No one wants weekend work

[LastOrdersMaura]

My friend has a cafe. It's in a central location with a good bus route, cycle route and ten mins walk from a huge university campus.
Despite the jobs being on Indeed and advertised on a local job site, no one is applying. Or they apply but say 'is there any negotiation on the days?' Why doesn't anyone want weekend work anymore? I would have thought there would have been college students, Uni students, mums/ dads who can only work when partners are home, retired people who are bored. Why is it so difficult to recruit?

I’ve been advertising for cafe staff recently. Similar sort of situation, no one is willing to do the weekend work. I’ve spilt it into 3/4 hour shifts and hired 4 16 year olds to do those jobs. They want them, but don’t want to be tied down all day now that they are also able to go and socialise again.

So eg 10-2, 2-6 Saturday and Sunday, and then the 4 of them sort it between themselves which one they want. We provide the shirts and PPE, all they have to do is turn up. I’m paying national minimum wage for the over 25s for them too, they do the same work as everyone else so deserve the same pay.

I advertised on Facebook and got lots of responses using a WhatsApp link to “apply”.

We also offer the odd week night shift that anyone is free to pick up, and where we can, the managers and senior staff drop them home with parental permission. This helps with the costs of using public transport. They also get a meal whilst working/to take home at the end of a shift.

Hopefully you can get a few ideas from this, good luck. Lots of people don’t want hospitality work at the moment because it’s unreliable after the recent year!

Both my older teens are hunting for their first part time jobs - applying for loads of things, kitchen staff, waiting tables etc. They both keep getting rejected, they are only 16 & 17 so will only be on minimum wage but still rejections.

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

Working in a cafe adds nothing to your cv as a student. The work experience you need as a student is a summer internship or placement in your desired industry.

I remember getting specific feedback from the manager who recruited me to my graduate training position that they’d really liked my answers to questions about e.g. teamwork where I’d used examples from my part time jobs in bar work and retail.

Internships and summer placements are ideal, but not everyone knows exactly what they want to do during the early stages of their degree and there is a lot of merit in experience of part time jobs that give you evidence that you can turn up on time, muck in, take instruction and use your initiative.

But you can get those skills and experiences from extracurricular activities or volunteering too, for less time commitment and more fun - so the only reason to choose working in a cafe instead is the money. I didn’t know what I wanted to do either so I joined the committees of different things and did a couple of different internships to try different industries. We graduated in 2017 and my DP doesn’t even put his bar work (summer job - part time jobs aren’t allowed at Oxbridge) on his cv because it’s not relevant.

@Mylittlesandwich

She needs the right kind of applicant. Is she just looking for weekend staff? A lot of people need more hours than that. DH works at the weekend in hospitality but he doesn't just work at the weekend. He still needs a full time job.

The difference is that hospitality is seen as a valid career in most mediterranean countries - in France as a waiter you will move up through the ranks, the company will pay for you to get further qualifications such as their equivalent of Master of Wine. A Sommelier will ear good money. So EU staff would come here, work for a few years and then go home where the experience they had gained would be valued and entltle them to better paid jobs.

We see hospitality as student work therefore low wages and not great custoomer service

@PattyPan

Working in a cafe adds nothing to your cv as a student. The work experience you need as a student is a summer internship or placement in your desired industry. The only reason to get that kind of job as a student is for the money - so clearly the money isn’t good enough to make it worthwhile for them. Fwiw you actually aren’t allowed to get a part time job at some universities and many sixth forms have limits on how many hours their students should work - often no more than 8 hours a week.

I disagree. Both my daughters and one of my sons all managed to get good competitive grad jobs (big four accountancy type) without relevant work experience but with evidence of hard graft type jobs. They all got plenty of interviews at a variety of companies of so it wasn’t just a one off. My kids went to a comp so maybe the employers gave them pity interviews 😂😂

My kids also didn’t have a long list of worthy extra curricular activities and that didn’t make any difference either. I think having a good degree and being good at the online assessments and interviews is what matters.

Obviously relevant work experience is really valuble but good employers wont want to discount potentially excellent applicants that have had to do coffee shop type jobs.

Also, the number of Unis that don’t won’t their students to work is very few and those that do tend to have very long holidays.

I worked weekends for years and years, but that weekend job paid as much as full time m to f.
I would do it again but only if it paid enough for me to only do that one job and no extras through the week.
It was a bit shit though to always be working when friends are inviting you to stuff you definitely cannot go to.

I suspect OPs friend will have to offer more to get staff.

I agree OP that your friend must simply not be paying enough for what she is asking for.

I used to work in an independent bar. We'd close at 11pm in the week and midnight Fridays and Saturdays so you'd be home by midnight in the week and 1 at the weekend. Then new owner came in and changed close to 1 in the week and 2:30 weekend evenings. He also brought in lots of new drinks and equipment that all took far longer to clean so close went from being less than an hour to at least an hour if not two. We didn't get paid any extra for working after midnight. Shifts didn't get split they just got longer and we didn't even get a staff meal. And when you're finishing at that time you can't get public transport home so it has to be a taxi/uber (city center bar so no parking) which wipes out your last hour of pay. Oh and it was minimum wage. He then wondered why we all started quitting over the course of the next 2 months. The job wasn't worth it anymore. We all found different jobs with more reasonable hours and more respect for us as staff.

A job like the one you're describing (i.e. not a career that you love where you put in the slog early to reap the rewards later) is only worth doing if the money you get outweighs all the costs of having a job and the impact the job has on your life/socialsing/free time/hobbies. Your friend isn't paying enough to make it worth it for anyone.

[quote LadyDanburysHat]@Palavah have you ever worked in hospitality or retail? Paying more for antisocial hours is absolutely not standard.[/quote]
It used to be though and it should be.

