Hiring good staff is integral to your overall customer dining experience.
With more than two and a quarter million waitstaff in the United States, competition is fierce, and hiring just the right team members can be crucial to your restaurant’s success.
As the people your diners spend the most time with, your waitstaff is pivotal to the overall customer experience. In fact, without the right waitstaff, it won’t matter how good your food is.
Bad service is bad service. This is why hiring correctly and for longevity is crucial for your restaurant. (tweet this) Yet, it can be difficult to know if a prospective server is the right fit for your restaurant.
To help you, let’s look at 10 hiring resources to help you find great waitstaff.
Let’s start off with a few popular job boards.
#1: Craigslist
One of the easiest resources to use is Craigslist.
It’s an incredibly inexpensive way to post your open waitstaff positions. It’s especially helpful for cities that are medium to large in size.
Because Craigslist is a locally based service, you’ll generally only find local candidates. You can target different categories, keywords, neighborhoods and more.
#2: Your Local Community Newspapers
Let’s say you are looking for high school or college student waitstaff. One way to find a ready pool is to advertise in your local small newspapers.
This doesn’t mean your city-wide large paper. This is perhaps the “west” side newspaper or even local neighborhood newspapers. You can also advertise in college newspapers or on their job boards.
#3: Poached
With Poached, you can hire restaurant professionals in major cities across the United States. All you need to do is post your job listing (the fee is nominal), and you’re ready to start accepting applications.
In addition, people in your area can post their resumes online for free, helping you find just the right candidates.
Poached offers a full setup for hiring managers and restaurant owners/managers to review resumes, message candidates, and even schedule interviews. All the tools you need are in one place.
As an added bonus, you can pay to have your job openings “boosted” for better visibility.
Good resources and strong onboarding help you hire great waitstaff.
#4: Restaurant Zone
More expensive than the resources listed so far, Restaurant Zone offerings include job listings, background, and reference checks, and even a 100-day replacement guarantee if the candidate leaves your restaurant for any reason.
What’s more, they guarantee you five highly qualified candidates within 7-14 days of your job search starting.
They also offer headhunter-type services by acting as your human resource department and handling the entire search for you. They screen candidates, do everything listed above, and they guarantee you a replacement hire anywhere from six months to a year out.
Finally, another one of their offerings is a QuickHire search where you can bring on a new team member on 30–60-day trial basis before officially hiring.
So, you can see why their product is more expensive than the others as they are experts at helping you find the right server positions for your restaurant.
#5: Restaurant Careers
Currently, this company is offering restaurants free job postings. Their goal is to help restaurants transition back into business while managing the Covid-19 pandemic successfully.
Their regular $35 posting price is pretty small, but you can take advantage of one 30-day posting for free right now. They will direct your applications to your website or an email address.
Restaurant Careers says more than 30,000 job seekers visit their site each month. They also say their job postings are picked up by aggregate job boards and promoted on Facebook as well.
#6: Sirvo
This is another job posting site for you to find great waitstaff.
In addition to posting jobs, you can use Sirvo to keep your hiring team in the loop with a messaging hub and shared inbox.
You can also use Sirvo’s Applicant Tracking System to review applications, sort candidates, and ultimately hire the best waitstaff possible.
#7: Word of Mouth
One of the best hiring resources is your very own team.
Let your current staff know that you’re hiring and what you’re looking for. Send them out with flyers and information that they can share with friends and family.
Word of mouth is not only free, but it can help you find new waitstaff with ready made references. (tweet this)
You can even create a referral bonus program for your staff members. This will encourage them to try even harder to find you quality team members. Your current staff will feel good about this because it gives them a sense of ownership in who you ultimately decide to hire.
#8: Prepare for the Interview
Another resource to find waitstaff comes in your interview.
Do your research on waitstaff interview questions. This can help you weed out your potential new hires for the most qualified waitstaff.
Consider questions such as:
- Why do you want to be a waiter/waitress?
- What is your greatest strength as a server?
- What is your biggest weakness when serving?
- Tell me about your customer service experience/training.
- What do you love about being a waiter/waitress?
- What do you dislike about being a waiter/waitress?
- Describe a difficult customer and how you solved the situation.
- How would you handle multiple tables at one time?
- What do you think your responsiblit8es should be?
- Have you used a POS system before and if so, which one?
With strategic interview planning, this can become a terrific resource for ferreting out the best waitstaff.
Final Thoughts
When hiring new waitstaff you need to remember that your front of house waitstaff represents your restaurant. They are the customer-facing team members who you trust to provide the ultimate in customer service.
Your goal is finding and hiring qualified team members who provide the ultimate customer service that keeps your diners coming back time after time.
Don’t forget to invest time in onboarding and training your new waitstaff. This can mean the difference between excellent and ho hum customer service. Training can also help increase your employee retention rates so you don’t feel like you’re always hiring new employees.
Use the resources listed her to help you find great waitstaff. Train them in an ongoing basis, and you’ll find your customer experience beats the competition every time.
