October 27, 2023 • 16 mins
Ready to get some insider knowledge about navigating the turbulent waters of the food service industry? Our guest, JD Cummings, the mastermind behind the resilience and adaptability of Raising Canes, spills the beans on how they managed to pivot their operations amid a global pandemic and what led to their record-breaking application volume in June 2021.
Despite facing the unique challenges brought by the pandemic, Raising Canes was labeled an essential employer and tactically switched to drive-throughs. And even though the great resignation led to a significant drop in applications, they still found ways to ensure a top-notch experience for each candidate.
Special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey everybody, welcome back to Recruiting
Daily's Sources School podcast,powered by Olio.
At the Talent AcquisitionContent Lounge on the floor in
Vegas at HR Tech, I'm joined bymy brother from another mother,
mr Shaly Stackroll.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are joined by JD Cummings, who has just
discovered has been inrecruiting for not one, not two,
not three, but five years, andwe were having a spelling quiz
on whether or not he could spellA-T-S.
It's word scores three.
Jd, do you want to?
Do you want to from RaisingCanes?
Do you want to give us anattempt at spelling A-T-S or use
(00:45):
it in a sentence?
Can you give me the country oforigin?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Country of origin would be never neverville
neverville, neverville, sure,something or other, yeah, e-o-c.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
JD, welcome to the program.
We know that you've got about20 plus years of experience in
talent acquisition.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, that's five out of the last five years.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Five out of the last five years, we know that you
lead the function at RaisingCanes, one of my favorite places
to frequent on Baxter Street inAthens, georgia, whenever I'm
in town for a UGA game.
Jd, welcome to the program.
What's going on, thanks forhaving me out.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Appreciate it Awesome .
We have so many questions foryou.
I'm ready, so many.
I just got the one questionanswered like how to make the
best lemonade.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
There you go, how to make the best lemonade.
Don't, don't, don't.
We're not doing that.
We're not doing that.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
But they do have the best lemonade and chicken tender
chicken tenders on the market.
So I frequent there often, toooften.
Jd and the most craveable saucein the US.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh, I mean the cane sauce, Absolutely Most craveable
sauce in the US.
Oh yeah, it's a designation.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
It's award we won.
Technomic gave it to us.
I think it was last year Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I got to go buy some sauce.
You can actually buy it in a ina cup, like a 32 ounce cup, if
you want Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I'm not going to crave it, I'm checking that out.
Yeah, well, I got chicken.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I said chicken.
Okay, that's what I thought.
I just wanted to make sure Allright.
First question for you today,first question.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
How did?
How did it go with the pandemicand like high volume hiring and
food service hiring?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Wow, oh, softball right out of the gate, ladies,
and gentlemen, all right, yeah,you know we were very blessed
that during the pandemic, wewere labeled as a essential
employer.
We were able to operate, we hada drive through, so an easy
vehicle to be able to serve ourcustomers.
One of the things that you knowwhen we closed our dining rooms
, we did lose a significantamount of our sales and so, as a
(02:32):
company, we had to find a wayto pivot.
But the first call we got fromour leadership was how do we
make sure that we go throughthis pandemic with no crew
member left behind, no layoffs,no furloughs, nothing, even
though we lost, you know, a bigchunk of our sales and closed
dining rooms?
So we pivoted in our businessand said how can we gain all
those sales back through thedrive there?
How can we be faster and moreefficient?
(02:52):
We created the kitchen of thefuture for our business.
We deployed tablets at most ofour restaurants.
At that point we were in pilot,but we expanded the pilot, we
changed the way that we operateand we were able to gain back
the majority of those sales.
Keep our folks employed During2020,.
You know, recruiting was rathereasy.
Obviously, I think we all knowemerging from 2020 into 2021,
(03:15):
the great resignation.
We started to see massivedecline in applications in March
of 2021.
And I started reaching out tomy peers in town acquisition.
I'm like hey did.
Did half of your applicationsjust disappear overnight because
we're not seeing it?
Um, and we're generating acouple hundred thousand
applications a month.
