Stop Whining: Get a Restaurant Job

Restaurants, café, delicatessens or supermarket food service operations are always looking for wait staff, cooks, clerks or hostesses. The reasons are simple; the job is tougher than it looks, it isn’t a high prestige job so people quit in droves.

One more reason, maybe the primary one, is that—however politically incorrect it may sound—it is very difficult for the restaurant to find an applicant that doesn’t exhibit obvious signs of drug use or is covered with tattoos. Many applicants are unclean, unkempt and dress like bums when they come for the interview. The application they fill out is barely legible and typically they have no information available as to job history contacts or phone numbers where they can be contacted. Their very attitude screams “Hey dude, I’m in this for a few bucks and don’t want to do anything more than I absolutely have to”. So, while many people are looking for restaurant jobs, you have a very good chance of getting one if you follow these simple guidelines.

Application Form

1. Pick up a job application at the establishment. Be fully prepared for an interview when you pick up the application by following the steps listed below; you never know whether the manager may appear and interview you then and there.
2. Take your time with the application and write clearly using good grammar. Print if it is more readable.

Research

1. Go online and look up the job description for the position for which you are hoping. Know as much about the position as possible.
2. It would also help to learn all you can about the company to which you are applying.
3. Finally, stop by the restaurant for coffee or a meal to “get a feel for the atmosphere” and how the place operates. Chat up the waiter or waitress or anyone else who’ll talk with you.

Personal Appearance at Interview

Remember, you are grooming yourself so that the interviewer sees you as someone who understands what it will require to work in a food establishment. The following information is what you will need to do anyway if you get hired. You will impress the interviewer if you are already doing the things required by the Environmental Health Department and this may very well get you the job.

1. Dress modestly in clean and pressed clothing. Do not overdress or make yourself up like you’re going to the king’s ball. The interviewer must believe you are not too elegant to get your hands dirty.
2. Wear your hair tied back and out of your eyes. Make sure it is off the collar or tied up if you have long hair. Make certain your hair has been recently washed.
3. Wear a minimum of make-up.
4. Wear only studs in your ears, no facial jewelry and not heavy necklaces, bracelets or rings.
5. Trim your fingernails and wash under them thoroughly with a brush and soapy water.
6. Communicate positive body language. Many interviewers watch how a person walks; someone who shambles along instead of stepping briskly creates a negative perception.

Availability of Information

1. Take your driver’s license, social security card or passport to the interview. You need two formal forms of I.D. available.
2. You need a resume. It can be made up from a form available at the library or just a simple one printed up—at the library if necessary—that lists such thing as previous jobs, schools attended and has all the names, addresses and phone numbers of previous employers and references. It should talk about your interests and what you would like to accomplish. List on the resume a phone number and address that you can be reached at.

Close of Interview

1. Thank the interviewer for his time.
2. Ask when you may hear from the interviewer regarding the job opportunity.

You want a job, do what it takes to get one and stop whining.