Spring is the best season of the year due to perfect weather that motivates people to go outside and enjoy a beautiful day with loved ones. It also marks the beginning of outdoor seating season at restaurants, which only tempts people into eating out more due to the inevitable smell of food that’s hard to resist while passing by.
Luckily for most restaurants, Spring is one of the busiest seasons of the year, as masses of hungry people storm in and out more frequently than many are used to or can even manage.
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Chipotle is one of the restaurant chains that thrives during the Spring months. Its locations get so busy the company has even renamed the season “Burrito Season.”
Realistically, it’s tough for many to resist the urge to order a huge burrito fully loaded with all the fixings or a bowl stacked with guacamole to dip some crunchy chips into. And Chipotle is well aware of it.
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According to Chipotle’s second-quarter earnings report for 2024, total revenue increased over 18% compared to the same period of the previous year, with comparable restaurant sales up 11%.
Although these results don’t include March since they only cover the three months that ended Jun. 30, 2024, they still reflect Chipotle’s outstanding results for most of the Spring months.
An employee prepares a burrito bowl at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. restaurant.
Chipotle launches a hiring campaign for “Burrito Season”
Chipotle (CMG) announced the launch of a hiring campaign where it plans to hire 20,000 additional employees to work from March to May as it prepares for “Burrito Season,” the restaurant chain’s busiest time of the year.
This effort aims to increase job applications and ensure all 3,700+ restaurants are fully staffed.
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To make the job offer more enticing, Chipotle has also rolled out a new employee benefit in addition to its pre-established ones. Beginning this year, all Chipotle employees now have access to the Calm app, a mental health app to manage stress, sleep, and health. This comes in handy as the busy season approaches.
The restaurant chain has also invested in marketing to attract applicants with its “Behind the Foil” national TV ads. These TV ads showcase Chipotle’s real restaurant team members and its work environment through behind-the-scenes footage of the company’s kitchens and prep routines.
“All three employees featured in the ads have been promoted from crew member roles to restaurant management, demonstrating the potential accelerated career progression at Chipotle,” said Chipotle in the announcement.
However, the company will use a controversial method to hire these additional employees.
Chipotle dips into AI for its hiring process
In October of last year, Chipotle introduced its partnership with Paradox, a conversational recruiting software, to launch a new AI platform that will improve the efficiency of hiring restaurant employees by reducing the time it takes its general managers to review candidates’ applications and run the process.
For this hiring campaign, Chipotle will use “Ava Cado,” its AI-powered virtual recruiter, to help speed up the application process so potential new hires can start the job just four days from the start date of the application process.
As the company states, Ava Cado uses Conversational AI to chat with candidates, answer questions, collect basic information, schedule interviews for hiring managers, and send offers to the selected candidates.
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“‘Burrito Season’ presents candidates with an opportunity to start here, stay here, and reach their career goals with us,” said Chipotle Chief Human Resources Officer Ilene Eskenazi. “As current team members have demonstrated, our restaurants can be the foundation of a fulfilling career, and we’re committed to bringing in the best candidates who share our values and onboarding them as efficiently as possible,” Eskenazi added.
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