Why most GMs struggle with hiring
General Managers are not recruiters. They are running a venue — service, stock, staffing, customer complaints, the boiler that broke again. Hiring gets squeezed into the gaps, which means it gets done badly or not at all. Candidates go cold. Roles stay open for weeks. The team runs short.
The solution is not to spend more time on hiring. It is to spend a small, focused amount of time every day — five minutes — and to make those minutes count.
The 5-minute routine
This is a routine you can do at the start of your shift, before service begins, with a coffee in hand. It does not require a laptop or a spreadsheet. It works on a phone.
Minute 1: Check your pipeline
Open your hiring dashboard. How many candidates are in your pipeline? Are any sitting in a stage longer than they should be? A candidate who has been in "screening" for five days is losing interest. Move them forward or move them out.
Minute 2: Review new applicants
Look at anyone who applied in the last 24 hours. You do not need to make a decision on each one. You just need to acknowledge them. A quick response — even an automated one — tells the candidate you are paying attention. Silence is the fastest way to lose a good applicant.
Minute 3: Chase one outstanding action
Is there a candidate who needs to book a trial shift? A reference you are waiting on? An offer that has been sitting unread? Pick one outstanding action and nudge it. One per day keeps the pipeline from stalling.
Minute 4: Scan your broadcast responses
If you have sent out a broadcast for an open role, check who has responded. The first candidates to respond are often the most motivated. Do not let them sit. If they look suitable, invite them to a trial shift immediately.
Minute 5: Note what is blocking you
Spend the last minute thinking about what is slowing you down. Is it the same bottleneck every week — no responses to broadcasts, candidates dropping out at trial, offers being declined? Write it down. Patterns emerge over a week, and once you can see the pattern you can fix it.
Why this works
Hiring stalls because it is batch-processed. A GM ignores it all week, then spends Friday afternoon trying to catch up, then loses the weekend, then starts again on Monday. Five minutes a day keeps candidates warm, keeps the pipeline moving, and prevents the backlog that makes hiring feel overwhelming.
This routine does not replace the bigger decisions — interviewing, trial shifts, making offers. Those take longer and should be scheduled. But the daily five minutes ensures that when you do sit down for those bigger tasks, the pipeline is ready and the candidates are still interested.
Making it a habit
The key is consistency, not duration. Five minutes every day is more effective than an hour once a week. Tie it to an existing habit — your morning coffee, your pre-service walk-round, your end-of-shift check. The routine takes hold when it becomes part of the day, not another task on a list.
For guidance on structuring your hiring pipeline in RecruitCommis, see the documentation.