How Human Resources and Recruiters Can Do Their Fair Share To Help In This Economy…

By: Robert Krzak
President, Gecko Hospitality
robert@geckohospitality.com


There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the cost of high gasoline is here to stay. Just recently, futures analysts on Wall Street predict the price of a barrel of gasoline to skyrocket up to $250.00 by the year 2012. As a professional recruiter in the hospitality industry we are constantly fulfilling the obligations of our clients in scheduling meeting after meeting with talented candidates. What strikes me as fascinating, and only until now with gas at almost $4.00 a gallon, is why we are scheduling John Doe with 3 offsite interviews in different locations with the same company.

Numerous companies are concerned with the state of our economy and rightfully so since it effects the bottom line of this nickel and dime business we so passionately call the “Hospitality Industry”. Company Human Resource Managers along with their recruiting departments need to collaborate and become creative in their scheduling of interviews.

For instance and most recently, a candidate was asked to travel to a location in the northern suburbs of Chicago, from the western suburbs, for an initial face to face interview. The candidate was liked so much that he was asked to travel to the south side of Chicago to meet with the Director of Operations two days later. The next day, the candidate was asked to come back up to the corporate office located in the northern suburbs to take the companies standardized test. The candidate passed the standardized test and was asked to drive 25 miles away from his home in morning rush hour traffic to meet with the VP of operations. Again, the meeting went flawlessly. Finally, the candidate had to travel 12 miles to take the all important drug screening. When this was all said and done the candidate made 5 round trips and put more than 274 miles on his vehicle while spending a whopping $114.00 in gas.

Creativity is paramount in this industry and corporate recruiters need to start scheduling wisely because it will not only show stewardship to your future employee, but your companies bottom line. Schedule an Interview Day where all hiring parties (Recruiter, Director of Operations, and VP of Operations) can be in one central location. Kill three birds with one stone and let’s all try and do our part in saving a gallon of gas here and there. Ever driven in the H.O. V. lane with 2 or more people? Well, consider this technique when interviewing and let’s save a little time and energy (gas that is!)