So when we see those numbersdecline, it's it's a pretty
(03:35):
material change for our business.
So it was challenging 2021 wasnot easy.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Now um.
The applications declined, butthe quality of candidates stayed
the same, so you had altogethernet fewer candidates, or did
you just have a lot fewer badquality candidate applications?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I think it was a combination of both.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
A little bit of both, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Lower volume and and you know, so people had left the
industry, People had decidedthat they didn't want to work in
restaurants anymore and andthey were pursuing other things
and there were otheropportunities available to them.
Have you seen those numberscome back now, kind of post
everybody's back to work andback to normal?
Absolutely yeah, this last Junewe hit a record high
application volume in companyhistory.
(04:13):
So typically we see that withstudents that are looking for
summer jobs.
So, yeah, we definitely areseeing a great application flow
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Talk about that great application flow.
How do you make sure that youdeliver a great customer
experience to each of thosecandidates, the same way that
you treat me in your stores?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That is one of our biggest concerns, because every
candidate, they all get a cup ofsauce.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
A cup of 32 ounces.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
For us, you know being a very consumer facing
brand, every candidate is acustomer and we have to consider
that.
And in recruiting the, the netoutcome for most candidates is
negative.
You know, 10 people apply for ajob, there's one job available.
Nine people are going to bedisappointed.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
We're in the no business.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So how do you make sure you provide the best
candidate experience?
One thing that we did when weconfigured our ATS for
restaurant managers.
They're running a business allday long.
They're not in the back officeat the computer.
They're not thinking about youknow how do how do I manage my
my requisition?
So we enabled them that whenthey do an interview and they
decide that they don't want tomove forward with a candidate,
(05:10):
they can immediately go back totheir office right after the
interview, decline the candidateand it holds that email in a 24
hour quarantine before it sendsit to the candidate.
And so you know they, themanager, is keeping their
requisition clean, they know whothey've disposition, they know
who they're not moving forwardwith and the candidate isn't
walking out to their car in theparking lot getting an email
that says hey, thanks, but nothanks.
You know it allows thecandidate to to know that we
(05:33):
gave it serious consideration,we've made a decision, we're not
moving forward with them.
It closes the loop, providesthe best possible candidate
experience that we can in thatscenario.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Right, yeah, you don't want to be literally
having the guy turn around inthe parking lot.
The guy or gal turn around inthe parking lot.
Wait a minute.
Why didn't you hire me?
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We've even talked about and we might do this
coming up is something where,when a candidate does take the
time to apply and come in for aninterview and have a
conversation with us, could weoffer them something.
Could we offer them a freelemonade on their next visit to
Raising Cades?
We want to keep them as acustomer, even if it doesn't
work out for us to hire them inthat moment.
Sometimes it's not because wedon't ever want to hire them.
It's just because theiravailability of when they can
(06:11):
work today doesn't match theneeds of the business today, or
that location in particular isnot hiring and that's the only
location they're interested in.
So a lot of times we do wantthem to come back.
We want those Boomerangcandidates to apply again once
their availability changes.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Have you ever considered that maybe you are
recruiting customers becausethey might apply for the job
that have never been therebefore as a customer and then
had a good experience during theapplication, and now they start
going as a customer 100%?
In that case, you are a profitcenter.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
We talk with every recruiter during onboarding
about someone's first andpotentially only interaction
with our brand might be theirinteraction with you.
You carry the weight of thatinteraction.
You are the representative ofour brand.
Somebody's only impression ofRaising Cades might be because
of a conversation they had withyou.
So, yeah, it's absolutelycritical, especially in new
(07:00):
market entries.
If you look at Dallas-FortWorth, we have about 75
restaurants in that market.
I don't think there's too manypeople in Dallas-Fort Worth that
don't know who we are right.
But when we are opening allacross the East Coast, from
Florida up to right at the NewHampshire border, we are going
to open about 80 restaurantsjust in that corridor over the
next 18 months or so.
There is a lot of brand newcustomers that don't know
(07:20):
anything about us and we arehaving those first interactions
before construction has evenstarted on the restaurant.
