A Psychologist Can Help

How do you, the owner or highly placed manager of a catering organization, know if a candidate you’re interviewing will be a positive, neutral or negative addition to the company culture? How will this person, if hired, react to your management style? Will the new hire add to the growth of your business, or crash and burn because of pre-existing flaws, hidden agendas or incompatible personality.

I recommend that catering companies of any size actively seek the answers to the above questions by hiring trained psychologists during the process of selecting new key staff for their companies. I think most owners agree that the normal hiring interview process doesn’t always give you answers to many important compatibility questions.


While consulting, I’ve seen that often the people in charge of hiring key staff are themselves flawed. When I say that they are flawed, I don’t mean that they aren’t fine managers and owners, just that they don’t have the kind of training that will help them identify which candidates are most likely to succeed on the job. When it comes to hiring managers or chefs, those doing the hiring need to realize that the number one reason for the failure of these new hires will be simple incompatibility between the new hire and the existing culture or beliefs of the company, staff and management.

Caterers have often told me that a new hire didn’t work out because the person changed his or her attitudes once hired, or because the new employee just wouldn’t “fit in with the way I run my business.” I don’t believe these new employees changed; they had the same attitude all the time but the owner didn’t pick it up during the interview process. These kinds of attitudes lay hidden and need the skills of a trained psychologist to uncover.

Several of my consulting clients have increased their success in hiring winners by using a professional psychologist to do an interview with a key candidate before a final decision is made. The psychologist is able to probe deeper into the thinking and attitudes of the candidate, uncovering any incompatibilities that will adversely affect your business. Hiring a professional also takes a lot of pressure off the interviewer.

When it comes to hiring key catering leaders, getting the opinion of a psychologist helps pave the way for long-range success and growth. It just makes sense: Caterers should spend their time doing what they know best—not becoming their company’s Dr. Phil!