Handle the high volume and high turnover of the restaurant industry with software that helps you find and grow the right team.
Restaurants are always hiring. It’s so hard to find team members for the front and back of the house who will actually stick around. Up to 50% of new hires wind up leaving within their first 90 days, which results in staffing shortages and leaves remaining employees picking up the slack. This can ultimately result in reduced operating hours, which impacts the customer experience and overall sales.
We analyzed benchmark data from the industry to better understand how you should hire and retain a team for your QSR, Fast Casual, or Full Service Restaurant.
Here’s how to find the right people to grow with your team:
Show what makes your business different with a page that attracts quality applicants.
Fun fact: Candidates applying from company pages are 4x more likely to become hires than those who come from job boards.
"CareerPlug has transformed the way we hire. It’s a one-stop shop for us to post to multiple job boards, saving us time and money. The time it saves us, along with the ease of contacting applicants quickly, has increased our hire rate double digits! Do not hesitate to jump on board CareerPlug, I wish we could have sooner!"
"CareerPlug gave us applicants that were already screened. We noticed that the right applicants started showing up to interviews. It’s nice to spend your time on which candidate to hire, not if you even have a candidate!”
“I would encourage any franchise owner to take a look at CareerPlug because it’s a tool you can use to find good people. Within the first 6 weeks of using CareerPlug, I was able to make 18 hires across 24 stores.”
"CareerPlug has dramatically reduced the amount of time required to review applicants, schedule interviews, and hire new team members.”
"Utilizing the Autopilot feature has changed the game for our company! It has streamlined our hiring process, enabling us to effectively and efficiently schedule and interview candidates."
“Prior to using CareerPlug, my turnover rate was very high, around 75%. Trying to find the right people was a real challenge. […] Now that I am using CareerPlug, my turnover rate hasn’t exceeded 20%. I have found top talent that has pushed my company to new levels we have never seen before. My company has doubled in income while using CareerPlug for my hiring purposes.”
“CareerPlug gave us applicants that were already screened. We noticed that the right applicants started showing up to interviews. It’s nice to spend your time on which candidate to hire, not if you even have a candidate!”
"CareerPlug has saved our organization so much time with hiring process! It's simple to use, makes the hiring process seamless, and it's all in one place! I love that I can see all 6 of my studios while setting up my team to only have access to their studio. Our quality of candidates has increased tremendously. It's been a game changer for us!”
"One of the most important things to me as a business owner in home care is recruiting, and I use CareerPlug to get the highest ROI I can on my applicant flow. We all know that applicant flow is everything, and CareerPlug does a great job of it.”
“CareerPlug has given our centers a powerful hiring tool to help build out their teams. Staffing is always a challenge in our industry and having a resource like CareerPlug on our side has definitely made hiring more efficient and more effective. We have seen a 480% increase in the number of job applicants across our entire network.”
“CareerPlug has helped our staffing woes by bringing in new applicants across all mediums. I enjoy using CareerPlug's user interface, and customizing the company's Careers Page to my preference. The Help Center is amazing, and I have never had a problem that cannot be solved. Thank you for helping to make my job easier and more streamlined! You have saved my company tons of money and time.”
“Texting has dramatically improved my response rate – I get through to more candidates and work them through our process quicker than ever before. We use the built-in templates to make it simple and efficient, and it is a game changer in this competitive hiring environment.”
“Using texting through the CareerPlug application has really helped our office connect with potential applicants. Quicker connections means getting your foot in the door early and that helps during this hyper-competitive hiring environment.”
“CareerPlug drastically simplified and sped up my hiring processes by pre-scoring applicants and organizing them into easy to navigate pipelines. The communication track has ensured that all applicants that have applied, have been contacted as well. In the past a lot of applicants would not get follow-up calls or rejection letters, now everything is a uniform and simplified process for me and my teams.”