They don't even know that thereis a restaurant coming to their
town and we are talking tocandidates and sharing about the
brand.
Very powerful, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, it definitely seems like it is very powerful
that you have really taken thatcustomer experience, that you
are taking the brand experienceyou have activated on all those
cylinders.
One hot topic right now is AI,and I want to know how you are
using, or if you are using, aior chatbots to engage with
candidates at scale for thehiring that you are doing.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So in our current configuration we do have a text
to apply, configuration thatdoes leverage an AI tool, so
somebody can just text RC jobsto 97211 and the conversational
AI will go back and forth withthem and complete their
application in a matter of acouple of minutes.
Just by asking them a fewquestions oh making it
(08:13):
frictionless.
That's awesome.
As best we can, I will say Ican't give a lot of details, but
we are about to embark uponsomething that will be much more
sophisticated as far as whatthe candidate experience is.
Our goal is to try and connectthe candidate with the hiring
manager as fast as we possiblycan in the high volume crew
(08:35):
hiring for the restaurant.
The restaurant managers arerunning our average restaurants
doing around $6 million a yearright now, so very, very busy
restaurants.
So when you look at that, ourrestaurant managers are very
busy all day long.
They are not in the office.
So how can we leverage AI toallow that candidate to kind of
go through some pre-screeners toschedule their own interview
that notify the manager hey,there is an interview today,
(08:57):
tomorrow, whatever.
So we are looking at evolvingour roadmap to accommodate that.
We hope within the next 12months or so we should be live
with a whole new process thatwill be leveraging AI better and
much more sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Are you guys doing anything around events marketing
to get the word out when youare opening up a new restaurant,
or is it all still one in dot?
I mean one on one interviewing.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
How does that work?
We leverage events when needed.
You know, if we have a highvolume of crew that we need to
hire high volume managers.
We will host events.
We use Indeed, sometimesleverage their event platform.
They have been a great partnerof ours for many years, but we
do a lot of events on our own.
You know, we will just set upshop in a hotel.
We will promote it, advertiseit.
We leverage social media,digital radio, traditional job
(09:40):
postings, give everybody thedetails, kind of have an open
casting call.
You know, especially in a newmarket, people don't know about
us.
We don't know what the marketlooks like.
Let's talk to a bunch of people.
Let's get to know who's here.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It seems like you have a hiring manager
self-service culture.
Hiring managers are also veryIn the restaurants yes.
Right, yeah, I guess right.
What lessons have you learnedfrom I'm assuming converting it
into a high touch hiring managerself-service environment?
(10:12):
In that regard?
Right, because in corporate, alot of times there's a
resistance from the hiring like,well, you're the recruiter, you
do the work, but there arecertainly occasions, like what
you're describing, where there'sa huge value for the hiring
manager to take a much moreinitiative in the recruiting
process.
What lessons have you learnedfrom enabling the hiring
(10:35):
managers to use the technology?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I think it works exceptionally well for us.
We don't have hiring managersin the restaurants that are
saying, hey, please do this forme.
I mean, in some cases they needhelp for sure.
But a lot of these managers inthe restaurant, they're creating
a culture with the team of crewthat they're hiring in that
restaurant and that culture isso important.
I mean, we serve the bestchicken fingers you've ever had
in your life.
We have amazing sauce, texastoast lemonade.
But what makes Raising Canespecial?
(11:00):
That experience is the culture.
It's our people.
It's that service you get whenyou walk in the door.
You know not to name any names,but when I walk into some fast
food restaurants, a lot of timesI feel like I'm inconveniencing
the person who's there to helpme at the register.
We want the exact antithesis ofthat.
We want the exact oppositewhere you walk into Cane's and
you feel like that person's soexcited to greet you.
(11:21):
In order to create that culture, each of our restaurant leaders
plays a pivotal role in hiringpeople that have all the
intangibles.
I can teach anybody how to cookchicken, but I can't teach you
to be friendly.
I can't teach you to becourteous.
