Why One McDonald's Is Offering Interviewees A Free Chicken Sandwich

While the restaurant industry was one of the job sectors to take the hardest hits during the pandemic, there's one type of eating establishment that's still suffering a desperate shortage of workers even now that we're all creeping back out from under cover. As the headline reads on a recent Go Banking Rates article, "Fast Food Restaurants Can't Even Give Jobs Away."

While some companies like Chipotle are planning to raise their minimum wage corporate-wide and others, like McDonald's and Taco Bell, are pioneering the concept of drive-thru job interviews, Fox 35 reports that the Central Florida-area McDonald's restaurants are playing to their strengths by offering free food to anyone who drops by for an interview. As Rachel Prado, McDonald's Central Florida People Team Lead, puts it, the company "look[s] forward to welcoming new employees to our McFamily this summer," some 4,000 in all. In order to get them in the door, a press release states that interviewees will receive a free Crispy Chicken Sandwich combo meal for stopping by.

While a free sandwich is nice, the offer pales when put next to the cash payments one Tampa-area McDonald's franchisee was offering to anyone interviewing at one of his restaurants. As one Redditor put it in a recent thread dissecting the Fox 35 article, "It was $50 before so this is a big downgrade." Another Redditor did point out that getting a free sandwich just for interviewing, even if you reject the offer, wasn't too bad of a deal. Others quibbled with the menu item on offer. Chicken sandwiches are so 2020, after all, with one unlikely-to-interview candidate saying, "Give me a double cheeseburger, then we'll talk."

Over on Facebook, the general consensus among those commenting on the article seemed to be that if Mickey D's would just raise its wages and address some of the issues resulting in high staffing turnover, it might be more successful at attracting employees. As one person said, "With or without workers shortage McDonald's is always hiring ... Looks like they always have a hard time finding staff." Another posed the question of why the company would be looking for people who are that heavily swayed by a sandwich. But it took a disgruntled customer to supply the real reason why this "fishing trip" might not be as successful as Mickey D's hopes: "The chicken sandwiches are terrible." Oh well, guess in this case you get what you pay for, or rather, what you're paid for.