"Many of the dealers I work with were struggling recruiting technicians and installers until BrandSource partnered with CareerPlug. CareerPlug has simplified the recruitment and onboarding process for many of our members. A one-stop solution that hits all prominent job boards for one small annual fee. New candidate resumes have never been better thanks to CareerPlug."
"CareerPlug has been my reliable platform to find quality candidates for my job postings. I have been able to fill multiple openings within my organization. And best of all, I am satisfied with the candidates that I have hired through the CareerPlug process."
"Recruiting and building a team that embraces our brand values and lives them daily is my top priority. [...] Our collaboration with CareerPlug has provided us a with a platform that sets us up for success to find the best applicants to represent our brand. What is at the heart of our successful partnership with CareerPlug, is that they listen to our feedback, understand our challenges and are constantly striving to find new ways to simplify our hiring process, support our needs and connect us with the best applicants."
"Our team is always updating our processes and templates to improve applicant engagement and reduce interview ‘no shows.’ Our best efforts could not provide anywhere near the results that we have experienced using the Autopilot process. Now my calendar effortlessly fills with phone screens and in-person interviews that follow through with their appointments."
"Since using CareerPlug, our expense for recruiting went down by about $3,000 and I think it’ll keep going down. We’ve really seen our expense decrease and the overall stress of hiring has decreased."
“Instead of waiting three or four days just to schedule interviews, the entire hiring process is now done in three days. Autopilot saves me time, makes the hiring process faster and my job easier so I’m hiring more people every week with fewer resources.”
"I had [CareerPlug Hiring Expert] Diane on a scheduled call to help with our ad/questions. She helped determine what questions would help with some issues I had and made a sample job for us to review so we could implement her ideas. She looked at our local area and was quite helpful. I appreciated her time immensely."
"The CareerPlug representative took the time to provide SO MANY helpful tips on setting up a great job description, providing lot of details and suggestions I never would have thought of. I have confidence that my hiring needs are in good hands with CareerPlug!"
"Our partnership with CareerPlug has been vital to our success in 2021 and 2022. In a challenging time with finding quality candidates our organization has done well because of the support and insight from the CareerPlug experts. We were on a pilot program with Midas and after trying three other options we decided to partner long term with CareerPlug, and we are happy with our decision."
"CareerPlug has helped our owners streamline their hiring process, and increase exposure in the marketplace. Many of our owners struggled to post enough jobs that we would gain exposure on Google and CareerPlug makes this manageable. Many of our owners rave about the success they have had since we implemented CareerPlug. They also rave about the ease of use - which is always important when a Franchisor is considering implementing another tool."
"CareerPlug has saved our organization so much time with hiring process! It's simple to use, makes the hiring process seamless, and it's all in one place! I love that I can see all 6 of my studios while setting up my team to only have access to their studio. Our quality of candidates has increased tremendously. It's been a game changer for us!"
"In about a week's time, we have over 75 quality applicants apply to work with our company. CareerPlug makes it easy and efficient to reach out to the candidates and set up interviews. My greatest concern launching our business was we wouldn't be able to find quality team members. I hear the horror stores and struggles about finding quality workers, but honestly I have a totally different issue. My issue is that I have so many quality candidates, I have been struggling to keep up with the demand! This is a great problem to have! Thank you, CareerPlug!"
"Careerplug's Autopilot features cut my scheduling time in half. No more back and forth trying to figure out what time works best. Also, all candidates come through one pipeline, which saves me a lot from manually tracking what step the candidate is at."
“CareerPlug has been an excellent tool in helping us find quality employees and grow our business. The ability to manage multiple jobs and all applicants on one site makes the process so much more efficient. CareerPlug also has some great tools to help find the best candidates. We highly recommend CareerPlug as an effective way to both find great applicants and as a way to screen, interview, and hire the best people.”
"Whomever came up with Autopilot deserves a RAISE! It has become a game changer, we went from around 10-20% of applicants doing phone interviews (and that is after playing phone tag and not responding to my texts) to probably 60-70% of applicants completing a phone interview. This has led to a higher conversation from interview to hired for quality applicants. Autopilot has saved me about 3 hours a day chasing applicants, playing phone tag and texting just get that first interview scheduled."