I can't teach you to have asense of urgency, be kind, yeah,
yeah.
So those managers absolutelywant to be involved in the
process, because that's the onlyway they're going to run an
amazing restaurant is for themto have that high touch to talk
(11:43):
to each candidate.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So they want to do it .
But how have you overcome thelearning gap of technology?
Right, Because, like you said,they're not behind a computer
all day and now they essentiallyhave to use a computer for
hiring process, or a tablet orwhatever.
Has there been some takeawaysfrom that?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
So the way that we solve for that is they are not
experts in hiring, they're notexperts in HR technology.
We have a field-based team wecall it our business unit team
where there's an area leaderrecruiting, regional leader
recruiting, division leaderrecruiting.
They all live within thesemarkets.
In addition to training,marketing and other disciplines,
those folks are the subjectmatter experts in recruiting,
(12:24):
recruiting and technology.
Every time we have a new managerthat comes out of training
immediately when they step footin that restaurant for the first
time, that recruiting leader,within their first two weeks,
schedules a session with them.
They sit down, they teach themhow to conduct effective
interviews.
They teach them how to use theATS, how to schedule interviews,
how to leverage our SMS tool tocommunicate with candidates
faster.
So we do some training and thenongoing support.
(12:46):
If a restaurant gets into areally bad spot, that recruiter
will step in and take over forthem.
Restaurant managers are verygood once we train them at
hiring one or two people a weekmaybe, but if all of a sudden
they need to hire 20 people overa span of two weeks, that
becomes really challenging.
That's where our team comes into provide that additional
support.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
All right.
Well, this has been superinformative.
I mean, this is a brand that Ireally do love.
I bragged about you guys onBaxter Street up in Athens,
Georgia.
It's really good to hear whatyou're doing to make your
recruiting process different andhow you're doing that manager
training that you're really kindof sending them through a boot
camp, if you will, to initiatethat.
(13:28):
Is there anything else that youwant to brag about?
And I'm not asking you to bebraggadocious, right, I'm asking
you to say, hey, this is ourbrand and this is what we're
doing to be different.
Is there anything you feel thatour listeners could gain from
this conversation that wehaven't?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
asked you about man that's a huge question.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And it took me a while to get it out.
I was like, I was like 32ounces of sauce.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I got you yeah you know, I think more than anything
, I'm really proud of the factthat our culture is this
people-focused culture, and Iknow a lot of companies say that
and some companies, it's true,but a lot of companies it's lip
service the notion that when thepandemic hit, the first call
that we got was we're notfurloughing anybody, we're not
(14:13):
laying anybody off.
We are going to get throughthis with the team that we're
here with today and we dideverything we could.
And it just speaks to ourculture when we've gone through
natural disasters.
We operate a lot of restaurantsin the South, on the Gulf Coast
.
We've had our share ofhurricanes, we've had our share
of floods, we've had our shareof tornadoes and all sorts of
stuff.
And the way that we respondrelated to our people, related
(14:35):
to our communities, related tohow we take care of not only the
people that are working for us,but our customers that are
coming into our restaurants.
Oftentimes we're one of thefirst concepts that's back open
in the face of one of thosenatural disasters.
We are the place to go get ahot meal while the community is
recovering.
We make sure that our crewmembers are back to work as
quickly as they can be.
So just it's this notion thatwe're always focused on doing
(14:58):
the right thing for our crewmembers all the time for the
right reasons, and that reallyis the engine that drives our
business.
Again, I said we got greatchicken fingers, we got great
sauce, great toast, but it'sthat engine of taking care of
the people who are taking careof your customers, and I know
people say that a lot, but I'venever been in an organization
that's lived it as much as Canesdoes.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
That's awesome, All right.
Well, speaking about the engine, we are powered by the engine
of Olio here at Recruiting DailySourcing School.
Want to give a shout out tothem, want to thank them for
sponsoring this podcast, formaking things awesome.
Want to give a shout out to JDCummings and his team at Raising
Canes for letting you be withus this afternoon.
I mean this morning.
Wait, it is afternoon.
