What does it really take to recruit, hire, and support more than 800 employees across 16+ restaurant locations with just one person running HR? Sounds impossible, right? In the fast-paced world of high-volume hiring, speed, structure, and community aren’t just nice to have; they’re everything.

In this episode of Recruiting Is No Joke, host Joel Lalgee sits down with Preston Sharpston, the one-man HR and recruiting powerhouse behind MWB Restaurants, the Whataburger franchisee for Tennessee and Alabama. With over a decade in HR and talent acquisition, Preston pulls back the curtain on what it’s really like to build and scale a recruiting function in one of the toughest industries out there.

Preston also gets real about his love for automation. Using tools like Workstream and Zapier, he’s built workflows that handle everything from employment verification to leave requests, freeing up time to focus on what actually matters: people.

If you’ve ever wondered how one person can keep an entire organization hiring at full speed without burning out, this episode is a masterclass in making recruiting smarter, faster, and more human. Because sometimes the most innovative talent work isn’t happening in tech, it’s happening in the drive-thru.

In this episode:

[00:00] Podcast intro and guest welcome

[01:06] Preston’s career journey and current role at MWB Restaurants

[02:04] Inside Whataburger’s hiring model and structure

[03:42] What makes restaurant recruiting unique

[04:35] The end-to-end hiring process, fast, lean, and high-volume

[06:46] Opening a new location: how they attract and hire locally

[08:35] Grassroots recruiting and community engagement

[09:23] Dealing with application overload and automation tools

[11:24] Key interview questions & identifying top candidates

[13:30] Interview training and leadership development

[15:17] Advice for recruiters pivoting into high-volume or hospitality

[17:40] The metrics, dashboards, and tools driving recruiting ops

[18:44] Auditing costs and improving retention

[20:05] Hiring retirees, students, and diverse candidate profiles

[22:44] Generational trends and managing younger workers

[24:14] Tech stack breakdown: Workstream, Manyview, Zapier

[27:31] Automating HR processes and knowing what not to automate

[29:30] Scaling a company from 400 to 1,000 employees

[30:19] Staying up to date and building community on LinkedIn

[31:53] Launching the “Recruiting Stack” newsletter

[33:00] Events and conferences: Prep for Breakfast in Nashville

[34:29] Closing thoughts and takeaways

About Preston Sharpston

He leads Recruiting Operations and HR at MWB Restaurants, franchisee for Whataburger in Tennessee and Alabama. With over ten years in HR, recruiting ops, and business partnering, he’s passionate about using automation and enablement to make hiring fast, efficient, and human. Preston is also the creator of Recruiting Stack, a monthly newsletter packed with templates, tools, and insights for recruiters and TA professionals.

About Joel Lalgee 

Joel Lalgee is an internationally known recruitment leader and coach who has helped thousands of recruiters build their brands online. In 2015, Joel started recruiting for a small start-up agency in Milwaukee. He quickly found his passion for recruitment. In 2019, he discovered content marketing, publishing his first posts on Linkedin. Since then, he has grown to over 400k followers, and his content has been seen over 1 billion times. In 2023, he started a business specializing in coaching recruiters, marketing consulting, and influencer partnerships.

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