Fixing hospitality hiring, finally.
A CV can tell you where someone has worked. It rarely tells you how they work. WHY HATS shows you the person behind the application — before anyone commits.
Be seen for how you work.
Build a WHY Profile once and let venues see how you actually work. No CV, no cover letter, no application theatre.
- Free, always
- About 10 minutes
- Reuse it for every role
Hiring with WHY HATS
Sample
The Copper Fork
Nine Yards
Salt & Quay
The Hollow
Brickworks
North Pass
Hospitality doesn't have a recruitment problem. It has a hiring problem.
- Good people get overlooked because they don't write a good CV.
- Bad hires look excellent on paper, right up until week three.
- Most decisions still come down to a document, a short interview, and hope.
We replaced the typewriter. We replaced the brick phone. It might be time hiring caught up too.
CVs still have their uses. We just don't think they should decide who gets seen.
What that costs
Sample figures- Annual staff turnover across UK hospitality
30%
Annual staff turnover across UK hospitality
Source needed
- Typical cost of replacing one hourly hire
£1,500
Typical cost of replacing one hourly hire
Source needed
- New hires who leave inside 90 days
1 in 3
New hires who leave inside 90 days
Source needed
The bit that replaces the CV. And works better than one.
Ten minutes of honest questions about how someone works, turned into something both sides can actually use.
What a candidate builds
Maya R.
Bar supervisor · Leeds · 4 years in hospitality
How they work
- Steady rhythmFast pace
- Follows the systemReads the room
- Heads-down focusTeam energy
- Quiet serviceBig personality
Thrives in
High-volume floors with a tight-knit team
What a venue sees
Shortlist
Bar supervisor · The Copper Fork
- View profile
Maya R.
Thrives on a busy floor
- View profile
Sam O.
Systems-first, unshakeable
- View profile
Priya K.
Natural host, remembers everyone
Ask Maya about
“Tell me about a service that fell apart. What did you do first?”
- One assessment, ten minutes
- Candidates answer how they work — pace, pressure, structure, people. Once. It travels with them to every role they apply for.
- Read as a person, not a score
- Every trait sits on a spectrum between two valid ways of working. Nobody is ranked, and nobody is filtered out by an algorithm.
- Questions worth asking
- Each shortlist arrives with interview prompts drawn from that candidate's profile, so the conversation starts somewhere useful.
HATS matches how people work with how venues run.
Four things, understood properly, instead of one document skimmed quickly.
Understand the Person
A WHY Profile captures how someone works — pace, pressure, communication, what kind of team brings out their best. Not just where they've worked before.
Understand the Venue
Every venue has its own rhythm — the pace of service, the size of the team, the culture that actually runs the floor. We capture that too.
Understand the Role
The job spec is a start, not the whole story. We look at the pace, the pressure and the reality of the shift the role sits inside.
Make the Match Understandable
We put the person, the venue and the role side by side and explain why this may suit you, or worth exploring — in plain language, not a score.
No public scores. No automatic hiring decisions. Just better information for better human judgement.
Less scoring people. More understanding them.
Hospitality is a human business. The hiring should match.
Built for hospitality, not adapted to it
Designed around split shifts, seasonal peaks, high turnover and real operational pressure — because the people who built it have worked them.
Culture is the deciding factor
The strongest candidate isn't always the most experienced one. It's the person most likely to thrive in your room, with your team.
Better hires change everything downstream
Retention, team morale, guest experience, the rota that finally holds together. Hiring is upstream of all of it.
Compatible, not identical
Different working styles can work well together. We're not looking for clones of your best person — we're looking for people who'll complement your team.
Human judgement stays human
WHY HATS gives you better information about how someone works. It doesn't score people publicly, and it never hires or rejects anyone for you.
Hiring that sounds less like paperwork and more like a conversation.
We stopped interviewing people who read well and started meeting people who fit the floor. Two seasons in, the section leads have stayed put.
I've been in kitchens for nine years and my CV still said 'hardworking team player'. This was the first time an application asked how I actually work.
The things people ask before they sign up.
Still unsure about something? Talk to us.
Does it cost job seekers anything?
No. Building a WHY Profile and applying for roles is free, and it always will be. Employers pay for the platform.
Do I still need a CV?
Not to apply through WHY HATS. Your WHY Profile covers how you work and where you've worked, so there's nothing to reformat every time a new role comes up.
Is the WHY Assessment a personality test?
No. There's no score, no pass mark and no type. Every trait sits on a spectrum between two equally valid ways of working, and it's never used to filter you out of a role automatically — a person always makes that call.
How long does it take?
Around ten minutes, once. After that it travels with you to every role you apply for, and you can update it whenever your working life changes.
What does it cost to hire through WHY HATS?
Free covers one live job, so you can try it without committing. Pro is £50 per venue per month for unlimited live jobs, candidate matching and the AI-supported tools, and groups with several sites can talk to us about Enterprise. Full breakdown on the pricing page.
What happens to my data?
Your profile is only visible to venues you apply to. We don't sell candidate data, and you can delete your account at any time. The details are in our privacy policy.
Hospitality deserves better hiring. We're building it.
Whichever side of the pass you're on, it starts the same way.
I'm looking for work
Build your WHY Profile and be seen for how you work. Free, about ten minutes.
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