How to find wait staff for hire

Waiters and waitresses are responsible for taking orders, serving beverages and attending to guests. To help you find the right wait staff, we’ve provided a waiter waitress job description template below.

Hire wait staff

In order to find the right candidates for your role, it’s important to provide a clear and detailed waiter waitress job description. Providing key information such as expectations, skill criteria and required experience will help to make sure only the right candidates will apply.
To help you put together a quality job posting, we have provided a waiter waitress job description template below to help you speed up your recruitment process. Your job description should include the following information

What waiter/waitress responsibilities do you need fulfilling?

For example:

Answering questions about menu items, food sensitivities and substitutions.
Interacting with customers to ensure you deliver a quality service and resolve any complaints.
Preparing and serving beverages to meet quality standards.
Removing used dishes, glasses and cutlery from tables to maintain a clean and tidy environment.
Pre-setting tables for customers, ensuring tables are provided with essential cutlery and napkins.
Collecting food orders from the kitchen, verifying that they are correct, and serving them to customers.
Ensure that customers are satisfied with their meals and process orders for additional courses if necessary.

If you would like more insights into the usual waiter waitress job descriptions including salaries, we invite you to read the official national descriptions.

Which skills should you highlight in your waiter waitress job description?

If no specific experience is required, you should still say, for example: 

No previous experience needed.
Ability to work independently and/or as a team member.
Strong time management and organisational skills.
Active listening and communication skills with an eye for detail.
Friendly and personable personality, eager to deliver a first-class customer experience.
Ability to multi-task and work under high pressure, fast paced environments
Excellent problem solving and conflict resolution skills.

If specific experience is required, it will be stated clearly in the job description when you apply. For example, hiring companies may ask for:

At least 6 months’ experience in the hospitality industry.
Silver service experience.
Health & Safety training.

What your wait staff should prepare for at your business

Specific uniform requirements – be sure to state whether or not uniform will be provided in the job description .
Service experience – some roles may require silver service training. If this is essential for the role, make sure to explicitly state it in the job description.
If this is role is temporary, or if this is a long-term opportunity.

A detailed waiter waitress job description will increase your chances that only the right candidates apply. This will speed up the recruitment process, so you can find the right staff fore hire even faster. More importantly, when you provide all the information candidates need to know, they can adequately prepare themselves to do a great job.