Food Service Worker: What is the cost of hiring?

Why hire a food server?

The need for new staff can affect both your existing team and bottom line. A great food server hire can help your business by:

• Greeting and seating customers
• Providing customers with menu information and taking food and drink orders
• Addressing all customer service issues, using management support when necessary

What are the ranks of food servers?

In the food and beverage industry, there are many jobs that each have different responsibilities. These positions include:

• Floor manager: The floor manager is responsible for supervising the waitstaff on the floor. They make schedules, ensure the restaurant meets federal safety regulations, train staff to work efficiently and properly and respond to customer complaints. 
• Expeditor: Expeditors check outgoing food and beverage orders to ensure they were made accurately and there were no missing items.
• Waiter: Waiters and waitresses are responsible for taking orders from customers, bringing them their food, refilling drinks, taking payments and listening to customer concerns. 
• Food server: A food server’s duties may include greeting customers and bringing them to their seats, assisting with food preparation and bringing food out to the diners. 
• Busser: A busser’s job is to clean dishes and food off finished tables, sanitize the surfaces and set the table back up for the next group. 

Where to find food servers

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

• Promote from within. Assess the skills and knowledge of your current staff to determine if team members can move to this position. Promoting a current employee can reduce hiring costs and lower training time. 
• Post help wanted flyers. Hanging help wanted signs is a traditional and often effective way to find quality candidates for entry-level positions. 
• Ask around the community. Ask members of your community if they know any young adults looking for work in the foodservice industry. Meet with these individuals to see if they’re a good fit for the job.
• Post your job online. Try posting your food server job on Indeed to find and attract quality food server candidates.

Skills to look for in a great Food Server

A great Food Server candidate will have the following skills and attributes as well as work experience that reflects:

• Experience using an order management system
• Knowledge of local food safety standards
• Outstanding memorization and organizational skills
• High-level customer service skills
• Teamwork and collaborative work style
• Able to work entire shift on their feet

Writing a food server job description

A thoughtful description is important in finding qualified food server candidates. A food server job description includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities and the required and preferred skills for the position.

When writing your food server 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 food server jobs, according to Indeed data:

• Server
• Food service
• Hiring immediately
• Food service worker
• Restaurant
• Hospital
• Dietary aide
• Teen
• Server restaurant
• Waitress

Interviewing food server candidates

Strong candidates for food server positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• Previous experience with high-volume service
• Experience in high-end or fine-dining service
• Knowledge of food and wine trends

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