Experience
Applicants need direct experience in the position that they are applying for. An ex-sushi bar chef will try to convince you that they will make a great waiter and vice versa. However, you simply can’t afford to pay them to experiment with a new career choice. An experienced person will have the skills and know the lingo. During the interview, give applicants different scenarios involving difficult problems and ask them how they would deal with them. An experienced person will easily be able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
Reliability
The food and drink industry suffers from high turnover rates. There are different reasons for this, but what matters is: will this person be calling in sick or suddenly asking for a day off? Will this person show up to work on time, every day? Make a note of how early (or late) the applicant shows up for the interview. During reference checks, be sure to ask previous employers about tardiness.
Communication Skills
All bar, cafe and restaurant staff need to likable yet professional at the same time. They also need to be able to think quickly, speak clearly and remember what has been said. Applicants will need to prove that they can excel at working in an intense, deadline driven environment while maintaining high quality and customer satisfaction. During the interview, pay attention to how the applicant responds to your questions. Do they take time to think and clearly answer or do they ramble on and forget what the question was? The writing quality of a waiter’s resume is a perfect example of how their food order pad will look like.
Hospitality Skills
Wait staff need to have a natural friendliness and easy going nature. They also need to understand table settings, bar etiquette and how to provide top notch customer service. In addition to this, make sure they know how to sell without being pushy. Hospitality skills come through experience and training. As mentioned above, make sure applicants already have the skills. During the interview, pay attention to how the person presents themselves and interacts with you. Would you want this person to wait on your friend or family member?
Conclusion
Any HR professional will tell you that 80 percent of a supervisors’ time is spent with 20 percent of certain employees – problem employees. Hire the right person at the beginning and you will avoid wasting time, money and energy monitoring, re-training and terminating an employee who isn’t the right fit. You can choose the right person by focusing on their experience, reliability and communication and hospitality skills.