The rite of passage of the in-person CV drop at restaurants and bars has changed since COVID. It’s anecdotal, sure, but ask around: younger generation of hospitality workers aren't interested in walking into a neighbourhood and handing their resume to whoever happened to be near the door, hoping it made it to the right person. Restaurants have since adapted, throwing listings on Indeed or going so far as to post stories and in-feed posts, either way hoping for the best.

It hasn’t really been working, though. "You'll put a job posting on Indeed for a server position and get flooded with applications, a lot of whom don't even live in the country," says Dillon Griffin, co-owner of NDG Luncheonette and the pub Honey Martin. "It's just not a tool that really understands the personable nature of what we do."

Indeed, he argues, was built for corpos like Tim Hortons, not for owner-operated restaurants where the person doing the hiring is also the one wiping down tables at the end of the night. The sign-up process is complicated, the costs are steep for small businesses—charged per CV received, not per interview—and the platform optimizes for volume over fit.

Instagram hasn't fared much better. The audience following a well-regarded restaurant is mostly customers and tourists, not the pool of enthusiastic industry workers a GM needs to find on short notice. "If you're Montreal Plaza and you're nationally ranked," Griffin says, "having to put on your Stories every four months that you need a line cook—it's not that great of a look."

The best case, according to Griffin, is that you get flooded with DMs, set up a round of interviews, and half the candidates ghost you. Worst case, you find nobody and start again.

The rite of passage of the in-person CV drop at restaurants and bars has changed since COVID. It’s anecdotal, sure, but ask around: younger generation of hospitality workers aren't interested in walking into a neighbourhood and handing their resume to whoever happened to be near the door, hoping it made it to the right person. Restaurants have since adapted, throwing listings on Indeed or going so far as to post stories and in-feed posts, either way hoping for the best.

It hasn’t really been working, though. "You'll put a job posting on Indeed for a server position and get flooded with applications, a lot of whom don't even live in the country," says Dillon Griffin, co-owner of NDG Luncheonette and the pub Honey Martin. "It's just not a tool that really understands the personable nature of what we do."

Indeed, he argues, was built for corpos like Tim Hortons, not for owner-operated restaurants where the person doing the hiring is also the one wiping down tables at the end of the night. The sign-up process is complicated, the costs are steep for small businesses—charged per CV received, not per interview—and the platform optimizes for volume over fit.

Instagram hasn't fared much better. The audience following a well-regarded restaurant is mostly customers and tourists, not the pool of enthusiastic industry workers a GM needs to find on short notice. "If you're Montreal Plaza and you're nationally ranked," Griffin says, "having to put on your Stories every four months that you need a line cook—it's not that great of a look."

The best case, according to Griffin, is that you get flooded with DMs, set up a round of interviews, and half the candidates ghost you. Worst case, you find nobody and start again.