"We see hospitality as student work therefore low wages and not great custoomer service"

Customer service in the UK is much better than in France, if by customer service you mean politeness and friendliness.
If you want advice on the food or wine, then yes, ask a French waiter not a British student doing it as a temporary job.

Working in a cafe adds nothing to your cv as a student. The work experience you need as a student is a summer internship or placement in your desired industry

Not true. Employers like work that shows you have good communication skills and can follow instructions and deal with awkward customers.

Obviously if you want to be, for example, a lawyer it helps to have done a work placement in a law firm or legal department, but any experience shows commercial awareness and can be "spun" to be helpful for a "proper" job application.

Anyway, you can do both - Saturday job in a cafe and then work placement during summer vacation.

@EverythingRuined I went to a comp and worked at a big 4 consultant too, without a weekend job. Exactly, they just care about you being able to answer the formulaic interview questions so they don’t really care about how you got the skills. My point was that if people can get the skills in a way that means they don’t have to work a crap job for crap pay then they won’t, which is why so many students don’t bother with these jobs any more - they don’t need it for their cv, it’s just if they need the money.

my DP doesn’t even put his bar work (summer job - part time jobs aren’t allowed at Oxbridge) on his cv because it’s not relevant

Once you have a "proper" job it's not relevant (generally) but it might be if you do a CV using transferable skills, rather than chronological.

Em8725, you sound like a great employer!

If she is not getting applicants she needs to rethink:

• where and how she is marketing
• how much she is paying
• anything else she can do to make the job more attractive

Can she rejig the rota so she doesn't need the same person to do both weekend days? It might be more attractive to someone to do a weekend day and a weekday, lots of uni and college students have days off midweek.

We graduated in 2017 and my DP doesn’t even put his bar work (summer job - part time jobs aren’t allowed at Oxbridge) on his cv because it’s not relevant.

Well yes it stopped being relevant on my applications once I had my first graduate job too. But to get that job it was useful experience for me. I was primarily doing it for the money because I needed it, but to my employer demonstrating that I could get a first class degree while also holding down a part time job gave them confidence I’d be able to handle doing a professional qualification alongside the day job.

@LastOrdersMaura

It's a chain cafe, she doesn't own it, and it's in the middle of a not very hip department store. Unlikely young people will stroll past the poster. It's both days of the weekend but 10-4.

I worked in hospitality through college and university and I wouldn’t have touched that with a barge pole. I preferred shifts where they weren’t set days and you’d get your rota a few weeks in advance and I worked them around my lectures/lessons with weekends if I was given them but would swap/give away shifts with colleagues if I wanted to go out. Absolutely no way would I have committed to both weekend days as a set absolute when I was younger. I also never earnt more for working unsociable hours and my workplace was open until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays!

My dd has been a part-time barista during Sixth Form. She works every Saturday and the odd weekday during half-term and summer holidays. This is a cafe that gets much busier during the school holidays as it's in a national park.

The other weekend staff includes other Sixth formers and a mum who works weekends whose husband works Monday to Friday.

@LastOrdersMaura

But she's not asking for experience. What are all the teenagers doing for jobs these days? I'm sorry but you cannot be an eighteen year old with no experience and expect to get more than MW. I'm on 50p more than that and I am responsible for peoples lives (care work.)

Actually, you can. Note the lack of applicants.

Some jobs truly aren't worth the money.

If you are on fb, join the local mums page and put ad on there

Always see 16/17yr mums say they want a weekend Job

Nobody wants to work both days of the weekend, especially when the shifts are bang in the middle of the day - you don't get the benefits of a late shift (lie-ins and the ability to stay out until about 3am), or an early shift (finishing by lunchtime and having the rest of the day to yourself).

The pay is also poor for what it is.

I think she needs to aim for the 16/17 year olds, they will take a low wage as they are all desperate for their first job. Min wage at that age is £4.62. Most kids that age want a job for one day a week, either Sat or Sun - why not offer the option of one weekend day? I don't think many people want to work for the whole weekend as most taking that job would need study time.

My dd found her job via social media.

I saw that the cafe was changing hands on FB. I told her about this and she immediately contacted them with a speculative application and they organized a trial shift and the rest is history.

On our local FB pages there's often ads and enquiries about jobs like this. Your friend probably needs 2 people (one to do Saturday and another Sunday) rather than one person to do both. Students (especially Sixth formers) could do with a day off for study/relaxation)

Some of the other Sixth formers at this cafe were recommendations from dd. She was given a £20 finders fee if the recommendation passed probation.

I'm sorry but you cannot be an eighteen year old with no experience and expect to get more than MW. I'm on 50p more than that and I am responsible for peoples lives (care work.)

Is she paying the standard minimum wage for over 25s for everyone though or is she just paying NMW based off of their age? My best friend got a job at Nando’s with no experience when we were 16 and they paid all waiters the same wage no matter if they were not 16 or 25. There’s a big difference between the NMW for a teenager and an adult. So maybe it’s that?

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

We graduated in 2017 and my DP doesn’t even put his bar work (summer job - part time jobs aren’t allowed at Oxbridge) on his cv because it’s not relevant.

Well yes it stopped being relevant on my applications once I had my first graduate job too. But to get that job it was useful experience for me. I was primarily doing it for the money because I needed it, but to my employer demonstrating that I could get a first class degree while also holding down a part time job gave them confidence I’d be able to handle doing a professional qualification alongside the day job.

He’s never put it on his applications at all, I mean. My DSis graduated last year and she doesn’t put her retail job on her cv for the jobs she’s applied for in her industry either in favour of giving more detail about her course which was a more practical/applied one. She’s got a temp job now she’ll probably put on now just so she doesn’t have a gap in her cv but working in a shop really didn’t teach her anything of value to her career, just paid for her nights out