Good afternoon, how are you Onthe East Coast?
(15:38):
Yeah, and I want to give ashout out to my co-host, Shaly
Stekrell.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls, this has been Sourcing
School on Recruiting Daily'spodcast.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
All right, thank you very much.
Thanks everybody.
This first thing, metric.
Hey everybody, welcome back to Recruiting
Daily's Sources School podcast,powered by Olio.
At the Talent AcquisitionContent Lounge on the floor in
Vegas at HR Tech, I'm joined bymy brother from another mother,
mr Shaly Stackroll.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are joined by JD Cummings, who has just
discovered has been inrecruiting for not one, not two,
not three, but five years, andwe were having a spelling quiz
on whether or not he could spellA-T-S.
It's word scores three.
Jd, do you want to?
Do you want to from RaisingCanes?
Do you want to give us anattempt at spelling A-T-S or use
(00:45):
it in a sentence?
Can you give me the country oforigin?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Country of origin would be never neverville
neverville, neverville, sure,something or other, yeah, e-o-c.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
JD, welcome to the program.
We know that you've got about20 plus years of experience in
talent acquisition.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, that's five out of the last five years.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Five out of the last five years, we know that you
lead the function at RaisingCanes, one of my favorite places
to frequent on Baxter Street inAthens, georgia, whenever I'm
in town for a UGA game.
Jd, welcome to the program.
What's going on, thanks forhaving me out.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Appreciate it Awesome .
We have so many questions foryou.
I'm ready, so many.
I just got the one questionanswered like how to make the
best lemonade.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
There you go, how to make the best lemonade.
Don't, don't, don't.
We're not doing that.
We're not doing that.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
But they do have the best lemonade and chicken tender
chicken tenders on the market.
So I frequent there often, toooften.
Jd and the most craveable saucein the US.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh, I mean the cane sauce, Absolutely Most craveable
sauce in the US.
Oh yeah, it's a designation.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
It's award we won.
Technomic gave it to us.
I think it was last year Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I got to go buy some sauce.
You can actually buy it in a ina cup, like a 32 ounce cup, if
you want Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I'm not going to crave it, I'm checking that out.
Yeah, well, I got chicken.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I said chicken.
Okay, that's what I thought.
I just wanted to make sure Allright.
First question for you today,first question.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
How did?
How did it go with the pandemicand like high volume hiring and
food service hiring?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Wow, oh, softball right out of the gate, ladies,
and gentlemen, all right, yeah,you know we were very blessed
that during the pandemic, wewere labeled as a essential
employer.
We were able to operate, we hada drive through, so an easy
vehicle to be able to serve ourcustomers.
One of the things that you knowwhen we closed our dining rooms
, we did lose a significantamount of our sales and so, as a
(02:32):
company, we had to find a wayto pivot.
But the first call we got fromour leadership was how do we
make sure that we go throughthis pandemic with no crew
member left behind, no layoffs,no furloughs, nothing, even
though we lost, you know, a bigchunk of our sales and closed
dining rooms?
So we pivoted in our businessand said how can we gain all
those sales back through thedrive there?
How can we be faster and moreefficient?
(02:52):
We created the kitchen of thefuture for our business.
We deployed tablets at most ofour restaurants.
At that point we were in pilot,but we expanded the pilot, we
changed the way that we operateand we were able to gain back
the majority of those sales.
Keep our folks employed During2020,.
You know, recruiting was rathereasy.
Obviously, I think we all knowemerging from 2020 into 2021,
(03:15):
the great resignation.
We started to see massivedecline in applications in March
of 2021.
And I started reaching out tomy peers in town acquisition.
I'm like hey did.
Did half of your applicationsjust disappear overnight because
we're not seeing it?
Um, and we're generating acouple hundred thousand
applications a month.
So when we see those numbersdecline, it's it's a pretty
(03:35):
material change for our business.
So it was challenging 2021 wasnot easy.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Now um.
