In this interview, we sit down with Ben Cox, the Head of People Experience at Craveable Brands. Ben discusses the nuances with running a franchise business, and shares his advice and learnings on the importance of understanding your candidate pool. Ben shares how Indeed’s data and insights, along with the collaborative partnership with his Indeed account managers, are playing a significant role in helping to improve Craveable Brands’ job ads and attracting more quality candidates than other job boards.
Indeed: Thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. We’re very excited for the opportunity to tell your story. First off, we would love to hear about what your role at Craveable Brands is.
Ben Cox: I am the Head of People Experience at Craveable Brands. My focus is around talent acquisition, employer branding, EVP, and overall uplifting the candidate. We hire about thousands of people every year, so making sure everyone is having a consistent and positive candidate experience is very important.
Indeed: What do you love most about your job, and what do you find most challenging?
Ben: This is a new industry for me. I've spent quite a fair bit of my career in the financial services, moving from banks to burgers, so it has been a bit of a learning curve coming into the retail business.
There are a lot of nuances when it comes to a franchise food business, and learning to take on a sort of small business owner mindset when it comes to our candidate experience.
It’s been both challenging and rewarding to dive into a new industry and start making some valuable impact for the business.
Indeed: In two sentences or less, what does Craveable Brands do?
Ben: We are a national, franchise-led, quick-service restaurant organisation with brands like Red Rooster, Oporto, Chargrill Charlie’s and Chicken Treat. We have over 400 restaurants nationally and 13,500 employees within the restaurant network.
Indeed: With so many restaurants spread all over the country, how do you filter down strategies and insights to help your franchise partners improve the candidate experience for employees in all of those 400 restaurants?
Ben: This is something that is going to be our focus in 2024. Over the last 18 months, I have been focusing on what we call the ‘Restaurant Support Centre’ and putting together the right processes and technologies in place to allow us to move forward within the restaurant community.
Indeed: Before you started working with Indeed, what were some of the biggest pain points you experienced, and what was the number one challenge that Craveable Brands was facing?
Ben: Understanding our candidate pool and how to tap into them, and what resonates with them, what makes them want to apply to a job, what makes them stay in a job, etc. Our candidate pool usually consists of young people who are starting their careers out, such as high school students or international students—but sometimes they are also retirees who want to come back into the workforce.
So it's really thinking outside of the box on how we can broaden our message so that it appeals to our job seekers and inspires them to apply. I would say that’s where Indeed has done a great job in the way they market their product to that younger demographic that we are after.
A lot of the other job boards we have used in the past just don’t have the type of candidates we are looking for, and as a result, our job ads on other platforms don’t have the same impact as our jobs ads on Indeed do.
Indeed: Would you say that the job seekers on Indeed align with the type of candidates you're after or is there something else that Indeed has done to help bring quality candidates to your open roles?
Ben: I would say a mix of both. Our Indeed account manager has been really supportive and they partner with us regularly and closely on how our campaigns can be more effective and impactful to attract more quality candidates. They really help us in thinking outside of the box on how we are marketing to job seekers and being more creative in our job ads, where we advertise, etc.
I would say it's definitely a partnership between Craveable Brands and Indeed. We get together and discuss our challenges, and collaborate to create solutions to alleviate some of our challenges and get us closer to the hire.
I would also say the data and insights that Indeed shares is really useful as well.
Indeed: That's amazing to hear! Did you try other solutions before you decided to work with Indeed?
Ben: Yes we tried a few of the other job boards in Australia but it never amounted into a genuine partnership. They struggled in building a relationship with us, and as a result, our campaigns just weren’t performing well.
Indeed: How did you first hear about Indeed and our services?
Ben: We were posting a lot of our jobs on Indeed for free at the beginning. And then we had our account manager reach out to us one day to discuss how to be more effective in the way we were using the Indeed tools. It's a two-way conversation on how Indeed can help us be more impactful and effective in our hiring needs. She shared a lot of knowledge and insights with us which really helped to improve our job ads.
Indeed: Was it difficult to be convinced to go from posting your jobs for free to sponsoring them and creating more robust campaigns? Was there a specific turning point when you realised the investment was worth it?
Ben: To be honest, not really. We were supplied a lot of data which showed the results we could get from sponsored jobs, and she set us up with a test campaign for a small group of restaurants so we could see how it would perform before committing. The data from the test campaign proved that it was a really wise investment. Then we started looking at the return of investment we would get from Indeed versus the other job board we were using, and it was a ratio of 5 to 1 candidates—Indeed was giving us 5 qualified candidates compared to the 1 qualified candidate the other job board was giving us. Plus, we found the candidates on Indeed were much more qualified.
Indeed: How has working with Indeed impacted your day to day?
Ben: It’s made my life a lot easier as I don’t have to spend as much time thinking about how we’re going to keep the flow of candidates coming in and how we're going to evolve with where the market is going.
Indeed: Are there any other benefits you have experienced since using Indeed?
Ben: We definitely have a greater flow of candidates coming in. Our campaigns are reaching a much broader range of candidates now, and it’s honestly just easier to find candidates since using Indeed. We have also uplifted our employer brand since working with Indeed.
Indeed: You're a relatively new user of Indeed, what inspired you to take that leap and partner with us? You did mention our data and insights played a big factor, but was there anything else as well?
Ben: Indeed have built a genuine relationship with us. They really took the time to understand our business, our challenges, and our needs, and help us find talent more efficiently.
I don't think the success we have had would have been possible without that open communication and partnership from our Indeed account manager.
Indeed: What advice would you give to others who are facing similar challenges as you did before you started working with Indeed?
Ben: Make sure you fully understand what you're looking for. Have as much data as you can acquire and know what the challenges are that you're facing, and then communicate that effectively with your account manager at Indeed. Ask a lot of questions, because the account managers at Indeed really value that two-way conversation and want to build a genuine partnership with you.
Indeed: If you were to recommend Indeed to a colleague or friend, how would you sell it?
Ben: I would definitely highlight Indeed’s appetite for building a genuine partnership with you, because it's not just a transactional service that Indeed is providing. They really are invested in helping you grow, and I think that’s a very rare thing from organisations today.
If you would like to learn more about how a partnership with Indeed can help your franchise partners with their recruiting and talent acquisition needs, click here to schedule a free, 15-minute session with our Talent Strategy Advisor.
