Crew Member: What is the cost of hiring?

Why hire a crew member?

An excellent crew member is an essential part of the customer service team which takes care of customer satisfaction and loyalty, often in the food service industry. A successful crew member is able to:

• Maintain a fast and efficient speed of service all time when dealing with customers
• Respond to guest questions and inquiries with the ability to resolve concerns for complete customer satisfaction
• Interact with customers and input all customer orders accurately into database systems

What are the ranks of crew members?

When you want to hire a crew member, it’s important to understand what type of crew member will best suit your establishment. Here are the common ranks of crew members in the food service industry:

• Crew member supervisor: Supervises and trains crew members on a day-to-day basis, ensuring smooth operations and happy customers. Addresses customer complaints, monitors inventory and promotes a clean and safe environment.
• Front-end crew member: Greets customers and takes their food orders, and answers questions about the menu. Accepts payment and processes transactions while maintaining a balanced cash register.
• Food runner: Reviews food and drink orders for accuracy before delivering them to customers. Answers any questions guests have and ensures they have everything needed to enjoy their meal (e.g, salt and pepper, napkins).

Where to find crew members

To find the right crew member for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

• Promote from within: Which of your team members have the right skills and drive to succeed on the job? Consider moving them into a higher-level position. Hiring internally can means less training and greater employee engagement.
• Employee referrals: Employee referrals often result in quality hires, so if one of your employees knows someone who they think would make a great team addition, bring them in for an interview.
• Spread the word on social media: If your business has a social media presence, share your open crew member role on your social media pages to reach more people.
• Post your job online: Try posting your crew member job on Indeed to find and attract quality crew member candidates.

Skills to look for in a great crew member

It’s important to thoroughly review the skills and qualifications of all crew member candidates in order to select the most suitable one.

• High school student or possess a high school diploma (or GED)
• Capable of lifting loads up to 25lbs
• Professional work attitude and time management skills
• Ability to work on their feet for majority of a shift
• Good interpersonal and communication skills
• Excellent customer service orientation

Writing a crew member job description

Writing a compelling job description includes a list of job responsibilities, duties and necessary skills to find suitable crew member candidates.

When writing your crew member job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on crew member jobs, according to Indeed data:

• Fast food
• Crew member
• Hiring immediately
• Team member
• Food service

Interviewing crew member candidates

The knowledge and skills of potential candidates must be identified and then compared when interviewing crew member candidates. Strong candidates for crew member positions will be confident with:

• Working on their feet for most of their shift with the ability to lift the desired loads
• Customer service
• Explaining how they’ve previously communicated well with people, and how that will benefit them in a crew member role

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of crew member interview questions for examples (with sample answers).