This interview is with Milos Eric, Co-Founder, OysterLink.
For Connectively readers, could you introduce yourself and your work leading OysterLink in the hospitality space?
I’m Milos Eric, Co-Founder and General Manager at OysterLink, a hiring and networking platform specifically for the hospitality industry. I oversee all departments, from customer support, which ensures excellent service, to our content team, which creates valuable content for our users.
I started my entrepreneurial journey while still at university, offering my services as a website developer to cafe managers. I then created Sportifico, a social platform for coaches and aspiring athletes. It did quite well until the pandemic hit.
Sportifico’s closure paved the way for my corporate career at Digital Silk, where I worked as the COO before eventually co-founding OysterLink.
What key moments led you from growth and operations roles at companies like DesignRush and Digital Silk to co‑founding OysterLink in hospitality?
I had the privilege of working with very talented people while building the social platform I mentioned earlier. That’s where I met the developer who introduced me to Digital Silk. There, I also met my co-founder.
At DesignRush and Digital Silk, I gained valuable experience in growth, operations, and scaling businesses.
Working closely with companies across different industries gave me insight into how important it is to connect the right people with the right opportunities.
When my co-founder and I saw similar challenges in hospitality hiring, we felt there was an opportunity to build a platform that could better serve both employers and hospitality professionals. That ultimately led us to co-found OysterLink.
On the product side, which single design or workflow decision in OysterLink has most reduced hiring friction for restaurants?
The most impactful product decision we made was introducing a way for candidates to quickly apply for jobs. We saw how long and tedious the process was on some other job platforms, and we decided to take a completely different approach.
Creating a profile on OysterLink is extremely easy and takes less than five minutes. Applying for one or multiple jobs afterward takes just a few minutes as well. This isn’t just great for candidates; it’s great for restaurants too, since they receive a larger pool of candidates to choose from.
Drilling into access, what operational outcomes have you seen after introducing free job postings for restaurants and bars on OysterLink?
When we initially started OysterLink, job postings were free because we wanted to get our name out there and to gather much-needed, valuable client feedback.
As we grew, we naturally shifted to a paid model. However, we also expanded what clients receive with job postings. For instance, every job posting now includes social media promotion: we create and post unique videos or carousels promoting a client’s job on our Instagram.
We’ve dramatically reduced hiring times for restaurants and bars since our entire candidate pool is already searching for hospitality jobs. That’s our biggest advantage over general job platforms, I would say.
Based on your data analysis, what one change to a hospitality job post most reliably increases qualified applications?
Without a doubt, I would say including a competitive salary, or even any salary figure for that matter, most reliably increases qualified applications.
We actually ran a poll last year, and we found out that 67% of candidates mention salary transparency as the number one factor that makes a job ad more appealing.
Even though other benefits like generous PTO and a flexible work schedule do increase job post interest, we regularly see the highest number of candidates on job ads that have a competitive salary listed upfront.
Keeping retention in mind, what practical first step should operators take to add pay transparency to their next posting in a way that supports career growth?
A practical first step is to conduct an internal salary review. Gather data on how you are currently compensating your employees, then compare it with what similar businesses are offering. This helps you understand how competitive your compensation is and identify areas for improvement.
Before you can be transparent about pay, you need to be confident that your compensation structure is fair, competitive, and aligned with the market.
For a resource‑constrained independent venue, which part of the hiring workflow would you automate first to deliver the biggest ROI?
For any resource-constrained independent venue, where the person hiring might not be a dedicated hiring manager but a general manager, chef, or even the owner, automating communication with applicants would definitely yield the biggest ROI.
This can be done through predetermined automated messages or by utilizing AI to answer a candidate’s questions before an actual human can review their portfolio and get back to them.
Again, though, this is difficult for an establishment with limited resources, which is why we built OysterLink to help bridge the communication gap between employers and candidates.
Looking at current job market trends, what 2026 hospitality labor shift should operators act on now to stay competitive in hiring?
Recent labor market data suggests hospitality hiring has started to stabilize after the rapid post-pandemic rebound.
As employers become more cautious about expanding headcount, I believe we’ll see a greater emphasis on workforce flexibility and internal development.
To stay competitive in hiring, employers should start communicating these development opportunities now.
Businesses that can demonstrate clear training, cross-training, and career-advancement opportunities will have a stronger employer brand and an advantage in attracting talent.
These initiatives can also improve retention, as LinkedIn reports that employees who have opportunities to learn and grow are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged and enthusiastic about their work.
Looking ahead, what capability or dataset are you planning to add to OysterLink that you believe will change how hospitality jobs are matched?
I don’t want to give it all away since we do have a few things in the pipeline that are really exciting, but I can give you some hints as to what’s in store for OysterLink.
For candidates, the biggest frustration is finding jobs that match their location, experience, and skills. Although searching through jobs is simple on OysterLink and you can filter by different criteria, we plan to add features that will match candidates with job ads much more accurately based on location, previous work history, skills, and other relevant factors.
We also have a new feature for employers launching in the next few weeks, but I can’t discuss it in detail since it’s still in development. What I can say is that it will boost job visibility on OysterLink and will involve videos, which are the best form of media for engagement and clicks.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk about OysterLink. We have very exciting years ahead.
If you’d like to follow us, we offer a vast library of career resources, such as salary guides and interview questions, to help job seekers land their dream job and to inform hospitality employers. Our team also produces reports and guides for the hospitality industry.