Chesterfield pub offers £150 in vouchers to anyone who can help them recruit a chef

Simon Oxspring, owner of The Kelstedge, is searching for two chefs to expand his team. He said that a lack of available chefs is causing fierce competition amongst venues to fill their vacancies.

“We looked on Indeed and it came up with something like 1200 vacancies. It’s very difficult to stand out in that environment.”

To help boost his chances of finding the right candidate, Mr Oxspring decided to take the unusual approach of offering £150 worth of vouchers to anyone who helps him secure a chef.

He said: “It’s difficult, so we’ve tried to do it through word of mouth, and our post got 80-odd shares within about three hours of going online.

“This way, we hopefully get people who know someone who genuinely wants a job.”

Mr Oxspring said the pub has grown in popularity in recent months, after an internal refurbishment and work to improve the outdoor facilities. He said he needed extra chefs to help meet this rising demand.

“We did a tremendous amount of work in lockdown and it’s made the pub stand out a lot more to people who are passing. We’ve had people come in and say they’ve passed the pub every day for 20 years and they’ve never thought of coming in, but now there’s something outside they can visibly see, they’re coming in, trying the offering and loving it.

“We’re getting busier and because of that, we need to grow the number of chefs- they can’t work 14 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Mr Oxspring said he is also hoping to start offering breakfasts in the near-future, meaning he will have to search for a third chef to add to his staff.

Helen Marshall, general manager at The Kelstedge, said she hoped the attraction of joining a tight-knit team would help them find the right chefs.

“There’s a lot of competition, it’s difficult in terms of finding chefs, but I think we’ve got an advantage in that we’re a small, very close-knit team, and we can offer a lot that maybe other places couldn’t.”