The applications declined, butthe quality of candidates stayed
the same, so you had altogethernet fewer candidates, or did
you just have a lot fewer badquality candidate applications?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I think it was a combination of both.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
A little bit of both, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Lower volume and and you know, so people had left the
industry, People had decidedthat they didn't want to work in
restaurants anymore and andthey were pursuing other things
and there were otheropportunities available to them.
Have you seen those numberscome back now, kind of post
everybody's back to work andback to normal?
Absolutely yeah, this last Junewe hit a record high
application volume in companyhistory.
(04:13):
So typically we see that withstudents that are looking for
summer jobs.
So, yeah, we definitely areseeing a great application flow
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Talk about that great application flow.
How do you make sure that youdeliver a great customer
experience to each of thosecandidates, the same way that
you treat me in your stores?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That is one of our biggest concerns, because every
candidate, they all get a cup ofsauce.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
A cup of 32 ounces.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
For us, you know being a very consumer facing
brand, every candidate is acustomer and we have to consider
that.
And in recruiting the, the netoutcome for most candidates is
negative.
You know, 10 people apply for ajob, there's one job available.
Nine people are going to bedisappointed.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
We're in the no business.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So how do you make sure you provide the best
candidate experience?
One thing that we did when weconfigured our ATS for
restaurant managers.
They're running a business allday long.
They're not in the back officeat the computer.
They're not thinking about youknow how do how do I manage my
my requisition?
So we enabled them that whenthey do an interview and they
decide that they don't want tomove forward with a candidate,
(05:10):
they can immediately go back totheir office right after the
interview, decline the candidateand it holds that email in a 24
hour quarantine before it sendsit to the candidate.
And so you know they, themanager, is keeping their
requisition clean, they know whothey've disposition, they know
who they're not moving forwardwith and the candidate isn't
walking out to their car in theparking lot getting an email
that says hey, thanks, but nothanks.
You know it allows thecandidate to to know that we
(05:33):
gave it serious consideration,we've made a decision, we're not
moving forward with them.
It closes the loop, providesthe best possible candidate
experience that we can in thatscenario.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Right, yeah, you don't want to be literally
having the guy turn around inthe parking lot.
The guy or gal turn around inthe parking lot.
Wait a minute.
Why didn't you hire me?
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We've even talked about and we might do this
coming up is something where,when a candidate does take the
time to apply and come in for aninterview and have a
conversation with us, could weoffer them something.
Could we offer them a freelemonade on their next visit to
Raising Cades?
We want to keep them as acustomer, even if it doesn't
work out for us to hire them inthat moment.
Sometimes it's not because wedon't ever want to hire them.
It's just because theiravailability of when they can
(06:11):
work today doesn't match theneeds of the business today, or
that location in particular isnot hiring and that's the only
location they're interested in.
So a lot of times we do wantthem to come back.
We want those Boomerangcandidates to apply again once
their availability changes.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Have you ever considered that maybe you are
recruiting customers becausethey might apply for the job
that have never been therebefore as a customer and then
had a good experience during theapplication, and now they start
going as a customer 100%?
In that case, you are a profitcenter.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
We talk with every recruiter during onboarding
about someone's first andpotentially only interaction
with our brand might be theirinteraction with you.
You carry the weight of thatinteraction.
You are the representative ofour brand.
Somebody's only impression ofRaising Cades might be because
of a conversation they had withyou.
So, yeah, it's absolutelycritical, especially in new
(07:00):
market entries.
If you look at Dallas-FortWorth, we have about 75
restaurants in that market.
I don't think there's too manypeople in Dallas-Fort Worth that
don't know who we are right.
But when we are opening allacross the East Coast, from
Florida up to right at the NewHampshire border, we are going
to open about 80 restaurantsjust in that corridor over the
next 18 months or so.
There is a lot of brand newcustomers that don't know
(07:20):
anything about us and we arehaving those first interactions
before construction has evenstarted on the restaurant.
They don't even know that thereis a restaurant coming to their
town and we are talking tocandidates and sharing about the
brand.
Very powerful, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, it definitely seems like it is very powerful
that you have really taken thatcustomer experience, that you
are taking the brand experienceyou have activated on all those
cylinders.