"The biggest difference I experienced using CareerPlug is the quality of the candidates. Far too often in the past with other hiring platforms I recieved resumes/candidates that didn't even meet the basic reuirements I was posting. With CareerPlug, not only did I start recieving resumes immediately, the candidates were very well qualified for the postion I needed to fill. I was able to hire the perfect new employee only 9 days after contracting with CareerPlug! I'm continuing my contract with with CareerPlug because continuous recruiting is needed in today's hiring environment."
"CareerPlug has helped our owners streamline their hiring process, and increase exposure in the marketplace. Many of our owners struggled to post enough jobs that we would gain exposure on Google and CareerPlug makes this manageable. Many of our owners rave about the success they have had since we implemented CareerPlug. They also rave about the ease of use - which is always important when a Franchisor is considering implementing another tool."
"CareerPlug has streamlined our recruiting process. We upload our jobs in one place and CareerPlug does the hard work by launching that post across multiple platforms. Our time saved is spent interviewing quality applicants. Because we conduct more interviews, we hire great applicants and reduce turnover significantly. Our team has grown by 11% since we started! The support staff is personal and committed to resolving any issues as quickly and professionally! They follow up regularly to make sure you get back to hiring as quickly as possible!"
"CareerPlug's customer service goes above and beyond. They are so helpful! I reached out in regard to an issue with a former user. Candace answered my question AND provided account optimization advice. As a small business, I am grateful for the partnership!"
"We started using CareerPlug at the suggestion of our franchise operations group. While we have been affected by the labor problems that all businesses face, CareerPlug has provided a steady stream of applicants. We now have more employees than we did pre-pandemic. We’re happy!"
"CareerPlug has recruiting and onboarding tools that we utilize. For recruiting, it's great being able to create messaging templates in advance so it takes less time reaching out to applicants. We were also able to customize our own assessments in the hiring process which was useful for us in evaluating leadership traits of potential candidates."
"CareerPlug helped me hire all of my staff. I do almost no recruiting efforts outside of CareerPlug. CareerPlug makes it easy for me to see that I have a new application or resume and move quickly to take the prospect through the hiring process that CareerPlug provides. It's simple, convenient, and helps me keep organized."
"CareerPlug allows me to watch, add, and create jobs for all four stores from one account. In addition, I have set all the managers up with their own profiles so they can add job listings, receive resumes, and keep track of their applicants, all without me having to forward the email, or call them and tell them."
"CareerPlug is just absolutely phenomenal. I was spending about $495 a month on a major job board. In the first month of having CareerPlug I’ve had more, and better candidates than I ever had with the job board."
CareerPlug has allowed our hiring team to streamline our hiring process across multiple platforms into a single platform. This allows us to post to multiple job portals without the additional operational headache of checking each one individually.
"CareerPlug is an amazing platform that has simplified our recruiting & onboarding process. I love how we post our open positions in one convenient place and CareerPlug posts across multiple job boards! No more having to remember multiple passwords or where you posted your open positions!"
"Our partnership with CareerPlug has been one of the most impactful changes we have made within our organization. Our applicant flow has increased tenfold and the prescreen questions, assessments, and onboarding platform have all made it easy and painless to narrow the search down to the most qualified candidates and hire the best fit."
"CareerPlug’s ability to post to major job boards with one-click has significantly boosted my applicant flow. I received more applicants within my first two weeks than I did all of last year."
"I struggled to find new hires posting directly on other recruiting sites. It wasn’t until I partnered with CareerPlug that I began to experience a constant pool of candidates year-round. By far, this has been one of the best investments in my business."
"The prescreen questions and scores has substantially reduced the time it takes my managers to go through resumes, call candidates and make job offers!"
"CareerPlug had job descriptions for each position I was hiring for. I was able to make a few edits and post them within 5 minutes. Qualified candidates started coming in right away. I received lots of responses but obviously, the screening tool was effective because each one was at least worth looking at."
