Guide · 24 pages · 18 min read

The Hourly Hiring Playbook.

A step-by-step framework for high-volume, high-turnover roles — the moves that move time-to-fill from weeks to days, the metrics that actually predict retention, and the candidate experience tweaks that quietly double your offer-accept rate.

Frontline hiringRestaurants & retailHealthcare aidesField services
SR
Sarah Reilly
Head of People Science · Wedge
MK
Marcus Knowles
VP Talent · Goodwill of NW Ohio
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What's inside

Six chapters. One playbook.

Every section ends with a one-page worksheet you can hand to a hiring manager.

01

The 48-hour rule

Why your real bottleneck is the gap between application and first conversation — and how to close it.

02

Designing the screen

Five questions that predict 90% of frontline hiring decisions. Plus the four to never ask.

03

Asynchronous video

Where it wins, where it loses, and the simple rules that make candidates eager to record.

04

The reply that wins

What top frontline employers say in their first message — and how it doubles their show-rate.

05

Avoiding ghosting

Four communication moves backed by 2.4M Wedge interviews — the predictive signals matter more than the channel.

06

Measuring what matters

Three retention-correlated metrics nobody tracks — and the spreadsheet template to start tomorrow.

Sneak peek

From Chapter 1: The 48-hour rule.

Application speed predicts hire quality more than any other variable we've measured.

In a sample of 412,000 hourly applications across QSR, retail, and home services, candidates who received their first conversation within 48 hours of applying were 3.2× more likely to start work, and 1.7× more likely to be employed at 90 days.

What's surprising is what doesn't matter: the format of the conversation, the time of day it happens, even the tenure of the recruiter. The signal isn't in the experience — it's in the existence of the experience inside the window…

Unlock the rest → Download the full guide for the 48-hour rule playbook, the templates we shipped to hiring teams, and the case study from Goodwill's Toledo branch.
“We rebuilt our hourly hiring funnel around this. Time-to-first-conversation went from 5.2 days to 14 hours. Same team. Same budget.”
Marcus Knowles
VP Talent · Goodwill of NW Ohio
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