About
A candidate can give a great interview, have an impressive résumé, and say all the right things. That doesn’t tell you whether they can read a P&L, diagnose a labor problem, understand why food cost is running high, protect food safety, develop managers, or make the right decision when a restaurant is falling apart during dinner rush.
I spent more than 25 years in restaurant operations before building The Hire Lens. I finished my time with a Wendy’s franchise organization overseeing 27 restaurants, six District Managers, 27 General Managers, and approximately $35 million in annual sales. I’ve hired GMs and DMs. I’ve watched exceptional managers turn struggling restaurants around, and I’ve watched the wrong hire slowly damage labor, food cost, turnover, guest experience, and profitability.
Earlier in my career as a District Manager, I developed the same type of operating approach that eventually became the foundation for The Hire Lens. Two restaurants in my district became the No. 1 and No. 2 performing locations in the franchise group, generating approximately $4.2 million and $3.8 million annually, while the district maintained 16%+ EBITDA for four consecutive years.
The person running the restaurant matters.
Yet most hiring processes rely heavily on résumés, interviews, references, and instinct. Those things are useful, but they don’t necessarily show whether a candidate can actually manage the business. That’s why I built The Hire Lens.
The Hire Lens puts GM and DM candidates into realistic restaurant-management situations and evaluates how they apply the skills the job requires: financial understanding, labor management, food cost, food safety, operational judgment, leadership, and problem solving. It’s built on the fundamentals that hold true across concepts and brands, not on any one chain’s internal systems or menu, and it was designed from an operator’s perspective, not simply an HR perspective.
Large restaurant organizations can build extensive internal selection systems. Independent operators and growing franchise groups often don’t have the same resources. The Hire Lens is designed to help close that gap without requiring an enterprise software contract. Use it when you’re hiring. Pay for what you use. And use the results alongside your interview, experience, references, and judgment to make a more informed hiring decision.
What It Tests
Reading a P&L, identifying the root cause of a profit decline, and knowing which lever actually fixes it.
Pacing labor against a forecast, managing overtime exposure, and reading the daily variance patterns that separate a tight schedule from a bleeding one.
Working a weekly item variance report, prioritizing by dollar impact, and catching the gap between theoretical and actual before it compounds.
Temperature standards, contamination prevention, illness exclusion, and the receiving and allergen judgment calls that protect your guests and your brand.
Navigating a guest complaint, a crew conflict, or several crises hitting at once, with the sequencing and communication the moment actually demands.
Evaluating talent with real behavioral evidence, coaching a struggling manager, and building the bench that keeps a vacancy from becoming a crisis.
Sample Output
Every candidate produces a scored, section-by-section report with specific strengths, specific concerns, and a follow-up question built from the actual gap in their answers — something to take into the interview, not instead of it.
Strong financial understanding — correctly diagnosed the root cause of the profit decline and prioritized food cost variances by dollar impact.
Weak labor scheduling — missed the overtime exposure building in the labor pacing report.
Walk me through how you’d rebuild this week’s schedule if you discovered a 3-point labor overage with two call-outs already locked in.
Illustrative sample report. Not a real candidate.
Because the question isn’t only whether a candidate can talk about running a restaurant. It’s whether they can show you how they would run one.
Buy a credit pack for occasional hiring or choose Professional for continuous hiring. No demo required to get started.