers for both the stakeholders. With these partnerships, Recipeat has seen its job seeker database grow by 60% MoM. Simultaneously, Recipeat collaborates closely with agencies to ensure adherence to our standards and procedures, facilitating prompt payouts and redistributing rejected candidates across multiple listings." Through this initiative, Recipeat has streamlined the sourcing and placement process for both restaurants and agencies, bringing much-needed organisation to the sector.
“Restaurants can now say No to managing multiple platforms or drowning in paperwork – Recipeat streamlines the process, saving time and resources,” said Ramvaibhav Kumaran, co-founder at Recipeat.
Automation is at the heart of what Recipeat does. Through WhatsApp, they simplify interview scheduling and communication with candidates, making the process more convenient for everyone involved. Candidates no longer have to navigate the hiring maze alone – they simply submit their resumes and get matched with a recruiter.
In an interview, Priyaa Ranjan, Head of Guest Relations and Operations at Monkey Bar, shared her experience with Recipeat's recruitment solution. She highlighted the challenges She faced before turning to Recipeat.
"With Recipeat, I found the perfect job for me. I was matched with Monkey Bar in less than a week, and both of us felt it was the right fit. I couldn't be happier," Priyaa Ranjan expressed the efficiency of Recipeat's platform in connecting job seekers with suitable positions.
Overall, Recipeat isn't just another recruitment tool – it's the standardisation recruitment needed for the hospitality industry. They're reshaping the way restaurants hire their staff. Recipeat is one of the 6 promising startups under Gruhas Gusto - A 6-month accelerator program by Gruhas, Jubilant Bhartia Family Office, Sabre Ventures (DLF Family Office), and Anthill Ventures.
No VCCircle journalist was involved in the creation/production of this content.
