A hiring standard for every venue

Give the people who hire a consistent way to assess applicants for the role.

Your business hires floor and counter staff all year, and each venue manager may do it their own way. For most, that means a stack of applications, a few CVs read between services, and a short conversation. A CV mostly shows how well someone presents themselves on paper. It says very little about how they will handle a full Friday night.

A screen that every venue uses gives you one hiring standard across the business. Better hiring means fewer staff to replace every season, and a more consistent experience for every guest.

What the applicant does, and what you get

Ten to fifteen minutes online, and a ranked result the moment the applicant finishes.

The questionnaire looks at six things that decide how someone performs in a customer-facing hospitality job. Some come from situations the applicant is asked to handle; the rest from how they describe the way they work.

Hospitality hiring rarely waits. A manager short two people for the weekend is making the decision midweek, often between orders. A ranked list means they ring the top name rather than working through every application. And because the ranking rests on things an interview struggles to reach — how someone handles a difficult customer, how they cope when a colleague pushes back — the short conversation that follows is about the right things.

It is tailored to your business and carries your branding, so a manager is sending something from the brand, not from a testing company.

Measured against your own venues

Applicants are compared with benchmarks from your own business, or from the wider industry where that fits better.

The result isn't a score in isolation. Each applicant is measured against a benchmark — your company's own, or the hospitality industry's — so the hiring manager sees how an applicant compares with people who already do this work well.

What good service looks like differs between a quick-service counter and a table-service restaurant, and a screen that knows the difference is more use to a manager than one that doesn't. A company benchmark measures applicants against what works in your venues. An industry benchmark gives a business that is still growing a sound comparison from the start.

Hiring this way cuts the time and cost of filling each role, and brings in people who perform better and stay longer.

What happens once the results arrive

The hiring manager makes the decision. Our psychologists make sure the screen is asking the right questions before they do.

Before the first applicant sees it, one of our psychologists works through your venues with you: which situations matter most in your venues, what a strong hire looks like in your business, and how strong an applicant needs to be to reach the top of the list. You have that conversation once, at the start, and it is what makes every result afterwards mean something.

From then on, reports go to the person doing the hiring. They are written to be read by a manager with no training in psychology, and we support managers in reading them. The report isn't a verdict. Most of its value is in the interview it sets up: an applicant who ranked well overall but scored low on tolerance is someone to ask about the last time a customer lost their temper with them.

You can also see the pattern across the business — which venues are using the screen, and whether the people being hired are the ones it ranked highest. Where you want that, it can be reported back to you as well.

The evidence behind it

A well-researched method, built and documented by psychologists.

The situational half of the questionnaire uses a method that has been studied for decades. One widely cited review pooled results from more than 10,000 people and found that situational judgement tests consistently predict how well people go on to perform in the job — across different jobs and different settings. (McDaniel and colleagues, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2001.)

The questionnaire was developed by psychologists using established test-development methods, and its technical basis is set out in a development manual.

The approach behind it — tailored to the business, benchmarked, and ranked as applications arrive — is one we have built for large employers including Burberry, ICE Design and Nestlé. Psych Press has developed and published psychometric instruments since 1995, in-house and in partnership with universities and international test publishers.

Who it suits, and who it doesn't

Hospitality businesses hiring customer-facing staff, often at short notice.

Retail, customer service and sales roles each have their own screen, built for the role: retail screening, the Customer Service Predictor and sales screening. For security-services businesses, the Security Employment Screening Questionnaire combines work history, reasoning, situational judgement and personality.

Frequently asked questions

A hiring standard for venues you don't run

You can't make your franchisees' hires. You can give every location the same way of making them.

Your network hires floor and counter staff all year, in venues you don't own, and each franchisee does it their own way. For most, that means a stack of applications, a few CVs read between services, and a short conversation. A CV mostly shows how well someone presents themselves on paper. It says very little about how they will handle a full Friday night.

You can't require a hiring process of a business you don't own. You can supply one, fund it centrally, and make it the easiest option available. A screen that every location uses is the nearest thing to a network-wide hiring standard that a franchise structure allows. Better hiring means fewer staff to replace every season, and a more consistent experience for every guest.

What the applicant does, and what the franchisee gets

Ten to fifteen minutes online, and a ranked result the moment the applicant finishes.

The questionnaire looks at six things that decide how someone performs in a customer-facing hospitality job. Some come from situations the applicant is asked to handle; the rest from how they describe the way they work.

Hospitality hiring rarely waits. A franchisee short two people for the weekend is making the decision midweek, often between orders. A ranked list means they ring the top name rather than working through every application. And because the ranking rests on things an interview struggles to reach — how someone handles a difficult customer, how they cope when a colleague pushes back — the short conversation that follows is about the right things.

It is tailored to your business and carries your branding, so a franchisee is sending something from the brand, not from a testing company.

Measured against your own venues

Applicants are compared with benchmarks from your own business, or from the wider industry where that fits better.

The result isn't a score in isolation. Each applicant is measured against a benchmark — your company's own, or the hospitality industry's — so the franchisee sees how an applicant compares with people who already do this work well.

What good service looks like differs between a quick-service counter and a table-service restaurant, and a screen that knows the difference is more use to a franchisee than one that doesn't. A company benchmark measures applicants against what works in your venues. An industry benchmark gives a network that is still growing a sound comparison from the start.

Hiring this way cuts the time and cost of filling each role, and brings in people who perform better and stay longer.

What happens once the results arrive

The franchisee makes the decision. Our psychologists make sure the screen is asking the right questions before they do.

Before the first applicant sees it, one of our psychologists works through your network with you: which situations matter most in your venues, what a strong hire looks like in your business, and how strong an applicant needs to be to reach the top of the list. You have that conversation once, at the start, and it is what makes every result afterwards mean something.

From then on, reports go to the person doing the hiring. They are written to be read by a franchisee with no training in psychology, and we support franchisees in reading them. The report isn't a verdict. Most of its value is in the interview it sets up: an applicant who ranked well overall but scored low on tolerance is someone to ask about the last time a customer lost their temper with them.

Some franchisors also want to see the pattern across the network — which locations are using the screen, and whether the people being hired are the ones it ranked highest. Where you want that, it can be reported back to you as well. Others judge that their franchisees won't accept head office looking at their hiring decisions. That is your call to make, not ours.

The evidence behind it

A well-researched method, built and documented by psychologists.

The situational half of the questionnaire uses a method that has been studied for decades. One widely cited review pooled results from more than 10,000 people and found that situational judgement tests consistently predict how well people go on to perform in the job — across different jobs and different settings. (McDaniel and colleagues, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2001.)

The questionnaire was developed by psychologists using established test-development methods, and its technical basis is set out in a development manual.

The approach behind it — tailored to the business, benchmarked, and ranked as applications arrive — is one we have built for large employers including Burberry, ICE Design and Nestlé. Psych Press has developed and published psychometric instruments since 1995, in-house and in partnership with universities and international test publishers.

Who it suits, and who it doesn't

Hospitality networks that hire customer-facing staff at the venue, often at short notice.

Retail, customer service and sales roles each have their own screen, built for the role: retail screening, the Customer Service Predictor and sales screening. For security-services networks, the Security Employment Screening Questionnaire combines work history, reasoning, situational judgement and personality.

Frequently asked questions