Jobs in the service industry are suddenly in demand – and the volume of applications isn’t making life any easier for managers
WHEN THE owner of a new McDonald’s outlet in Ennis, Co Clare, recently advertised for staff, he was overwhelmed by the volume of prospective employees hoping for a chance to join the extended Ronald McDonald family.
But what was truly remarkable was the number of well-qualified professionals, including accountants, architects and bankers, among the throngs looking for a job.
With the outlet due to open at Easter, owner Kieran McDermott placed a large “Now Hiring” banner at the site. It had to be removed 10 days later due to the huge number of applicants.
“We had 500 job applications,” he says. “The jobs were advertised nowhere else except for the banner we put up. The applicants were very skilled, very employable and very enthusiastic. I had to do a double-take on the CVs. It’s no joke.”
The situation is in marked contrast to 2002, when McDermott opened an outlet in Shannon, Co Clare. Then he had to seek out the employees.
If this were a documentary, it might be called Downsize Me, but, with a 73 per cent increase in unemployment rates in Ennis in the past year, the scramble for McJobs, particularly among Irish workers, is quite comprehensible.
Michele Ryan, McDonald’s Ireland’s director of human resources, says the company has noticed a marked increase in job applications over the past months. It is expanding this year, with four new outlets opening in Ireland creating up to 200 new jobs. It has also just announced City Guilds certification for its entry-level training. Regardless of background, candidates who have the “right attitude and ability to work well in a team will succeed within the organisation”, says Ryan.
So what can highly trained professionals expect if they are among the lucky ones chosen as a McDonald’s employee? Firstly, they will get a starting salary of €9.31 per hour, which is reviewed annually on a performance-related pay scale. Every new employee will have to learn all aspects of the operation, from flipping burgers to making McFlurry ice cream, to operating tills and sweeping and cleaning floors.
If you make it to management level, the salary package includes a company car, an attractive medical insurance package for your family, and the ability to earn an additional 50 per cent of your base salary in bonus payments. Not only that, but there is no talk of pay freezes within the company – the salary is benchmarked in line with managerial roles in other sectors and is up for review annually.
“McDonald’s has always had a number of Irish people with us for a very long time,” says Ryan. “But we have seen a marked increase in the number of Irish coming to us for jobs over the last year.”
MCDONALD’S IS NOT the only company seeing a large influx of applicants from over-qualified Irish workers who may have looked down their noses at positions in the past. Two years ago, deli owner Michael Pettit was trying to hire staff for his outlet in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. He took out advertisements with the local newspaper and radio station, and put signs up in his shop window. But Irish workers weren’t interested. He received just three CVs for the counter assistant and supervisor positions advertised. It was a trend he had got used to. When he first opened in 1999, he couldn’t find a chef for his kitchen.
“I had to step in myself for the first 12 months,” he says. Over the years his workforce was made up mainly of foreign workers, students and others who had come to Ireland in search of a fresh start.“There was an attitude among the Irish towards the service industry. It was frowned on. All of a sudden the minimum wage became no longer acceptable from an Irish point of view.”
Pettit is four weeks away from opening a new takeaway deli on Princes Street in Cork. This time he decided not to take out any advertisements in the local press, and instead placed a poster in the window. So far, he has received 130 CVs, and estimates that 65 per cent of applicants are Irish.
“The quality of candidates has been incredible,” he says. “I’ve had solicitors, qualified accountants, architects and engineers looking for work. The covering letters have been staggering, and people have been very straight-up about their circumstances.”
Yet candidates well-qualified in other areas may have a hard time getting the start. “If someone has trained as a solicitor and worked in that area for several years, obviously they have reached a certain level of professional advancement,” Pettit says. “Unless they have had experience in a business similar to mine at some stage during those years, then it is unlikely they will be reaching the top of the candidate list.”
The speed with which the work environment has changed has taken Pettit by surprise, he says. “I’m amazed by how quickly things have turned around. It’s frightening. Nobody realised how bad things had gotten, then suddenly in the last four to six weeks, it has really sunk in.”
IT’S A SIMILAR tale in the hotel industry. When the Carlton Group reopened the Castletroy Park Hotel in Limerick in February, it received 2,500 CVs for 120 jobs. Michael Kearney, chairman of the Carlton Group, said he was “flabbergasted” at the number of applicants, some of which came from as far afield as New York, Sydney and California.
Similarly, when the Capello Hotel in Cork (which is reopening on April 3rd as the Castlemartyr Resort) was taken over by the Dromoland Group recently, the new owners hosted an open day for potential employees.
“We expected about 150 to turn up,” says managing director Mark Nolan, “and we had just shy of 500 arrive. It was exceptional.”
Niamh Ring is human resources manager at Cork’s Kingsley Hotel, and has noticed a 75 per cent increase in applications in the past two months alone. “Previously, when we advertised we would rarely see an Irish application. I’m seeing far more now,” she says. “I have received a large amount of applications from people outside the industry, varying from tradesmen to accountants and people with administration backgrounds. Many applicants from these areas would have a third-level qualification.”
Ring says experience in a different profession is no guarantee of success when applying for the service industries. But it makes selecting candidates a more difficult task. “I had a well-qualified civil engineer looking for work, but he had no hotel experience. There are certain attributes you need when hiring for a five-star hotel. I have applications coming into me with covering letters and, to be honest, my heart goes out to them. It’s not easy.”
Sharon Hammond, 23, business graduate
from Tallaght
“I went to Jobstown Community College and from there I went to Tallaght Institute of Technology, where I did a four-year degree in business management. It involved lots of different areas of business, such as accountancy, economics and project management. To be honest, I had no real idea about the direction of my future career while I was doing the degree. I had thought I might try and work in human resources, so I sent out a few CVs but had no success. I didn’t even hear back – maybe it was something to do with the fact I didn’t have office experience.
“I had worked part-time in McDonald’s while I was in college, so I decided to join full-time a year ago, and am now a shift manager in the Tallaght outlet. Basically it means I am in charge of the restaurant on a daily basis, looking after everything from the staff to customer satisfaction and health and safety issues.
“I started out as a crew worker and progressed up the line to be area leader and now shift manager. I was sent on various courses and would have a few certificates from McDonald’s. There’s a stack of CVs in front of me at the moment and we did applications from people with all sorts of backgrounds and qualifications. We get a lot on a daily basis, and this has certainly increased in the last few months.
“For the time being I’ll stay working here, as I’m quite happy. It’s a stable job, and there aren’t too many of them at the moment.”
