Alternative recruitment service links up lunch dates

Lunchcruit links up interesting jobseekers with interested businesses and tells them to 'do lunch'.

Resumes and CVs may be one of the simplest ways to find out about a potential employee’s background, but they often fall short of conveying personality, creativity and other unmeasurable qualities. Hoping to rectify this, Lunchcruit offers businesses a more flexible and informal option — the platform links up interesting jobseekers with interested businesses and tells them they should ‘do lunch’.

Employers can sign up to the alternative recruitment service for USD 399 per month. To begin, they create a company profile with a description of their business and details of the roles they are potentially recruiting for. Candidates are then able to browse the listings for free and get in touch with any companies they are interested in. They request a lunch by filling out a simple application form and, if the company is interested too, they can organize a no-strings-attached meeting. The initiative creates an organic, zero-commitment scenario where both parties can sell themselves to each other over an informal lunch.

Jobseekers can search the database by city or job type, but the majority of listings are currently from Californian tech start-ups. There is no reason why this service couldn’t work for other industries, but the relative youth and innovative nature of the start-up field makes it particularly open to trying out new approaches.

We recently wrote about Somewhere from Germany — a visual blogging platform that enables freelancers to show potential employers a more engaging story of their work. How else could the recruitment process be shaken up to cater for more creative and tech based workers?