Five Guys ended 2024 with 1,558 U.S. restaurants and franchise agreements signed for hundreds more locations still to open. That's a lot of grill stations to staff. And with QSR turnover topping 75% in 2025, the hiring wheel keeps spinning whether you're ready for it or not. The real question isn't whether you'll need to hire again soon. It's whether your process can keep up.
We looked at 10 platforms and ranked 7 based on what actually matters for Five Guys operators: mobile experience, speed to hire, multi-location support, and whether the tool was built for QSR hiring or just tolerates it.
Here's how we evaluated them:
HigherMe was built for exactly this type of hiring. Not a corporate ATS with an hourly module bolted on. A platform designed from the ground up for QSR and franchise operators, the kind who are running locations, not HR departments.
Five Guys operators get exclusive pricing, and the platform is already used by brands operating in the same hiring environment: high volume, high turnover, mobile-first applicant pool, fast pace from application to first shift.
The application is entirely mobile. A candidate walking past your location can apply in under five minutes, from their phone, without creating an account or uploading a resume. That matters because the people you're competing for are also looking at the sandwich shop next door and the grocery store down the block. Speed of response is often what tips it.
The Applicant Tracking System pulls applications from Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Google, Snagajob, and more into one dashboard. No toggling between job boards. No manual copy-paste. You see every candidate in one place and move them through the pipeline from there.
Text-to-Apply is particularly useful for Five Guys locations in high-foot-traffic areas. Print the poster, put it in your window, and applicants text in directly. The kind of person who'd be a great crew member but isn't actively job searching might see it, text in, and apply in the same two minutes.
The AI Hiring tool, NextMatch AI, handles pre-screening interviews automatically. It conducts structured, role-specific conversations with every applicant and delivers consistent insights back to you, so you're reviewing qualified candidates instead of playing phone tag with everyone who applied. For a busy Five Guys GM, that's real time back.
Video cover letters give you a 60-second window into how someone actually communicates before you commit to an in-person interview. Counter and grill roles at Five Guys are customer-facing from day one. Personality and communication style matter. A resume doesn't show you that. A short video clip does.
Paperless onboarding means new hires complete tax forms, employee handbooks, and direct deposit details before their first shift. Day one is productive, not administrative. And according to HigherMe's own platform data, 4 out of 5 hires are retained in the first month when onboarding is handled this way.
For multi-unit operators, the centralized dashboard is the piece that changes how you manage hiring across locations. You can see pipeline status, open roles, and applicant activity across all your stores without logging into separate accounts. That visibility is hard to replicate when you're managing things manually or store-by-store.
HigherMe also integrates with ADP, Paychex, Checkr, 7Shifts, and others, so it fits into the operational stack you likely already have.
Most tools on this list were built for one type of hiring and adapted for others. HigherMe was built for this. High-volume, hourly, franchise, QSR. The features that matter most to a Five Guys operator, mobile applications, fast screening, automated scheduling, paperless onboarding, multi-location visibility, are the core of the product, not add-ons. HigherMe's platform data shows operators save an average of 6 hours per hire and complete 3x more interviews through automated scheduling alone.
Harri is a workforce management platform built specifically for the hospitality and food service industries. It covers recruiting, scheduling, time and attendance, and team communication. The hospitality focus is genuine, not positioned.
For Five Guys operators, the QSR relevance is real. Harri understands the operational cadence of a restaurant. The recruiting side includes job posting, applicant tracking, and a candidate pipeline built for hourly roles. The scheduling and team management features mean it can do more than just hiring.
The trade-off is complexity. Harri is a fuller platform, which makes it more powerful if you need workforce management beyond recruiting. But if you're primarily solving a hiring problem, the setup and cost reflect a broader system. Smaller franchise operators or those running two to three locations may find it heavier than what they need.
Good for: Five Guys multi-unit operators who want recruiting and workforce scheduling under one roof and are willing to invest in a full platform to get there.
Fountain's entire focus is high-volume hourly hiring. It's used by large operators across logistics, food service, and retail, and the mobile application experience and automated candidate funnels are genuinely strong.
The issue for most Five Guys franchisees is scale. Fountain is priced and positioned for enterprise operators managing thousands of hires across many locations. The setup, the cost structure, and the implementation timeline reflect that. For a franchisee running five or fewer locations, it's likely more infrastructure than the problem requires.
Good for: Large Five Guys multi-unit groups operating 10-plus locations who need enterprise-grade hourly hiring infrastructure and have the operational capacity to set it up properly.
