The direct approach

Choosing to start my first ever restaurant in Barnard Castle was a good decision. We’re told that location is everything and I know from experience how important it is. Because of the compact nature of the town, feedback was instantaneous, encouraging me to correct my inexperienced-based mistakes quickly enough to avoid too much damage. Running a restaurant in a larger, metropolitan area such as Durham or Newcastle, is more like steering a supertanker. It takes a long time to receive negative feedback and thus make corrections. So whilst running Oldfields in Barney may have been a little like steering a small car, I generally managed to keep it on the right road. To do the same in a larger market requires different skills and planning.

The main problem I experienced in my initial small rural market location was that of obtaining suitable staff. Hospitality is a career for some (I’m a case in point) and a casual necessity for others such as older school children or students. Therefore, because of those not making it a vocation, there is a larger turnover of staff than in many other industries. This is a particular problem if you are looking to fill the more highly skilled positions, such as for chefs, in an area with a small population. I encouraged a number of high quality chefs to move to Teesdale but the attraction of the bright lights of the bigger towns and cities was always a lure to single young men.

It’s different in Durham. There’s a greater pool of talent within a commutable radius and we’ve also a well-established reputation supporting us. As a result we’re lucky that recruitment is a lot easier. We get people knocking on the door and, because we’ve built a profile that means we’re not exactly unknown (whilst most start-ups are), we’re directly approached by many of those looking for a job in our industry.

So you’d have thought that the publicity-hungry, Darlington-based Duncan Bannatyne would have benefitted tremendously from his success and high profile. But, according to what he said on a recent BBC TV Question Time, no one knocks on his door anymore and suggested they were more likely to be solely searching and applying for jobs on the internet. I think the gist of what he said was that you stand more chance of getting a job if you present yourself in person rather than as an online applicant.

Now I don’t know about you but, after seeing the man on Dragons’ Den, I’m not surprised that so few knock on his door. The man frightens me. I’d be scared of him growling “I’m out” at me.

But he’s got a point. We’re much more likely to employ someone who presents themselves at the restaurant (showing off the goods), asks for the manager by name (demonstrating some research) and explains why he or she might be worth looking at further (explaining some skills). This sure beats a generalised CV which, unfortunately, nearly always says the same thing: that the applicant is self-motivated and hardworking and can work well individually or part of a team, blah, blah, blah. It’s common sense: if an application doesn’t immediately say why this person is different - is worth looking at in comparison to anyone else - it’s less likely to get any further. It’s obvious that most young applicants have been taught to write a CV in a certain way; which is the wrong way.

We recently advertised for an experienced salesperson to help us build our events business. I shortlisted six of the 60 applications received but, because of the generalised, non-specific nature of the CVs, was only really turned on by two of them on paper. And who got the job? None of them. It went to a person who’d not seen the advert but heard about the vacancy on the grapevine and took it upon herself to come in and directly convince me. And thinking about it, nearly all the best employees we’ve had over the 18 years we’ve been operating, have come via ways other than applications to a job advert. And nearly all of those approached us directly.

But, so that I ensure people still approach us directly, I’d better make sure I’m never as successful (or scary) as Duncan Bannatyne. But I guess there’s little danger of the former and hopefully not the latter.