Little Chick, a franchisor of Big Chicken by Shaq and Firehouse Subs, sought a hiring solution to staff its first Big Chicken store located in a wealthier town. Sourcing hourly staff is notoriously difficult in this town because an abundance of financial comfort among residents means fewer people, specifically Gen Z (the majority of the hourly workforce), are seeking hourly jobs, leading to severe staffing shortages. In fact, a local Sonic’s Drive Thru recently closed down because of short staffing.
Tasked with having sufficient staff to meet corporate and operational demands, Little Chick turned to LANDED to increase quality Gen Z candidate volume. The partnership between LANDED and Little Chick was so successful that the company now uses LANDED across all of its franchised brands.
"I mean, we're just blown away by the amount of applicants. And then after we did interviews last week, we were blown away by the quality of applicants."
LANDED’s automated text feature reached out to every candidate within 15 minutes of them applying to a job over SMS instead of email. This way, messages and follow-ups from Little Chick weren’t missed, as Gen Z rarely checks their email. By reaching out to candidates so swiftly over text, Little Chick was able to conduct follow-up steps with 78% of total applicants.
LANDED screened and engaged candidates over SMS, using Generative AI to create the dialogue. By using Generative AI, Little Chick was able to screen multiple candidates simultaneously without the oversight of a hiring team or General Manager. LANDED’s Generative AI screened for work history, experience, and even personality in both Spanish and English, which resulted in high-qualified, vetted candidates who were passed on to in-person interviews. More than 33% of LANDED’s interviewed candidates received and accepted jobs with Little Chick.
The store was still under renovation when recruiter efforts began. Little Chick required an innovative solution to maintain interview volume, despite these holdbacks.
LANDED customized the interview experience here by providing candidates with specific directions and instructions to locate the temporary interview site. Once renovations were complete, LANDED swiftly retooled the interview instructions again to guide candidates to interview at the storefront, ensuring flexibility to create a seamless candidate experience in both cases.
Little Chick’s previous hiring system consisted of an applicant tracking system (ATS) that handled inquiries via a chatbot, which lead to delays and frustration as the company needed swift, on-the-spot assistance with opening its new store. Additional admin assistance was necessary to ensure the timely opening of the store, too.
LANDED’s human-supported help concierge was able to assist every inquiry within 1 hours of initial contact. Tools like LANDED’s Text Helper allowed Little Chick to receive direct support over SMS, which was much more time efficient than using a chatbot for follow-ups and inquiries.