Hireology was built with franchise operators in mind. It understands the franchisor-franchisee dynamic better than most platforms on this list, which shows in how it structures job posting, compliance, and brand consistency features. It also integrates with some common franchise management systems.
The limitation for Five Guys operators is that Hireology's strongest features are oriented toward retail and automotive franchise contexts. The QSR-specific nuances around speed, mobile-first applicants, and high-volume screening are less developed than platforms built exclusively for restaurant hiring. It's a solid general franchise ATS, not a purpose-built QSR tool.
Good for: Five Guys operators who also manage non-QSR franchise locations and want a single tool that handles both contexts reasonably well.
GetHired is a Canadian-founded platform focused on small and mid-sized businesses in food service, retail, and hospitality. The hourly hiring focus is real and the price point is accessible, which makes it relevant for independent or small multi-unit franchisees who want to move off spreadsheets and email without a large platform investment.
The platform handles job posting, basic applicant tracking, and onboarding. It's not as feature-rich as HigherMe or Fountain, but for operators who need something organized and affordable, it's a functional option. The multi-location tooling is more limited, and the AI screening and automation features don't go as deep.
Good for: Single-location or two-to-three unit Five Guys franchisees who want a simple, affordable hiring tool and aren't yet managing high volume across multiple stores.
Homebase is known primarily as a scheduling and time-tracking tool, but it has added recruiting and hiring features over time. For operators who already use Homebase for scheduling, the hiring module offers the convenience of keeping things in one system.
The honest caveat: Homebase's hiring features were added to a workforce management product, not built as a primary ATS. The applicant tracking and screening depth doesn't match a dedicated hiring platform. If hiring is the core problem you're solving, the recruiting module will feel limited quickly. If you already use Homebase and just need a basic layer of organized applicant management on top of it, that's a reasonable use case.
Good for: Five Guys operators already on Homebase for scheduling who want a simple connected hiring layer without adopting an entirely new system.
SmartRecruiters is a well-regarded enterprise recruiting platform used by large companies across industries. The job marketing tools, integration ecosystem, and analytics are genuinely strong. But it's built for structured, corporate hiring workflows with dedicated talent teams.
For a Five Guys franchisee, the fit problem is real. There's no mobile-first hourly application experience, no franchise management dashboard, and the pricing reflects the enterprise positioning. It's a powerful platform solving a different kind of hiring problem.
Good for: Five Guys corporate or regional teams hiring for professional, management, or leadership roles. Not the right fit for front-line franchise hiring.
There are good tools in this list. Harri makes sense if you need workforce management beyond just hiring. Fountain is legitimate if you're operating at large enterprise scale. Hireology understands the franchise context reasonably well.
But none of them were designed for a Five Guys operator specifically. Most were built for different industries, different hiring volumes, or corporate HR teams with more time and resources than a franchisee running a busy kitchen.
HigherMe was built for this. Mobile-first applications. AI pre-screening. Automated interview scheduling. Paperless onboarding. Multi-location visibility. And exclusive pricing for Five Guys locations. That's a different starting point than a general ATS that's been adapted for hourly roles.
If you want to see how it works, visit higherme.com/five-guys-hiring-software or book a demo directly.
1. What is the best hiring software for Five Guys franchisees?
HigherMe. It's built specifically for QSR and franchise hiring, offers exclusive pricing for Five Guys locations, and covers everything from mobile applications and AI pre-screening to paperless onboarding in a single platform.
2. How is hiring for a Five Guys franchise different from other QSR brands?
Five Guys operates a made-to-order model with higher labor intensity than most quick-service concepts. Roles are customer-facing and preparation-heavy. You need people who show up, handle fast-paced environments, and communicate well with customers. Generic job boards get you applications. The right hiring software helps you screen for the right fit before anyone walks through the door.
3. Can hiring software help me manage multiple Five Guys locations?
Yes, if it's built for it. HigherMe has a multi-location dashboard that lets you track open roles, applicant pipelines, and hiring activity across all your stores in one place. Most standard ATS tools treat each location as a separate account, which creates unnecessary admin overhead for multi-unit operators.
4. Do I need an HR team to use hiring software at my Five Guys franchise?
No. The best tools for franchisees are designed to be run by a GM or owner-operator without dedicated HR support. HigherMe's automation handles screening, interview scheduling, and onboarding reminders so you're only spending time on candidates who are actually worth your attention.
5. What features matter most when hiring hourly workers for a QSR franchise?
Four things: a mobile application candidates can complete in a few minutes from their phone, fast automated screening so you don't lose good candidates to slow follow-up, interview scheduling that doesn't require back-and-forth texting, and paperless onboarding so new hires arrive on day one ready to work instead of filling out forms.