My Hiring Toolkit

Understand the three documents I'd use to Hire a Kitchen Manager/ Head Chef

Most kitchens hire the best cook in the room. Then wonder why the wheels fall off the moment that the cook has a day off.

Here’s a truth I’ve watched play out for three decades.

The best cook is almost never your best Kitchen Manager.

Cooking is a craft. Running a kitchen is a business. Two completely different jobs. And when you hire for the first and hope the second comes free with it, you end up with a brilliant chef who can’t hold a roster together, can’t read a COGS number, and quietly becomes the bottleneck the whole kitchen waits on.

I see it constantly. An owner finally lands a gun chef. Food’s incredible. Reviews go up. And then twelve months later the owner is more trapped than ever, because the business now runs on one person’s memory instead of a system.

So I want to show you how to hire differently.

Below is a post with insights on the three example documents I’d put in front of any owner hiring a Kitchen Manager or Head Chef. A Position Agreement, a recruitment advert, and a set of interview questions. They’re built around one idea: you’re not hiring a cook, you’re hiring an operator. And these three documents work together to filter for exactly that.

This isn’t theory. It’s the same systems-led approach we run inside BLUEPRINT, applied to one of the most expensive hires you’ll ever make.

Let me walk you through how I’d use each one.

Why three documents, not one

Most owners try to do this whole job with a single advert. They write “Head Chef wanted, must be passionate,” post it, and pray.

The reason it fails is that one document is being asked to do three jobs it was never designed for: define the role, attract the right person, and test them. So it does none of them well.

The fix is to separate the work. Each document has one job:

• The Position Agreement defines the system that the role actually delivers.

• The Advert attracts the right operator and repels the wrong one.

• The Interview Questions test whether the person in front of you can actually run that system.

Get them working in that order, and the whole hire changes. You stop hiring on gut feel and start hiring against a standard. Here’s how each one earns its place.

Document 1: The Position Agreement (define the role before you sell it)

This is the one almost nobody has. And it’s the one that changes everything.

A Position Agreement isn’t a job description. A job description lists tasks. A Position Agreement defines the results that this role exists to achieve and the standards it’ll be held to. It’s the difference between “cook the food” and “deliver a kitchen that hits GP and wage benchmarks 90% of the time each quarter.”

A few things I’d want you to steal from this:

It starts with a Result Statement, not a task list. The Kitchen Manager exists “to achieve the vision through the development, implementation, documentation, and continuous improvement of kitchen systems.” Read that again. The result is systems that deliver, not meals that get plated. That single sentence reframes the entire hire.

It splits the work into Strategic and Tactical. Strategic work is the big levers owning the menu engineering system, leading the team to hit COGS/Wage/GP, and coaching everyone in the operating system. Tactical work is the weekly rhythm: audits, rosters published by Wednesday, prep sheets reviewed, and closing the systems-culture gap. When a candidate reads this, they instantly know whether they’re built for it or running for the door. Both outcomes are a win for you.

It names the numbers. GP and wage benchmarks hit 90% of the time each quarter. 95%+ Food Control Plan compliance. 100% of processes documented. You cannot hold someone accountable to a standard you never wrote down. This document is written down, and both parties sign it.

That signature matters. A Position Agreement is signed by the position holder and the manager; the owner commits to providing the environment, training and resources; the team member commits to the results. It’s a two-way deal, not a list of demands. That’s what makes it stick.

If you do nothing else from this post, build this document first. Because the next two are impossible to write well until you have it.

Document 2: The Advert (attract the operator, repel the cook-only)

Once the role is defined, the advert almost writes itself because you already know exactly who you’re talking to.

Don’t lead with the food. Don’t beg. Lead with a challenge: “Lead. Systemise. Elevate.” And then this line, which I love:

“This is not a back-on-the-tools-all-day role.”

That one sentence is doing enormous work. It’s filtering. The chef who just wants to cook reads it and moves on, which is exactly what you want. The operator who’s been dying for a kitchen that values systems over heroics leans in.

Three moves worth stealing that I’ll give you from the advert:

Sell the standard, not the salary. It talks about COGS on target, tight rosters, a team running on rhythm rather than chaos. It’s describing a way of working. The right person reads that and feels seen. You’re not advertising a job; you’re advertising a professional environment.

Tell them why the role matters. “You’re the operational backbone.” People don’t leave good jobs for a task list. They leave for purpose and growth. This advert offers both onboarding, coaching, and leadership development, “where great chefs become exceptional leaders.”

Repel as hard as you attract. “Systems, documentation and discipline, not heroics.” “100% consistency, 100% of the time. No shortcuts.” If that language makes someone uncomfortable, brilliant, they’ve just deselected themselves before they ever wasted your time in an interview.

A great advert isn’t measured by how many applications it gets. It’s measured by how many of the wrong ones it stops. Fewer, better candidates is the whole game.

Document 3: The Interview Questions (test the system, not the CV)

Now you bring people in. And here’s where most owners revert to gut feel: “I liked them, they seemed solid.” That’s how you end up surprised six months later.

My 15 questions are designed so you can’t be charmed. Every single one ties back to a specific accountability in the Position Agreement. That’s the secret: the interview isn’t a personality chat, it’s a structured audit against the role you already defined.

Look at how they’re built. They’re almost all behavioural “Tell me about a time,” “Walk me through how you,” “Describe a moment when.” You’re not asking what someone believes about systems. You’re asking for evidence that they’ve done it. Anyone can say they’re financially savvy. Far fewer can talk you through how they actually managed COGS %, Wage % and GP %, and what tools they used to do it (that’s Question 4, and it’s a beautiful filter).

A few I’ll share with you in this post:

• Question 1 (Systems & Consistency): “Tell me about a time you built or improved a system… what was the measurable result?” If they can’t point to a measurable result, they’ve never really owned a system. They’ve just worked inside someone else’s.

• Question 8 (The Fix-It Loop): A recurring breakdown. How did you document it, test it, and permanently fix it? This separates the firefighters from the system-builders.

• Question 15 (Ownership): “If benchmarks were being missed, what would you do in the first 30 days?” This is the whole job in one question. Listen for whether they reach for people blame or system diagnosis. The operator goes to the system every time.

As you ask the right questions, so you walk out with evidence, scored against the exact standards you’ll later hold them to.

How the three work together

Here’s the part to really sit with.

Each document references the same handful of ideas: systems, documentation, COGS/Wage/GP, coaching, the Fix-It Loop, and consistency. That’s not lazy repetition. That’s alignment. The role you define is the role you advertise, is the role you interview for, and is the role you manage. No gap for the wrong person to slip through.

That’s why this works, and a one-off advert doesn’t. You’ve built a recruiting system, not a recruiting event. And a business is a system. Great people need great systems to work within, and hiring is no exception.

Get this right, and you don’t just fill a vacancy. You install a leader who makes the kitchen run without you standing over it. That’s the whole point. That’s time freedom and strong profits, from a single, well-made hire.

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Want the three templates?

Owners who join my BLUEPRINT programme gain full access to all three documents: the Position Agreement, the advert, and the full 15-question interview set, ready to adapt for your own venue.

Build the system. The right people will come and stay.

— James