Food Service Resume Example

“Food service” is an umbrella term that encompasses everything from server and waiter/waitress jobs to line or prep cook positions. With such a vast field to gain experience in and a low barrier to entry, it’s a great place to start picking up skills that you’ll use for the rest of your career.

But if you want to successfully land a job in the food service industry, you’ll need to know how to tailor your resume to match the role you’re looking for. Thankfully, our expert tips will help you write a convincing food service resume for any role you want.

Here are some tips you should keep in mind when writing a stand-out food service resume:

1. Introduce yourself with a career objective

Anyone who’s worked in food service knows that the managers at top restaurants or bars are very busy. If you want to land a job, it’s important that your resume catches their attention quickly.

The best way to do this is by starting your resume with a career objective, placed at the top of the page. Think of your career objective as a quick pitch for your skills and qualifications in the food service industry.

While a career objective is only 3-4 sentences, it should be full of valuable information that grabs an employer’s attention, such as:

• An overview of your experience
• Your relevant skills and qualifications
• What role you hope to fill

After reading your career objective, employers should have a good idea of your experience, skills and whether or not you’d be a good fit for the position.

Here’s an example of a food service career objective:

Food Service Worker with 6+ years of professional experience in both front and back of house, hostessing as well as preparing and serving food. Consistently provide excellent customer service, and possess encyclopedic knowledge of wines, entrees, restaurant equipment, and POS systems. Looking to leverage my knowledge of the industry for a server role at your restaurant.

This objective works because the candidate highlights their years of varied experience, indicating that they are knowledgeable about the smooth operation of a restaurant. They go on to list several key skills that set them apart, and close by stating their career goals.

Writing a strong resume objective like this will get you noticed by employers, who will be drawn in to spend more time looking at your resume.

2. Write a solid professional experience section

Your resume experience section is the core of any good food service job application. This is where employers will look to see whether or not you have the skills and qualifications needed to do the job well.

That’s why it’s important that you make your experience section as compelling as possible. One way to do that is by adding strong action verbs:

Use action verbs

An easy way to strengthen your food service resume is to make your professional experience pop with action verbs. Not only does it keep your resume from being a dull read, it also helps you come off as more proactive.

Instead of starting each bullet point off with passive language like “tasked with” or “responsible for”, start the sentence off with a verb that highlights the actions you took at work.

Here are 30 action verbs to use in your food service resume:

In addition to using action verbs, you should also include hard numbers in your experience section:

Quantify your achievements with hard numbers

While writing your work experience section, use numbers whenever possible so that employers can see what results you achieved at your previous positions.

Here’s an example of how to quantify food service experience on your resume:

Trained 4 underperforming servers in upselling techniques, increasing their sales by 10% on average

Using numbers helps the employer judge your ability to perform. Even if you don’t think your professional achievements are particularly impressive, an employer will be more willing to hire you over someone whose resume is so vague that the employer can’t determine what kind of employee the applicant will be.

3. Prioritize your food service skills

If employers can see that you already possess many or all of the skills needed to fill a role, they’ll be much more likely to hire you. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your food service skills are listed clearly under your skills section or included in your work experience section.

Food service is a customer-oriented industry, so you should include a balanced mix of both hard and soft skills.

Soft skills affect the way you relate to customers and other staff members, while hard skills make up the industry-specific knowledge you’ve picked up with experience and training.

If you’re not sure what skills to include on your resume, here’s a food service skills list:

Food Service Hard Skills

• Food Handler’s Permit
• TIPS certification
• Food safety/hygiene knowledge
• Product knowledge
• POS systems
• Basic math skills
• Computer skills
• Language skills
• Restaurant equipment maintenance (e.g. ice machines, espresso machines, refrigerators, etc.)

Food Service Soft Skills

• Verbal communication skills
• Active listening
• Teamwork
• Collaboration
• Patience
• Stamina
• Sales skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Strong memory
• Stress management
• Work well under pressure
• Time management skills
• People skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Tactfulness
• Multitasking
• Organizational skills
• Adaptability