"My business has grown significantly as a result of using CareerPlug. Since using their hiring software, I have been able to grow my team from 7 to 10 employees, which has in turn grown my business."
See how Bill Moseley, a Regional Recruiter for a Big O Tires franchisee, solved his hiring challenges with an applicant tracking system.
See how Kara Gobel, a franchise owner, started receiving more quality applicants, making better hires, and growing her team.
See how Mark Eckels, a franchise owner, standardized their hiring process while efficiently educating all of their owners and managers.
See how Sandy Vitti received 5x more qualified applicants in just one month with CareerPlug’s hiring and retention software.
See how Chad Benedict, VP of Sales, grew his staff at six locations across Houston, receiving more applicants during the first two weeks with CareerPlug than in the previous two years.
See how franchise owner Gordy Pease received more applicants in his first two weeks with CareerPlug than he did the previous year.
85% of the team at Handyman Connection has been sourced through CareerPlug. See how Joe Cox, Owner & General Manager, saved time and money with our software.
Learn how franchise owner Ashley Parsons reduced job posting costs by over 800%, increased her applicant flow by 400%, and increased retention by 6x.
Hourly applicants increased by 400% after Jamie Starner, Talent Acquisition Manager for Kona Grill, started using CareerPlug.
In one month, Rally Deleon had over 325 applicants. CareerPlug helps him cast a 2-3x larger net when hiring for Chick-fil-A North Hills.
A franchisee group that owns 19 Krispy Kreme Doughnuts locations reduced time to hire and increased applicant flow.
Chad Wester reduced turnover by 25% after implementing CareerPlug at Wireless Advantage, a Verizon Wireless retailer.
Being new to the CareerPlug platform, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to navigate and set things up on my own. For a few questions I did have, I was able to set up a time to talk with an expert very easily. Jason was great, answered my questions, asked me what was the best way for me to learn, and we navigated through the session with ease. He followed up with an email that included information for me to use as a follow-up in case I forgot something.
Yes. Restaurants are one of our oldest and deepest franchise categories — brands like Firehouse Subs, Perkins, Golden Corral, and Chick-fil-A franchisees are among the 400+ franchise brands we partner with. The hiring shape is franchise-classic: each restaurant runs its own staffing (the GM or owner hires), while the brand gets PartnerHub visibility across every unit. Generic ATS platforms don't separate those roles; we built around that split from day one.
Restaurant turnover isn't going to zero — and chasing every applicant isn't the answer either. What works is running a constant, low-effort hiring motion rather than reactive surges. Branded careers pages collect applications continuously (not just when there's a posted opening), pre-qualified candidate pools stay warm between active hires, and Autopilot text-first outreach means you're reaching candidates inside the first hour instead of the next day. The restaurants that handle 60-day turnover well hire before they need to, not after a shift goes down.
Not in the workflow — both use the same post → screen → interview → hire → onboard sequence. Where they diverge is the screening criteria. QSR prioritizes availability, reliability, and pace; prior restaurant experience matters less. Full-service weighs prior restaurant experience and customer-facing skill more heavily. Different pre-screen questions, different scorecards, same platform. One GM can run QSR and full-service hiring from the same account if the brand operates both concepts.
Standard I-9 and W-4 forms run through the 90-day onboarding workflow. State-specific tip-reporting forms (IRS Form 4070 and variants) can be added to the onboarding document set per location. For high-volume turnover ops — QSR especially — bulk text outreach and rehire flows for past employees become core to the weekly rhythm. When someone quits Friday, the manager sends a message to the rehire pool Saturday and has a screened candidate Monday. That only works if the pool exists.
PartnerHub shows franchisors aggregated data across every restaurant — time-to-fill by location, applicant source mix, open-role counts, hire rate — without touching hiring decisions at individual units. Each restaurant owns its own account, its own applicants, its own employment relationship. We built the structure this way on purpose, and it's the right shape under current joint-employer guidance.
