Hospitality in the News | When to Outsource Hiring Needs

Every week we comb through the news to find employment trends affecting the hospitality industry so you don’t have to. This week’s Hospitality in the News topic: how to know when to outsource hiring needs.

When you have hiring needs, what does the process look like when trying to find your next hire? Most managers would probably put out an ad, wait for candidates to apply, and interview from that group of applicants. Either you get lucky and find someone great, or you keep interviewing and cross your fingers that you’ll find someone who can do the job. Does this sound like the best process to you?   

In the hiring environment we’re currently in – especially in the hospitality industry – it’s not enough to ‘sit around and wait’ with the job market as saturated as it is. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that over the last 12 months, leisure and hospitality has added an average of 77,000 jobs per month. With unemployment hovering around 3.7%, it’s only natural to wonder where candidates will come from when you need to add a key player to your team.   

Finding a recruiting partner is the most effective way to grow your team in the current hiring market. A full-service partner (like LGC) will handle the recruiting, screening, and initial interviewing; all you’ll have to do is share the job description and complete the final interviews. Partnering with a recruiting firm reduces the time it takes to make a good hire, but that’s not the only benefit.   

You’ll also have access to candidates you may not have had access to before. In LGC’s case, we’re tapped into a nationwide network of hospitality professionals we’ve been building and managing since our founding in 2003. That means that our clients not only have access to a diverse candidate pool, but also one of the most sought-after groups: the passive candidate.   

When to Outsource Hiring Needs  

Though some people opt to outsource all their hiring needs, others choose to do it when the situation arises. If you’re trying to figure out when to outsource hiring needs, start by thinking of specific ‘events’ that make hiring more of a challenge. These events may include:   

Your company is rapidly expanding.  

Is your company growing at a pace that’s tough to keep up with? Consider the difficulty of making one executive level hire –– now multiply that by 5. Sound easy? No, it doesn’t. If you need to make multiple hires (especially at that level) it only makes sense to find a partner you can trust who understands your needs.  

There’s uncertainty surrounding the internal hiring team.  

If you’ve had a tough time with hiring in the past, the issue may lie with your internal hiring team. Unfortunately, when playing ‘hiring telephone’ some details may get lost in the shuffle. If you have to relay details to HR, and then HR has to relay those details to a recruiter, details may get misconstrued. And creating an accurate job description is a crucial aspect of making the right hire.   

Sometimes hiring managers/internal recruitment teams are too far removed from daily operations to conduct an accurate and efficient candidate screening. If they don’t know what questions to ask or how to explain the job responsibilities and requirements, the screening process will be seriously impacted – which may cause you to lose out on great candidates.   

You need to conduct a confidential search.  

Occasionally you might have hiring needs that include an air of secrecy or confidentiality, especially for C-suite positions. If you don’t have a huge professional network, how will you spread the word about this amazing opportunity? One of the biggest indicators of when to outsource hiring needs is when you know ahead of time that it will be a difficult-to-fill position. The need for confidentiality certainly falls under that umbrella.  

The position has hyper-specific requirements.   

Some positions in the hospitality industry require unique expertise that you don’t often come across on the job boards. These positions with hyper-specific requirements also fall under the aforementioned ‘difficult-to-fill’ umbrella. If you’re stressed about recruiting for a position before you’ve even begun, that’s a good indicator of when to outsource your needs.   

There’s been high turnover in this role.   

A salaried role that continuously has high turnover should tell you something. Because there has to be a reason employees won’t stay. Sometimes this happens because the job description doesn’t accurately reflect the job. But more often than not, it’s because the candidate wasn’t the right culture fit.   

Being the right culture fit means employees’ beliefs and behaviors align with the actions and values of the company. It’s more focused on how your soft skills jibe with the rest of the team rather than how your technical expertise fits in. Do you use the same communication styles? Is the employee an independent thinker while the rest of the team enjoys more collaboration? Are you invested in social issues while the prospective employer tends to take a more hands off approach?   

These are all important questions to ask, but not everyone has the time or knowledge to ask them (and assess the answers) up front. If the answers don’t align, that’s what causes high turnover. Perfect technical experience can’t make up for a poor culture fit.   

Key Takeaways  

Knowing when to outsource hiring needs is the first step in being proactive with your staffing plan. Though there’s no wrong time to outsource hiring, there are a few events that indicate it’s time to think outside of the box when hiring. These include:  

• Rapid company expansion  
• Lack of certainty/trust with internal recruiting team  
• Need for confidentiality  
• Hiring for specialized position  
• Historically high turnover 

Once you know when to outsource hiring needs, you need to find a recruiting partner that you can trust. LGC’s Permanent Placement division will take the necessary time to learn about your hiring goals and create a plan for finding the employees that you need. Let us show you why LGC has been the go-to recruiting and staffing firm for the hospitality industry for the last two decades. Contact us today.