Finding the right kitchen staff is tough — but hiring the wrong person is even more costly. With high turnover rates, rising wages, and skills gaps across Australia’s hospitality industry, kitchen staff hiring mistakes in 2025 are more expensive than ever.
This guide outlines the top 5 hiring mistakes to avoid — and how to build a reliable, motivated team without burning through your time or budget.
It’s easy to post on big platforms like Seek or Indeed, but these sites aren’t designed for hospitality. You get floods of irrelevant resumes, no chef ratings, and zero insight into attitude, work ethic, or kitchen fit.
What to do instead: Use platforms specializing in visa-ready chefs where you can filter by kitchen role, cuisine type, and even visa status.
Resumes lie. Interviews impress. But the kitchen never does.
Skipping a trial shift is one of the biggest mistakes employers make. You’ll never know how a candidate handles pressure, prep speed, or teamwork unless you see them in action — even for an hour.
What to do: Always offer a paid trial shift. Use effective interview questions for potential chefs to structure your conversation, then test them in real kitchen flow.
Hard skills get the job done. Soft skills keep the team together.
Hiring for technical ability alone often leads to poor team chemistry. Look for candidates who show:
What to do: Use our guide to the soft skills that matter most when hiring for hospitality in 2025.
Many chefs work on student visas, bridging visas, or are eligible for sponsorship — but if you don’t ask upfront, it can delay hiring or lead to legal issues.
What to do: Ask early about work rights. Use verified platforms to find chefs who are already visa-ready or eligible.
Top candidates get hired fast. If you take too long to schedule interviews, provide feedback, or send an offer — someone else will.
If you’ve hired the wrong chef before, you know how quickly things go south — poor prep, staff walkouts, guest complaints, and lost revenue.
But when you hire smart, your kitchen runs smoother, morale improves, and guests notice.
Platforms like Venture Uplift give you access to verified chefs, free job posting tools, and filters by cuisine, visa, and availability. Click here to post your kitchen job for free and get matched instantly with top culinary talent.