One hot topic right now is AI,and I want to know how you are
using, or if you are using, aior chatbots to engage with
candidates at scale for thehiring that you are doing.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So in our current configuration we do have a text
to apply, configuration thatdoes leverage an AI tool, so
somebody can just text RC jobsto 97211 and the conversational
AI will go back and forth withthem and complete their
application in a matter of acouple of minutes.
Just by asking them a fewquestions oh making it
(08:13):
frictionless.
That's awesome.
As best we can, I will say Ican't give a lot of details, but
we are about to embark uponsomething that will be much more
sophisticated as far as whatthe candidate experience is.
Our goal is to try and connectthe candidate with the hiring
manager as fast as we possiblycan in the high volume crew
(08:35):
hiring for the restaurant.
The restaurant managers arerunning our average restaurants
doing around $6 million a yearright now, so very, very busy
restaurants.
So when you look at that, ourrestaurant managers are very
busy all day long.
They are not in the office.
So how can we leverage AI toallow that candidate to kind of
go through some pre-screeners toschedule their own interview
that notify the manager hey,there is an interview today,
(08:57):
tomorrow, whatever.
So we are looking at evolvingour roadmap to accommodate that.
We hope within the next 12months or so we should be live
with a whole new process thatwill be leveraging AI better and
much more sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Are you guys doing anything around events marketing
to get the word out when youare opening up a new restaurant,
or is it all still one in dot?
I mean one on one interviewing.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
How does that work?
We leverage events when needed.
You know, if we have a highvolume of crew that we need to
hire high volume managers.
We will host events.
We use Indeed, sometimesleverage their event platform.
They have been a great partnerof ours for many years, but we
do a lot of events on our own.
You know, we will just set upshop in a hotel.
We will promote it, advertiseit.
We leverage social media,digital radio, traditional job
(09:40):
postings, give everybody thedetails, kind of have an open
casting call.
You know, especially in a newmarket, people don't know about
us.
We don't know what the marketlooks like.
Let's talk to a bunch of people.
Let's get to know who's here.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It seems like you have a hiring manager
self-service culture.
Hiring managers are also veryIn the restaurants yes.
Right, yeah, I guess right.
What lessons have you learnedfrom I'm assuming converting it
into a high touch hiring managerself-service environment?
(10:12):
In that regard?
Right, because in corporate, alot of times there's a
resistance from the hiring like,well, you're the recruiter, you
do the work, but there arecertainly occasions, like what
you're describing, where there'sa huge value for the hiring
manager to take a much moreinitiative in the recruiting
process.
What lessons have you learnedfrom enabling the hiring
(10:35):
managers to use the technology?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I think it works exceptionally well for us.
We don't have hiring managersin the restaurants that are
saying, hey, please do this forme.
I mean, in some cases they needhelp for sure.
But a lot of these managers inthe restaurant, they're creating
a culture with the team of crewthat they're hiring in that
restaurant and that culture isso important.
I mean, we serve the bestchicken fingers you've ever had
in your life.
We have amazing sauce, texastoast lemonade.
But what makes Raising Canespecial?
(11:00):
That experience is the culture.
It's our people.
It's that service you get whenyou walk in the door.
You know not to name any names,but when I walk into some fast
food restaurants, a lot of timesI feel like I'm inconveniencing
the person who's there to helpme at the register.
We want the exact antithesis ofthat.
We want the exact oppositewhere you walk into Cane's and
you feel like that person's soexcited to greet you.
(11:21):
In order to create that culture, each of our restaurant leaders
plays a pivotal role in hiringpeople that have all the
intangibles.
I can teach anybody how to cookchicken, but I can't teach you
to be friendly.
I can't teach you to becourteous.
I can't teach you to have asense of urgency, be kind, yeah,
yeah.
So those managers absolutelywant to be involved in the
process, because that's the onlyway they're going to run an
amazing restaurant is for themto have that high touch to talk
(11:43):
to each candidate.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So they want to do it .
But how have you overcome thelearning gap of technology?
