The traditional hiring process is rapidly evolving alongside the fluctuating job market. The need to secure quality workers has become more challenging than ever before. With the prevalence of the “click-to-apply” culture, individuals can now submit their applications to numerous job postings within seconds, often accepting the first offer that comes their way. This rushed approach leads to missed hiring opportunities and ultimately leads to wasted money on job boards that brands have spent in an effort to recruit new employees.
Castleberry Investments is a franchisee with a large network of Sonic restaurants. Like so many other franchisees, the group faced these same hiring challenges: they would post paid-for advertisements to job boards and often see diminishing returns when it came to finding great employees who they could hire and depend on.
The group tried a new approach: Sprockets Pools, a recently launched feature from Sprockets, a hiring platform designed to improve employee retention by matchmaking applicants with restaurant brands based on personality traits. Sprockets Pools allows operators to revive interest from applicants that previously applied. The feature can text past and new applicants notifying them that the job is available.
Sprockets seamlessly links with existing hiring systems and applications, empowering operators to make faster and more accurate hiring decisions. “The feature that sold us on the system is that it integrates with our current talent management platform,” says Paige Hadley, operating partner with Castleberry Investments—she helps with operations and administrative components for the company, one of which is assisting with recruitment. “Our management team has plenty on their plates, so for Sprockets to be able to generate more applications for our stores while not requiring an additional login was huge. We also appreciate and utilize high-scoring applicants’ instant email and/or text alerts. Our managers can contact applicants immediately.”
Castleberry Investment enrolled their entire applicant pool from its 34 Sonic locations into the Sprockets Pools text campaign and notified them that they are hiring again. Within seven days, they had re-engaged with 1,713 contacts with zero dollars spent on sourcing/boosting job ads. They saw a significant boost in applicant flow across their locations.
“The main attraction to Sprockets was to increase the number of applications needed to assist staffing our stores,” says Hadley. “We liked the idea that the folks we contacted had already shown interest in working for our business. Having that concentrated group be reached out to was appealing.”
Sprockets Pools has helped Castleberry Investments bypass expensive job boards. It’s had a major effect for other restaurant ownership groups, too: according to a Sprockets Pools case study, a California McDonald’s franchisee saved $3,950 on advertising expenses while receiving an impressive total of 158 applications within just six days by utilizing Sprockets Pools.
With Sprockets, operators can save money by tapping into a pool of previous candidates and finding qualified individuals who were overlooked in previous hiring cycles. This increases the hiring process’s efficiency and offers a cost-effective solution for employers, ensuring they get the best value for their investment—and the right employee for the job.
Check out the Sprockets website to discover more about how Sprockets can improve employee retention.
By Olivia Schuster
