Every restaurant owner has lived the same week: a chef de partie resigns on Tuesday, the summer menu launches on Friday, and the job ad you posted on Wednesday has produced two applications, both from people who have never worked a service.
Kitchen hiring rarely fails because good cooks do not exist. It fails because the good ones are already employed, they are not browsing job boards at 11pm after a double shift, and by the time your process reaches them they have already accepted something else.
Why the usual channels underperform in kitchens
- Your best candidates are working, not searching. A commis with two years of experience is not on a job board. They are on their phone between prep and service, scrolling like everyone else.
- CVs say almost nothing about a cook. Three lines listing restaurants tells you where someone worked, not whether they can hold a section on a Saturday night.
- Kitchens hire on urgency, boards run on patience. A board optimises for a four-week funnel. You need someone in nine days.
What to put in the ad
- The section and the volume. "Larder, 120 covers on weekends" tells an experienced cook more than any adjective. It also filters out people who would have quit in three weeks.
- The rota, honestly. Split shifts, weekend rotation, closing days. Hiding this until the trial shift is the fastest way to burn goodwill.
- The number. Hourly or monthly, gross or net, plus service charge if there is one. "Competitive" reads as "below market" to everybody.
- Who they will work under. Cooks move for chefs, not for companies. Naming the head chef and the style of the kitchen does more than a paragraph about your values.
- The trial shift terms. Paid or unpaid, how long, when. Ambiguity here loses candidates who have been burned before.
Screening questions that actually separate people
Skip "are you a team player". Ask things a working cook answers instantly and a pretender cannot:
- Which sections have you run alone during service?
- How many covers on your busiest regular shift?
- What is your notice period, and when could you realistically start?
- Do you have a food safety certificate, and is it current?
- Which of these can you do without supervision: butchery, sauces, pastry, plating to a spec sheet?
Five questions like these, answered on a phone in two minutes, tell you more than a stack of CVs. They also give you something to rank by before anyone books a trial.
The trial shift is a two-way interview
Pay it. Brief it properly. Give the person one section, a spec, and a colleague to ask. Then judge three things: cleanliness of station, behaviour under a rush, and whether they ask questions when unsure. Speed comes with weeks; those three do not.
The takeaway
Kitchen hiring is a race against your own service schedule. Advertise where cooks actually scroll, ask five concrete questions instead of demanding a CV, and get to a paid trial within days. Qwiza builds that whole flow from your job description: ads in the feed, a two-minute application, and candidates ranked by the answers that matter to a kitchen.
Hiring frontline staff?
Qwiza turns your job description into a multilingual quiz campaign on Instagram & Facebook and delivers scored, qualified candidates - 48-hour pilot target.
See how Qwiza worksFrequently asked questions
Should a trial shift be paid?
Yes, and say so in the ad. Unpaid trials narrow your pool to people who can afford to work for free, which is rarely the group you want in a professional kitchen. A paid trial also changes the tone of the day: you are assessing a colleague, not auditioning a volunteer.
How do I reach cooks who already have a job?
Advertise where they spend their off-shift time rather than where job seekers search. Social feeds reach employed cooks who were not actively looking but will consider a better section, a better rota or a better chef. A two-minute application means they can reply before the tram arrives.
