Check out our Director, Will’s response to this article in last week’s London Evening Standard.
Dear Editor,
There seems to be nothing ‘controversial’ about Pret’s recruitment (Why can’t a Brit get a job at Pret? – 23rd January 2012) – rather, it seems to do a fantastic job of securing them enthusiastic employees, focussed on giving the customer a top level of service.
I run a recruitment outsourcing business, and read your article hoping for an insight into how Pret recruit. When setting up a recruitment process, you look to have as many high calibre individuals as possible apply, and then build fair, efficient and fool proof methods to screen those applicants before hiring the best.
It strikes me that Pret achieve exactly this, and that the lack of Brits applying is a problem which lies not at their door.
With thorough screening and interview stages, Pret’s recruitment process seems to mirror that of many companies today – funnily enough, the responses from unsuccessful candidates seem to be quite similar too. Pret’s “graduation day” seems not too dissimilar to the prospective employee days of many of our high profile national recruiters, either.
Perhaps instead of sandwiching (pardon the pun) quotes from disgruntled candidates in between the all-too familiar bucket-passing statements from our so-called politicians, your reporter could look a lot more closely at why the calibre of ‘young Brits’ applying don’t make the grade. We might be able to have more of an informative debate then.
Try asking about government plans to address the gap between the minimum wage and the London ‘Living wage’. Or investigate what schools, colleges, career bodies and job centre plus are doing to prepare tomorrow’s employees for the world of work. Even better yet, compare the validity of a recruitment process that has such stark results with others, 
and ask why it is so good? Maybe we could learn something from it.
Assuming that Pret maintain their high standard of recruitment, I shall continue to buy my morning coffee from them – it really does taste better when served with so much enthusiasm!
Yours Sincerely
Will Shepherd
What are your thoughts? Comment and share!
Written by Will Shepherd, Managing Director of PPS.
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