Hiring hospitality and retail staff
Availability is usually the real filter, CVs are thin by nature, and you are almost always hiring while already short-staffed.
The rota does most of the work
Across this sector the single most decisive fact is when somebody can work, and it is almost never asked properly. "Are you flexible?" produces a yes from three hundred people and sorts none of them; asking availability as specific blocks — Friday evening, weekday lunch, late-night Thursday, six until nine — converts a meaningless question into the most useful piece of data in the application. On the largest piles here that resolves the majority of applicants before anything is read.
What is left is different every time
Once hours are settled the roles have almost nothing in common. A chef hire turns on covers and what happened on a night two people did not show. A supervisor hire turns on whether someone can tell a nineteen-year-old they are late and keep them. A hotel receptionist hire is really two jobs, and the night one is the hard one. A store manager hire turns on a difficult people decision. Four sectors’ worth of judgment behind one shared rota question.
Pick the one you are hiring
Six roles where the hours come first and the judgment comes second — in that order, deliberately.
Not on this list?
Describe the role in a sentence. Selene works from your conversation, not from a library — the guide comes back shaped around what you actually said.