How SetMenu hired their new Business Development Manager in two weeks flat
SetMenu is the preordering platform behind smoother group bookings for some of the UK’s best-known hospitality names. When Commercial Director Louise Jooste needed to hire fast without lowering the bar, she turned to Candid and made the quickest hire of her career.
🤔 The hiring problem
Louise knew exactly what she was looking for. She just couldn’t find a way to spot it on paper.
“I know what I want and I know what it is when I find it. It’s so hard to qualify that, and a traditional CV comes nowhere near close enough to giving me enough insight into a candidate’s personality to want to interview them. Hours spent on informal chatting with the wrong people.”
Louise Jooste, Commercial Director @ SetMenu
For a role like Business Development Manager, Louise wasn’t looking for a specific list of skills. She was looking for mindset, resilience and ownership: the things a CV can’t show and coaching can’t fix.
🎯 Why Candid
“The fact that it was designed by people who really understand hospitality, that it felt safe and risk free. It’s also a really fun way to recruit. I could see the success other businesses were having and it felt like a no-brainer for me to sign up.”
Louise Jooste, Commercial Director @ SetMenu
No surprises once she got started, either. Sign up, get the role live, and let the matches come in.
Louise had already interviewed one other candidate, plus a handful more through other channels, when she matched with Maple Glazed Celery on Candid.
“From the first conversation with Faye, it felt like I’d found my match. We were so aligned on so many things, almost finishing each other’s sentences. She just had the something that was missing from previous interviews. Her Candid match with the role was 80%, but having now met her in person and offered her the position, I would argue it’s higher than that.”
Louise Jooste, Commercial Director @ SetMenu
2 weeks
room opened to offer
80%
culture match
BDM
role hired
From the room opening to the offer going out took exactly two weeks: the fastest hire in Louise’s recruiting history. Faye joins SetMenu as Business Development Manager, welcomed the SetMenu way, with an oversized bar of Cadbury’s, a face-to-face team day, and food and drinks with a customer to round it off.
🤝 What it means
“The pseudonyms. Love the F&B theme and creativity, I feel like Faye will always be known as Maple Glazed Celery.”
Louise Jooste, Commercial Director @ SetMenu
For Louise, the takeaway is simple. Sales skills can be coached. Attitude can’t. Candid gave her a way to hire for the thing that actually matters, in a fraction of the time a traditional process would have taken.
🍽️ Who SetMenu are
SetMenu is the preordering platform behind smoother group bookings for some of the UK’s best-known hospitality names, including Comptoir, Bill’s, Signature Pub Group, Cote, Yalla Yalla and Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group. It doesn’t just collect pre-orders. It captures guest-level data: every diner’s email, dietary requirements and ordering behaviour, turning one-off group bookings into real CRM data operators can use to drive repeat business.
That positioning has made SetMenu especially popular heading into Christmas, when group bookings spike and guest expectations go up with them. Growing fast off the back of it, Louise needed to hire without losing momentum.
Effective Date: 09.07.2025 Last Updated: 09.07.2025
Welcome to Candid’s Refer-a-Legend scheme – our way of rewarding you for growing a community of incredible hospitality talent.
These Terms & Conditions outline how the referral rewards work, what you need to do to qualify and the fine print we need to cover to keep things fair for everyone involved.
1. Who Can Take Part The Refer-a-Legend scheme is open to all Candid users who:
Have signed up as a candidate.
Are based in the UK.
Have a unique referral link generated by the Candid platform.
2. How It Works You complete your Candid profile.
Receive your unique referral link via email and/or in your dashboard.
You share your link with your network via WhatsApp, socials, email, text… wherever you like.
When someone signs up using your link and completes their candidate profile, it counts as a referral.
You’ll receive updates as your referrals come through, and rewards will be unlocked as you hit key milestones.
Note: Referral links must be shared organically. Paid promotion, bulk messaging or use of bots/automated scripts is not permitted.
3. Reward Milestones You’ll earn rewards based on the number of successful candidate sign-ups using your unique link:
3 Sign-ups
Community Builder badge on your candidate profile, visible to employers
5 Sign-ups
Exclusive Candid merch drop delivered to your door (UK only)
10+ Sign-ups
Upgrade to Candid Champion badge + invite to join our private community group
Referral leads to interview
Receive a ÂŁ25 voucher each as a thank-you from the Candid team
4. The Small Print (But Important!)
Referrals must be genuine new users who haven’t previously registered on Candid (duplicate or spam accounts won’t be counted).
Referral links must be shared organically (e.g. through personal messages or social posts). Paid promotion, bulk messaging, or automated scripts are not allowed.
We reserve the right to monitor, verify or disqualify any referral if fraudulent or suspicious activity is detected.
Physical rewards (e.g. merch) can only be shipped within the UK. Rewards are non-transferable, have no cash value, and cannot be exchanged or resold.
The £25 voucher will be issued digitally via email. Voucher options are selected at Candid’s discretion.
A referral voucher is considered when the referred candidate is progressed by an employer via the Candid platform.
Referral milestones and reward structures may be reviewed or updated at any time. If changes occur, we’ll communicate them in advance.
Candid reserves the right to suspend or terminate the Refer-a-Legend scheme at any time. If we do, we’ll give reasonable notice via email or platform update.
We process referral data in line with our Privacy Policy. No personal information about your referrals will be shared without their consent.
5. When Will I Receive My Rewards? Badges are added to your profile automatically once a milestone is hit.
Merch and voucher rewards will be processed within 14 days of reaching your milestone.
You’ll receive an email confirmation with next steps when a reward is unlocked.
6. Data & Privacy We process your referral data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Rest assured:
Your referrals’ data remains private
No personal information will be shared without consent
We remain GDPR-compliant and committed to protecting your data
7. Need Help or Have a Question?
We love hearing from our community!
If something’s unclear or you want to chat about your referral progress, drop us a message:
