Eataly: how to fuel a global expansion plan by identifying and mobilising high-potential talent
Eataly is growing fast, especially with new openings in North America. With Skillvue, it assessed thousands of candidates for international mobility in weeks, cutting through the sector's average timelines.
Eataly
Food Retail
5,300+
€684M
53+ stores in 16 countries
Hiring, Internal Mobility
A brand growing 20 times faster than its sector needs to find the right talent at the same speed
Eataly is no ordinary player in Italian food. With €684M in revenue, 47% growth over three years, and revenue per employee double the industry average, it is the only Italian food brand with a truly international presence across 16 countries. Since 2022 it has been accelerating on all fronts: new flagships in North America (where 60% of revenues are generated), new compact formats — Eataly Caffè in urban hubs and Eataly Collection in airports —, a €100M plan for the Middle East, and the first Eataly at Sea with MSC Cruises.
This growth requires managerial talent capable of embodying the brand's values in multicultural contexts: Head Chefs, Directors of Store Operations, General Managers who can bring Italian authenticity to Philadelphia, Toronto and Miami. But the hospitality sector doesn't always produce the talent that is needed. With 258,000 vacancies, 50–70% operational turnover, and an average time-to-fill of 4.5 months, the shortage of qualified profiles is the most critical constraint on the expansion plan. This is the origin of the Career Passport Project — to turn this constraint into a competitive advantage.
The Career Passport was the first chapter in building an increasingly solid and innovative talent strategy around the concept of international mobility and growth, aimed at making the Eataly brand a global platform for Made in Italy.
Growing at this pace exposes a bottleneck: finding the right people, on time
The Career Passport campaign generated over a thousand external applications, on top of all internal applications, for 3 key roles.
Expansion speed outpaces hiring capacity
20+ new stores in the pipeline in North America, simultaneous openings across multiple markets, fixed dates. The Career Passport campaign generated 1,300+ applications for 3 positions and dozens of internal applications that manual screening could not handle.
The profile is rare: artisanal + managerial + international
Eataly looks for people who can replicate Italian artisanal authenticity at global scale. Leadership, team management, fluent English, willingness to relocate: a complex profile that is genuinely hard to find.
The cost of error is amplified by growth
For a company investing millions in international expansion with fixed store opening dates, every unfilled role costs €20,000–€40,000 in missed revenue per quarter. At this scale, hiring quality is a P&L variable.
Fairness at volumes never managed before
Thousands of applications from internal and external channels to process. Without a structured tool, the risk was inconsistent evaluation: in the sector, 38.1% of mismatches come precisely from non-standardised assessments.
Filtering blocking requirements from the start
Relocation availability, salary range, international experience: in a sector where the replacement cost of a manager is 65–90% of annual salary, spending interview time on unsuitable candidates was a luxury the expansion pace couldn’t afford.
The hiring process as an employer branding lever
To attract the best, Eataly needed to communicate its brand value through the hiring process itself: innovation, care for the individual, and the uniqueness of an international career opportunity.
What needed to change
Process 1,300+ applications in weeks, not months: compress pre-screening timelines to keep pace with an opening plan that can’t wait.
Map all key factors at the pre-screening stage: Leadership, team management, English language, aspiration for international mobility. Assess everything before the first human interview, to focus time investment on the highest-potential candidates.
Ensure fairness and growth opportunity at scale: every candidate evaluated with the same rigour and depth, building a process that is defensible and transparent both internally and externally.
Turn hiring into an accelerator of expansion: not just finding people, but building a talent acquisition engine that can support the scale of a brand doubling its North America presence and targeting 40 new stores in the Middle East.
AI Assessment with Skillvue for the Career Passport project
Skillvue was integrated into the external hiring process of the Eataly Career Passport project — the global mobility programme launched to support expansion in North America. After an omnichannel campaign collected over 1,300 applications, Skillvue managed the pre-screening with an assessment combining filter questions and situational questions calibrated to specific roles (Head Chef, Director of Store Operations, General Manager of Restaurant).
What changed and why it matters.
Outcomes of the Skillvue × Eataly Career Passport project.
Clear results in a matter of weeks
In a sector where finding a qualified manager takes an average of 4.5 months, Skillvue made it possible to process the entire volume of applications and reach an interview-ready shortlist in just a few weeks, enabling the opening plan without delays.
Transfers already underway from Europe to North America
From London to Boston, Stockholm to Philadelphia, Munich to West Palm Beach, Rome to Toronto — Eataly is building an international talent pipeline that brings Italian authenticity to new markets. A tangible result of the Career Passport.
Employer branding recognised
The project was recognised as exceptionally high-value in 2025, the year of its launch, which is why it is being continued into 2026. In a sector where competition for talent is structurally unfavourable to hospitality, Eataly has shown that an innovative hiring process is itself a brand asset.
The expansion continues. So does the talent acquisition machine.
Eataly is in the midst of a transformation from a single-format brand to a global multi-format platform. The Career Passport was the first chapter in building an increasingly solid and innovative talent strategy around the concept of international mobility and growth, aimed at making the Eataly brand a global platform for Made in Italy.