Right, Because, like you said,they're not behind a computer
all day and now they essentiallyhave to use a computer for
hiring process, or a tablet orwhatever.
Has there been some takeawaysfrom that?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
So the way that we solve for that is they are not
experts in hiring, they're notexperts in HR technology.
We have a field-based team wecall it our business unit team
where there's an area leaderrecruiting, regional leader
recruiting, division leaderrecruiting.
They all live within thesemarkets.
In addition to training,marketing and other disciplines,
those folks are the subjectmatter experts in recruiting,
(12:24):
recruiting and technology.
Every time we have a new managerthat comes out of training
immediately when they step footin that restaurant for the first
time, that recruiting leader,within their first two weeks,
schedules a session with them.
They sit down, they teach themhow to conduct effective
interviews.
They teach them how to use theATS, how to schedule interviews,
how to leverage our SMS tool tocommunicate with candidates
faster.
So we do some training and thenongoing support.
(12:46):
If a restaurant gets into areally bad spot, that recruiter
will step in and take over forthem.
Restaurant managers are verygood once we train them at
hiring one or two people a weekmaybe, but if all of a sudden
they need to hire 20 people overa span of two weeks, that
becomes really challenging.
That's where our team comes into provide that additional
support.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
All right.
Well, this has been superinformative.
I mean, this is a brand that Ireally do love.
I bragged about you guys onBaxter Street up in Athens,
Georgia.
It's really good to hear whatyou're doing to make your
recruiting process different andhow you're doing that manager
training that you're really kindof sending them through a boot
camp, if you will, to initiatethat.
(13:28):
Is there anything else that youwant to brag about?
And I'm not asking you to bebraggadocious, right, I'm asking
you to say, hey, this is ourbrand and this is what we're
doing to be different.
Is there anything you feel thatour listeners could gain from
this conversation that wehaven't?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
asked you about man that's a huge question.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And it took me a while to get it out.
I was like, I was like 32ounces of sauce.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I got you yeah you know, I think more than anything
, I'm really proud of the factthat our culture is this
people-focused culture, and Iknow a lot of companies say that
and some companies, it's true,but a lot of companies it's lip
service the notion that when thepandemic hit, the first call
that we got was we're notfurloughing anybody, we're not
(14:13):
laying anybody off.
We are going to get throughthis with the team that we're
here with today and we dideverything we could.
And it just speaks to ourculture when we've gone through
natural disasters.
We operate a lot of restaurantsin the South, on the Gulf Coast
.
We've had our share ofhurricanes, we've had our share
of floods, we've had our shareof tornadoes and all sorts of
stuff.
And the way that we respondrelated to our people, related
(14:35):
to our communities, related tohow we take care of not only the
people that are working for us,but our customers that are
coming into our restaurants.
Oftentimes we're one of thefirst concepts that's back open
in the face of one of thosenatural disasters.
We are the place to go get ahot meal while the community is
recovering.
We make sure that our crewmembers are back to work as
quickly as they can be.
So just it's this notion thatwe're always focused on doing
(14:58):
the right thing for our crewmembers all the time for the
right reasons, and that reallyis the engine that drives our
business.
Again, I said we got greatchicken fingers, we got great
sauce, great toast, but it'sthat engine of taking care of
the people who are taking careof your customers, and I know
people say that a lot, but I'venever been in an organization
that's lived it as much as Canesdoes.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
That's awesome, All right.
Well, speaking about the engine, we are powered by the engine
of Olio here at Recruiting DailySourcing School.
Want to give a shout out tothem, want to thank them for
sponsoring this podcast, formaking things awesome.
Want to give a shout out to JDCummings and his team at Raising
Canes for letting you be withus this afternoon.
I mean this morning.
Wait, it is afternoon.
Good afternoon, how are you Onthe East Coast?
(15:38):
Yeah, and I want to give ashout out to my co-host, Shaly
Stekrell.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls, this has been Sourcing
School on Recruiting Daily'spodcast.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
All right, thank you very much.
Thanks everybody.
This first thing, metric.
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