5 Tips for Recruiting Restaurant Staff

Ask the right questions

Whatever you’re interviewing for, it is always a good idea to have a dedicated list of questions you want to ask your candidate. It’s all well and good winging it and assessing people on their character, but this makes it hard to compare candidates skills and attitudes against the same criteria.

Compiling a list of relevant questions or even a small task is a good way of keeping the interview on track, gathering information about the candidate that applies to the role they are interviewing for, and for gathering how much experience they have. Writing notes on the answers provided of things that you like or don’t like is also a good way to remember how you felt about the candidate and will give you better direction if you can’t decide between a few applicants.

Questions such as:

What is an achievement you are most proud of?
What made you most interested in this role?
What are your recognised strengths and weaknesses?
Tell us about a difficult situation at work that you overcame?

Have more than one interviewer

Having more than one person present during the hiring process will allow you to share notes and assess the candidate for different things. Plus, it’s better to have more people around to help with decision making, asking the right questions, and assessing the skills of the candidate.

Be careful not to have too many people interviewing however, as this can be intimidating to a candidate. Two people should be enough, with one person leading the interview while the other takes notes and perhaps chimes in with more casual questions where necessary.

Write engaging and descriptive job ads

If you want to attract the right kinds of people to your job, you need to write a job ad that captures people’s attention and makes them want to work for you. Using a section to describe day to day activities, job role requirements, essential candidate requirements and an ‘ideal candidate’ will better help filter the kinds of people that apply.

For example, if the role is for front of house restaurant staff serving high profile guests where you require a strong knowledge of Spanish wine, but you advertise the role as ‘front of house staff’, you’re likely to get a much broader range of applicants who may not actually have the experience required. Tailor your job descriptions to the kinds of people you want to work for you and with you for stronger applicants.

Additionally, including perks of the job and a pay range is good practice as an employer and will show to candidates what is on offer for this role - reducing wasted time or confusion in the interview stages.

Assess attitude, not just experience

When employing people to work as part of a larger, adaptable team, you need to ensure you’re looking at personalities that will fit with existing staff. People with a strong work ethic, approachability and good people skills can be a much better hire than someone who has experience in a similar role but lacks passion or personality.

To create a happy and functional team you need to make sure everyone gets on well enough to work together and everyone is happy to pull their weight. However, on the flip side of that, you do need to find someone who can actually do the job the right way, so try to find a balance between someone with relevant and useful experience, but also a great attitude.