SPECIAL TO THE STAR

They all at some time used the recruiting service Lecours Wolfson Ltd. to help them find staff for their restaurant and food operations.

They are just a few of the hundreds of companies in the food and hospitality industry in which Lecours Wolfson has placed chefs, managers, and executives into jobs. The business grew to $750,000 in sales in the past year, a big jump from 1991 when sales had sunk to $160,000. The staff of recruiters, which was at seven in the I 980s, was reduced to two in 1991, but has since moved up to eight.

"Things were pretty good in the 80's. We worked hard, but frankly it was a lot easier then," said Norman Wolfson, a partner in the company with Leo Lecours. "When the recession hit, our backs were up against the wall."

The company discovered that during the ensuing lean years, food companies that catered to less expensive tastes were still growing.

But often, human resources staff that did the hiring was also downsized. Lecours Wolfson realized it was more important than ever not only to find workers with good resumes, but to spend the time to get to know the company's needs and to find out if the job seekers would fit the company's culture.

"It became clear we were servicing the service industry and we repositioned ourselves as an external arm of many of our clients' human resources departments," said Wolfson, who joined the company in 1986 when it was known as Green, Busch and Lecours. In 1991 that partnership dissolved and Wolfson became partners with Lecours.

John Mortimer, who recently left as director of human resources at Wendy 's Restaurants of Canada, called Wolfson a relationship builder. He cited as an example a vice-president of operations he recently hired for Wendy's that Wolfson thought would be a good match for the company.

"The most interesting thing about the hire is that this was someone Norm and I had been talking about for about four or five years and when the opportunity was finally there to hire him, we did," Mortimer said.

"But if he brings me somebody and I say, 'I don't need him', Norm will say, 'okay, whenever you are ready'."

Sales are expected to reach nearly $1 million this year. The company is looking to increase its business serving the Canadian hotel industry. It also expects to increase its international placements, now about 15 percent of the business.

"I can see it really growing to a significant amount - 30 to 40 per cent down the road," Wolfson said. And the reason is that international operations find North- American- trained managers very attractive.

The company recently placed a manager of operations for a Planet Hollywood located in Guam after reviewing its data-base of resumes on file, and it may be getting further work for the restaurant chain's Russian operations.

The placement began with a phone call company recruiter Christine Kovich made to Planet Hollywood's head office in Orlando, Fla., to see if it needed help recruiting personnel for its North American outlets. Kovich was told there might be a need for the overseas operations. First, she called planet Hollywood's European manager who referred her to the Asian office. Within a couple of days, Kovich had compiled a short list of candidates. In this case, Planet Hollywood picked a restaurant professional from Pittsburgh.

"He was not very satisfied with the quality of candidates he was getting from his Singapore contact so he was happy to entertain candidates from us," Kovich said.

"The irony is that a small Canadian boutique agency placed an American for an American company in a Guam restaurant."

That work involved mainly working the telephones from Florida to London to any Asian country where the Asian manager happened to be with his cellular phone.

But Lecours Wolfson employers might also find themselves on a plane flying to a Canadian city to help conduct a job search for Canadian companies.

That was the case with Wolfson, who flew to Vancouver recently to help the Famous Players cinema chain find theatre managers on the West Coast as part of the chain's $75 million expansion.